If you've ever said in support of the coup regime that, yes, it's great that junta and government are dedicated to returning Thailand to those good old days, then you'll be forever grateful to the national police chief and the whole bunch of the unreformed Royal Thai Police.
The chief, Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, was fully on board with doing police work from here on in without so many of those flibbertigibbet females.
He said ... no, check that, he boasted that he and the RTP hierarchy saw no reason to oppose the decision of the junta-run Ministry of Defence to keep girls out of the Royal Police Cadet Academy. "No opposition or reproach from us", he explained, on the order to inform females who want to be police, "Honey, don't worry your pretty little head about things better left to the men".
By coincidence or (improbably) design, there's been quite a lot of that sort of action around in recent days. And not just the decision to let boys in brown literally be boys only. It is becoming more obvious by the day that people who are nostalgic for the likes of tough Gen Sarit Thanarat and aloof Gen Suchinda Krapayoon are getting their way. And the country's getting it too, good and hard.
To be very clear, we despise generational blame ("sins of the father" and all that). But the official appointment of Gen Apirat Kongsompong to take command of the Royal Thai Army in 22 days pretty much automatically tweaks the memory nodes' recall of past military coups and Black May's Greek tragedy, with the chorus mowed down.
That kind of military gunshots, especially any recall of the Black May and Oct 14, are definitely excluded from the junta's definition of "good old days" although they linger and threaten.
The discussion and general national revulsion of banning girls from police opportunity focussed quite a lot on sex crimes.
One of the finer advantages that came from women donning brown uniforms was the huge increase in the possibility of getting, not just rapists but domestic and family abusers into the Greybar Hotel.
Female and child victims of such animals had friends they actually could depend on, rather than male officers who so often are either clumsily shy or salaciously obnoxious.
And that's true, but we have been struck by the ability of women in brown taking on the physical part of it. A photo from a recent anti-regime protest tells one thousand words of an almost hysterical blonde determined to get past police lines to scream her outrage into the void in front of the cameras.
Three policewomen with "anti-riot" on their shoulder flashes take her down professionally while male counterparts quite properly stand back and give silent thanks they didn't have to choose between hitting a crazy woman or just letting her break public order.
We have to agree with people who would vote overwhelmingly against the green shirts' rules against women getting the opportunity to be police officers. It is zemblanity. It is so self-defeating and ludicrous it would better be the plot of the greatest revival in Hollywood history: Police Academy 8: No Girls Allowed.
If there were such a thing as a vote, that is.
Eventually, when he damn pleases, the general prime minister is going to stand in front of the press corps mutts and tell them, "Okay, you weren't careful what you wished for. You can have your blasted election, and it will be on Rodember eleventeenth", or some such date.
Then what? Huzzahs and champers and claims of democracy, that's what. Because there are people from Myanmar to Trumpland who think election equals democracy, straight up. And after that, no matter what the "elected" Junta II does, people who value human and civil rights will let them get away with it.
Last week, the so-called "Election Commission" announced excitedly it was ready to run an election. They even called it that -- "election".
Actually, the EC is going to select the first 50 of the totally selected 250-person Senate? Should we just say 250-man Senate? Have you noticed how many girls sit on the National Council for Peace and Order? If you're looking for an example of gender diversity for your project, you may want to skip the illustration on this story of the Prayut 5 cabinet: www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/1366879
That's the problem with pining for the good old days. You forget that some of them weren't really all that great at all.
