THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

them with humility and meekness. Indeed, more gentle methods would have been looked upon as
signs of weakness, since fear was the only attitude towards the throne which was understood, and
tyranny the only means by which the government could be maintained...
Despite the fact that all were equally of no account in the presence of the king, a many-graded
social organization had evolved, and the ingrained habit of fear and obedience produced a deep
reverence for all forms of authority.
Near the top of the hierarchical pyramid - though still far below the lofty realm of royalty - were minor
nobles and bureaucrats, and below them the rest of the people, branded to make clear their status as the
property of the state:
All these officials were continually occupied in showing the necessary amount of deference to
those above them, and to the king at the top, while mercilessly grinding down those below them
in the social scale...
The great mass of the people were divided into a number of departments for public service... the
members of which were numbered and branded by the noblemen in charge of each department.
The luckier ordinary citizens could escape compulsory obligations to the state in return for paying tax. As
for the rest:
The vast majority of the people... were collected in rotation as required, obliged to serve as
soldiers, sailors and other public menials... for whom no escape was possible, the status being
hereditary.
At the very bottom of the heirarchy were slaves, although Quaritch Wales says reassuringly that “it must
be added that Siamese slavery was always of a very mild type”.
Thailand’s King Chulalongkorn, Rama V - grandfather of both Bhumibol and Sirikit - launched a
dramatic modernization of Siam, something Quaritch Wales appears to feel rather ambivalent about:
The reforms of King Rama V brought about great changes, many of them for the better, in the life
of the Siamese masses. One of the most far-reaching of these was the abolition of slavery; another
was the abolition of bodily prostration of inferiors in the presence of their superiors.
Despite efforts to modernize the monarchy and Siam’s social structures as the kingdom came into
increasing contact with the West, Quaritch Wales argues that the country’s people still maintained
enormous reverence for royalty after many centuries of brutal tyrannical rule:
So great, it might be added, are these hereditary instincts, that bodily prostration still lingers to
some extent, although it is, of course, entirely voluntary. Siamese servants often crouch in the
presence of their masters, officials lie almost full length when they are offering anything to the
King on his throne and I have seen ladies of the older generation crawling on their hands and