From Thailand to Cuba: Some Comments on the Deaths of Two Very Senior Leaders

Though like a lot of other people, most of my attention over the last couple of months was largely absorbed by the election in the United States (a topic I’ll probably be addressing again soon), a number of other notable events occurred around the world in this period. Among them was the deaths of two very different individuals who nevertheless had a number of things in common. Both died at a very advanced age, both had served as head of state in their respective nations for a very, very long time, and both, as highly influential individuals, inevitably had mixed records, though one of them was considerably more controversial than the other. I am referring, of course, to King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand and Fidel Castro of Cuba.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on October 13 two months short of his 89th birthday, was the ninth king of Thailand’s Chakri dynasty, reigning as Rama IX. At the time of his death, he was the longest-reigning monarch in the world (a title which has now passed to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom), having reigned for an amazing 70 years, making his reigns one of the longest of all time (there are only about three dozen rulers in history whose reigns are claimed to be as long or longer; many of these were from ancient times and so the dates are of disputable accuracy, and many of the rulers with verifiable dates were monarchs of tiny states, not major kingdoms like Thailand). The vast majority of people in Thailand had never known another ruler. Bhumibol was also the only monarch born in the United States, as his father was studying there at the time.

Bhumibol became king upon the mysterious shooting death of his older brother in 1946. While he was a constitutional monarch who wielded little formal power, he was respected almost to the point of worship by most Thais, and at several key points in history he quietly intervened in politics, affecting the course of events. In 1973, he pushed the military dictator of the time to resign in the face of student protests, but just three years later, disturbed by the spread of communism in Indochina (including the overthrow of the monarchy in neighboring Laos), he gave tacit approval to a massacre of student protestors and the re-imposition of military dictatorship. In 1992, the selection of the leader of a coup from the previous year as prime minister led to mass protests which the government tried to violently suppress. The king ordered the prime minister and the chief protest leader to meet with him, a meeting that was televised. This led to the resignation of the prime minister and the restoration of democracy. It is less clear what role, if any, the king played in the 2006 coup that overthrew the popular (though somewhat authoritarian) prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. So over the years Bhumibol at different times intervened both for and against democracy. Another indication of his somewhat conservative outlook was his support for Thaksin’s “war on drugs”, despite the numerous extrajudicial killings that resulted. On the plus side, he dedicated a great deal of time to numerous development projects aimed at improving the lives of ordinary Thais.

Bhumibol was a skilled sailor and held several patents, for a waste water aerator and for rainmaking techniques. He was a writer, painter and photographer, with published works in all these fields. He was also notable for being an accomplished jazz musician and composer. He was best known for playing the saxophone but also played clarinet, trumpet, guitar and piano. He played with jazz notables such as Benny Goodman and Stan Getz and performed publically with a jazz band he had formed. He composed many songs in his youth and wrote anthems for several Thai universities. I have a couple of CDs of his compositions that I bought in Thailand, though regrettably I couldn’t find any on which he himself played. Here I might note that though of course I never saw Bhumibol in person, I went to Thailand many times in the last couple of decades of his reign. His image, naturally, appeared on all Thai money and in many places in public, including along major avenues, his portrait could be seen along with portraits of other members of the royal family, particularly of his wife and his second daughter, the most popular of his children. I also recall seeing portraits of his mother, who was still alive at the time of my first trip to Thailand (she died in 1995 at well over 94 years of age).

While much of the respect Bhumibol received from his subjects was deserved, the degree to which he and the royal family were protected from criticism were unhealthy and a violation of freedom of expression. The current military government has been particularly zealous in enforcing the overly strict lese majesty laws, with people sentenced to long prison terms for Facebook posts. People have even been prosecuted for actions such as wearing black on the king’s birthday. Academics have been arrested merely for suggesting proposing reforms of the monarchy. Ironically, in 2005 the king himself said that it should be okay to criticize him, stating that saying the king could do no wrong was akin to saying he was not human. But either he was either unable or unwilling to impel the government to stop prosecuting people for lese majesty (indeed, there were far more cases after 2005 than before). The truth is Bhumibol was correct. He was indeed human and as such not perfect, though as a stabilizing force in Thailand probably he did more good than harm over the course of his life, with regrettable exceptions at certain points.

Like Bhumibol, Fidel Castro of Cuba, who died just a few days ago, was the leader of his nation for many decades and by far the most influential figure in the country over the last half of the 20th century and into the 21st. Castro was actually older than Bhumibol, having been born a year and several months earlier, and he was a few months past his 90th birthday when he died. While he wasn’t the titular leader of his country for quite so long as Bhumibol, serving as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and as president from 1976 to 2008 (though he was on medical leave beginning in 2006 due to illness, with his brother Raul Castro taking over as acting president and eventually as his formal successor), Castro wielded far more actual power. He also had much greater influence outside his own country, particularly in Latin America and Africa. He also was a far more controversial figure, particularly in the United States, a country which maintained a decades-long embargo against Cuba with the explicit aim of forcing Castro from power.

I’m not going to try to go over Castro’s long career in any detail, as many others have done so over the past few days. Rather, I want to repeat an observation made by some of the more sensible commentators following Castro’s death and that is if one is attempting to pass judgement on his career, neither unadulterated praise nor unadulterated condemnation is appropriate. There is no question that Castro’s rule in Cuba was very repressive. Dissent was fully suppressed and many were imprisoned or killed by his regime. Even Cuba’s vibrant culture was stifled for most of his time in power. His imposition of a totalitarian system also led to economic rigidity which left Cuba impoverished, though the US blockade also contributed to the country’s economic difficulties. On the other hand, he did greatly improve education and medical care in Cuba, to the point where its level of literacy and the quality of its health care was far superior to that of most countries in the developing world and comparable to that in much wealthier nations. Cuba even sent doctors to many other countries in Latin America and Africa to provide medical help. He also improved the lot of Afro-Cubans, greatly reducing the inequality that had existed prior to his seizure of power. He also supported the fight against apartheid in South Africa. His regime had a poor record on gay rights for most of his time in power, but towards the end of his life he urged the acceptance of homosexuality and took responsibility for earlier repression in a rare admission of error. His niece, the daughter of his brother and successor Raul, is Cuba’s most prominent activist for LGBT rights.

Basically, the good Castro did does not in any way excuse the evil he did, but neither does the evil he did negate the good. One can conclude that overall he did more harm than good, or one can conclude the opposite, but unquestionably he did plenty of both. He was intelligent and charismatic but also inflexible and ruthless. Many Cuban-Americans celebrated his death and condemned him as a bloody tyrant. He certainly was that, but it is worth remembering that the Batista regime he and his followers overthrew was just as repressive and also lacked many of the Castro regime’s virtues. Conservative Cuban-Americans and right-wingers in the US opposed US President Barack Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba in recent years on the grounds that the government headed by the Castro brothers is still regularly violating human rights. This is definitely true, but many other governments with worse human rights records are treated with much less hostility (e.g., China) or even regarded as allies (e.g., Saudi Arabia), so the US treatment of Cuba makes little sense. On the other hand, those who in response to Castro’s death have lauded him as a great revolutionary without condemning his repression are just as wrong as those who have called him a bloody dictator without acknowledging that he did in at least a few ways improve the lives of ordinary Cubans. In the end, he was both a great revolutionary and a bloody tyrant. Like Bhumibol and virtually every other person who ever lived, he did both good and bad, though in Castro’s case he did a lot more of both than most people could even dream of doing.