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We
have arrived at yet another milestone...
Our 10th Anniversary |
His Majesty King
Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great:
A Lifetime of Dedication to His People
Introduction
B orn on Monday, the fifth of December
1927 at the Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, King Bhumibol reaches his seventy-sixth birthday, this year. As
the Thai people celebrate this year’s anniversary of the birth of the
world’s longest-reigning Monarch, the Pattaya Mail presents this
supplement, prepared by special correspondent Peter Cummins, as a “Happy
Birthday” tribute to our beloved King.
In his Coronation Oath, promulgated on the fifth of May 1950,
the newly crowned Rama the Ninth vowed that, “We will reign with righteousness
for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people,” and the 53 years which
have passed since that auspicious day, the concept of “righteousness” has
dominated his reign. In fact, the King has, throughout his more than five
decades of rule, constantly revered the age-old Buddhist concept of
‘Kingship’ as defined in the “Sutta Pitaka” of the “Tripitaka” in
which a King is defined as “Mahasammata” - a King of Righteousness. The
Buddhist scriptures also define the genesis of the universe and the progression
of evils which befall mankind: greed, stealing and lying and the inevitable
repercussions of censure and punishment.
His Majesty
the King, accompanied by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn,
presiding over the Opening Ceremony of the Golden Jubilee Museum of Agriculture,
Khlong Luang District, Pathum Thani Province.
Our King has steadfastly reigned by these principles,
embodying good kingship in his own life, setting an example and often speaking
out against the affliction of the evils so clearly spelled out in the Buddhist
philosophy - evils and afflictions which seem to have become progressively worse
in the past tumultuous year.
There will inevitably be some familiar material in parts in
this story, for the King’s development projects have been ongoing for more
than 50 years and there is, of course, a historical perspective which has been
encapsulated.
Honours Pour in for the
Royal Birthday
M any events are planned throughout the
Kingdom to celebrate His Majesty’s 76th
birthday. Abroad, too, the accolades pour in to honour the world’s
longest-reigning Monarch. Late last year, the University of Tasmania honoured
the King, awarding the Degree of Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, in
“recognition of His Majesty’s vision, leadership and commitment to
agricultural sustainability, environmental restoration, education, cultural
diversity and self-reliance”.
His
Majesty the King observing a model of the Rama VIII Bridge and its vicinity
during a visit to preside over the Opening Ceremony of the Rama VIII Bridge,
Charansanitwong Road, Bang Phlat District, Bangkok.
Upon the conferral of the Doctorate, the University of
Tasmania noted the strong links with a number of Thai Universities and “in
honour of the occasion, established a Royal Thai Scholarship for post-graduate
study, with awardees to be selected by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.”
His Majesty
the King, accompanied by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn,
presiding over the Opening Ceremony of the Golden Jubilee Museum of Agriculture,
Khlong Luang District, Pathum Thani Province.
Following this, the University of Woolongong conferred a
Doctorate degree on the King, “in recognition of His Majesty’s distinguished
leadership and humanitarianism” - the first time that this University has
awarded such a degree. As the University stated at the time, this honorary
Doctorate is indicative of the level of “reverence for His Majesty’s
commitment to a goal that is closely identified with the mission of the
University of Woolongong ... and which it expects of its graduates: ethical
standards, a desire to seek improved solutions, participate in social change and
an acceptance of individual obligations.”
Late last
year, Dr Michael Vertican, Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, on behalf
of the university honoured the King, awarding the Degree of Doctor of Science
Honoris Causa, in “recognition of His Majesty’s vision, leadership and
commitment to agricultural sustainability, environmental restoration, education,
cultural diversity and self-reliance”.
As with the University of Tasmania, Wollongong has a long and
close association with Thailand and has formal links with some eight
institutions and universities in the Kingdom.
Just recently, the King was awarded an honorary Doctorate in
Music - also a first of the genre - by the University of North Texas. Noting
that the King has excelled in many areas of music, has mastered several
instruments - including piano, saxophone, clarinet, guitar and violin - and has
composed in English and French, the University plans to come out to Thailand for
the Royal birthday. The 25-member group will include the University’s own
“One O’clock Jazz Band”, to play for - and, hopefully, according to
director, Professor Slater - with the King.
Living Museums
O ver the years, the King has
established five Royal Development Study Centres - or, as
they are better known - “Living Museums” - situated in the roughest terrain
in their respective regions. These centres are the locale for experiments in
re-forestation, irrigation, land development and farm technology which are
conducted to find practical applications within the constraints of local
conditions, geography and topography. His Majesty’s aim is to restore the
natural balance, to enable people to become self-supporting.
