Moral Discourse of Buddhism and Thai Politics: A Case Study of Buddha Isara’s Thought

Abstract

This article aims to study: (1) a set of Buddhism’s moral discourse which was used to seize the power by coup d’état, (2) social conditions or contexts in practicing a set of aforementioned discourses in Thai politics, and (3) its consequences. Researching documents was conducted in order to study the roles of Buddha Isara, the core leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), such as Youtube videos, books, articles and relating researches. The results of the study are as follows: (1) There are six moral discourses of Buddhism which were used to claim the power through coup d’état: A) Thai style democracy discourse, B) good and moral man discourse, C) patriotism discourse, D) monarchy royalty discourse, E) corruption discourse, and F) otherness discourse. These discourses were used by Buddha Isara as a rationale for PDRC’s movement. (2) There are two social conditions or contexts in practicing these discourses in Thai politics: A) Society was shown to be immoral as the impure government and politicians committed scandalous corruption, B) society was convinced that the major institutes of Thailand were undermined by democracy. Buddha Isara argued that democracy was inconsistent with Thai origin and would eliminate or diminish the importance of Thai institutes. (3) The consequences of practicing the discourses: A) The discourses were used to monopolize the domination over morality and assert political rationale for PDRC’s movement, B) the discourses were applied to support the military intervention in the politics by staging a coup, C) the discourses were practiced in order to undermine democracy and patronize PDRC’s opponents, and D) the discourses were used to establish the new principle for the society