Vicious cycle

re: "Army unwilling to yield to democracy" (BP, July 31)

Dear editor,

Erich Parpart's opinion piece was a timely statement of important truths of Thai modern history, as forced on the nation by the self-serving duplicity of coup makers presenting themselves as saviours under a tedious litany of lame excuses that fail to pass even the most cursory critical scrutiny.

What the anti-democratic, anti-reason coup apologists consistently refuse to acknowledge is that Thailand has an "immature democracy" precisely because every time democracy looks like taking hold, a coup is staged by the traditional opponents of the good morals of democracy to pre-empt the threat that democracy poses to their bad old ways. It is, therefore, the coup makers above all who not only set the example to society of violence as a means to achieving their ends, but who are also most responsible for Thailand's persistent failure of many decades to develop a healthy democratic politics based on just rule of law that effectively reins in corruption and other abuses of power.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 2, 2019, under the title "Vicious cycle" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1723099/vicious-cycle