The first centre organized was that of Khao Hin Son, in the
rocky area of Chachoengsao’s Phanom Sarakam District. Here, the centre studies
how to turn the barren soil, caused by de-forestation, back into fertile land
again.
Other centres are located at strategic places around the
Kingdom. The Pikul Thong Centre at Narathiwat studies the swampy, acidic land of
the southern-most region.
The Phu Phan Centre in Sakhon Nakhon studies soil
salinization and irrigation in the country’s biggest region, the Northeast
which suffers from endemic drought.
The Krung Kraben Bay Centre in Chantaburi examines the
rehabilitation of mangrove forests and coastal areas, following massive
destruction.
The Huay Sai Centre in Petchaburi studies the rehabilitation
of degraded forests and shows villagers, in their turn, how to protect the
forests.
To become thoroughly conversant with the problems, the King
will fly over a particular area, armed with aerial photographs and maps of the
terrain, noting features as they pass underneath. But, being a good photographer
himself, he also takes his own pictures and later juxtaposes them over the
charts, to obtain a detailed image of the area of his concern which helps in his
planning of specific development projects.
Throughout the more than five decades that the King has ruled
Thailand, not only Thais, but people around the world have become accustomed to
seeing His Majesty travelling to remote areas of the country. He works with -
and brings rational development to - even the poorest and most disadvantage
groups. He is often filmed leading officials, farmers and many diverse groups up
rough mountain trails, over bridges, punting along in small sampans, to initiate
sustainable projects and ideas, aimed at helping the many who have been
forgotten or left behind in the development process.
His Majesty’s insightful approach to local prevailing
conditions has enabled him to improvise new theories for agricultural
development, to provide guidelines for educating farmers on self-sufficiency,
and to solve problems of goitre by feeing iodine into salt roads at strategic
points.
In all these works, His Majesty has promoted a simple
approach, using environmentally-friendly techniques and utilizing moderate
amounts of locally available resources. For example, before environmentalism
became a major force in the development equation, His Majesty was using vetiver
grass to prevent erosion, controlling ground water level to reduce soil acidity,
and seeding clouds with simple materials such as dry ice, to produce rain.
In fact, in a very recent development, His Majesty instructed
the Royal Thai Army, in co-operation with the Royal Project Committee, the Land
Development Department and the Department of Agriculture, to cultivate nursery
stocks of vetiver, to be distributed ultimately to areas and regions suffering
soil erosion problems.
Looking at the ongoing - and related - problem of flooding,
the King, earlier this year, graciously contributed 18 million baht from his own
funds for the construction of water gates as a bulwark against flooding in
Petchaburi and Prachuap Kiri Khan Provinces. The King surmised that these water
gates would drain floodwaters while blocking seawater, allowing the excess water
to flow to the sea. They are also planned for Sukothai, Phitsanulok and Phayao.
It was in June this year, in fact, that two of the King’s
development initiatives went into the public domain, when the government
presented patents to His Majesty for his creating a new rain-making technique
and his invention of an engine lubricant from pure palm oil.
A Direct Approach
T he King’s philosophy to development
problems has been to “keep it simple”, relying
on an intimate knowledge of Nature and her immutable laws, such as using fresh
water to flush out polluted water or dilute it through utilization of normal
tidal fluctuations. The ubiquitous water hyacinth, too, can be ‘harnessed’
to absorb pollutants.
The results of any development, the King asserts, must reach
the people directly as a means of overcoming immediate problems, translating
into “enough to live, enough to eat”, while looking at a longer-term result
of “living well and eating well.”
His Majesty compares this to using “adharma” (evil) to
fight evil, observing that both pollution and the water weed are a menace, but
they can be used to counteract each other, thus lessening the damage to the
environment.
The King himself practices this “simple approach” and
brings a down- to-earth philosophy to which the people can readily relate. He
studies and deliberates exhaustively on the particular project and then reveals
his thinking in short, easy-to-grasp titles. The very simplicity belies the
profundity of his ideals, for each title reflects a much deeper insight into a
given problem while outlining the mode of operation to be employed.
A major working principle has been a true knowledge of and
reliance upon the immutable laws of Nature in solving problems and coping with
abnormal conditions, such as using fresh water to flush out polluted water, as
in his analogy “good water chases bad” referring to the hyacinth/water
pollution problem in the Chao Phraya, for example.
It was in 1969 that the King, vitally concerned about the
Hill Tribes cultivation of and addiction to opium, established the Royal
Project, the first manifestation being a Hmong village on Doi Pui in Chiang Mai
Province and development has now has spread to Chiang Rai, Lamphun and Mae Hong
Son.
Over the years, the Projects have been instrumental in the
conversion of the poppy fields being turned into groves of temperate fruits and
vegetables. It is under the dynamic direction of the King’s close colleague,
friend and confidant, Prince Bhisatej Rajani, who manages the projects from his
base at Chiang Mai University, that there are now five research stations and 35
Royal Project Development Centres which incorporate some 300 villages,
comprising 14,000 households and approximately 90,000 farmers.
The Royal Development Projects Board, under the Office of the
Prime Minister, also serves as the secretariat for the Chai Pattana Foundation
which is directly responsible for the work related to the Royal Development
Projects.
Thus, more than three decades later, the results can be seen
in the new life which has come to many of the mountain villages. Greenery has
returned to areas once denuded of forest cover through the highly-destructive
slash-and-burn agriculture, leaving only barren hills in its wake, and the opium
cultivation, a cause of extreme national concern, is relegated to the dust-bin
of history.
“The key to the success of the Project lies in His
Majesty’s guidelines,” explains Prince Bhisatej. “They focus on obtaining
knowledge, through research, avoiding bureaucratic entanglements and swift
action to respond to the villagers’ needs, while promoting self-reliance,”
he adds.
The effectiveness of this approach has been applauded
internationally. For example, in 1998 the Royal Project won both the
“Magsaysay Award for International Understanding” and the “Thai Expo Award
for the Highest Quality Standard of Thai Goods for Export.”
The King’s own views are that development must respect
different regions’ geography and peoples’ way of life. “We cannot impose
our ideas on the people - only suggest. We must meet them, ascertain their needs
and then propose what can be done to meet their expectations,” the King
pointed out recently.
The King’s ideas are in direct contrast to the
bureaucracy’s wish to impose standards from the top down, with the
inflexibility inherent therein. “Don’t be glued to the textbook,” he
admonishes developers who, “must compromise and come to terms with the natural
and social environment of the community.”
The King sees no need to spare any sensitivities - if there
are any - because he feels that the government approach is costly and
authoritarian which is why it has “failed miserably to address the country’s
problems.”
A Royal Imprimatur for
Sports
O f course, His Majesty is highly
pleased with the performance of Thai tennis star,
Paradorn Srichapan who has raised the Thai flag the highest it has ever been on
the international tennis circuit, maintaining his 11th ranking in this
highly-competitive arena.
Inaugurated in 1987, to honour His Majesty the King on the
occasion of his sixtieth birthday, the Phuket King’s Cup Regatta, this year is
right now in its seventeenth sailing. The King graciously accepted the title of
Regatta Royal Patron and, through his Personal Representative, each year bestows
his own Permanent Trophy to the winners. The now-famous “Phuket Regatta
Week” will end tomorrow, the sixth of December. This evening, at Kata Beach,
in front of perennial Regatta supporter, Mom Tri’s Boathouse, there will be a
candle-lit ceremony, timed to co-ordinate with Kingdom-wide celebrations for the
beloved Monarch.
His Majesty
the King presiding over the Ceremony to Lay the Foundation Stone of the
Suvarnabhumi Airport, at the airport construction site, Bang Phli District,
Samut Prakarn Province.
The King has consistently encouraged ALL sportsmen and women
EVERYWHERE, to “put the sporting spirit first, strive for victory - and
friendship” and his own example has always been a great source of inspiration
to athletes: every sailor knows that His Majesty is a Gold Medal helmsman,
winning the OK Dinghy Class in the South East Asian Peninsular Games, 36 years
ago on the 16th of December, 1967, this day now celebrated as “National Sports
Day” in the Kingdom.
This nautical record, unlikely to be equalled in the annals
of sporting history, is matched by a land-based one, the King being the only
person to have lit the torch, opening the Asian Games on four occasions, last
time being in Bangkok in 1998.
His Majesty is also well known as being highly-knowledgeable
about many sports having, at various times, participated himself in skiing,
motor racing, ice-skating, badminton, tennis, swimming and even a little golf.
His Majesty
the King presiding over the Ceremony to Lay the Foundation Stone of the
Suvarnabhumi Airport, at the airport construction site, Bang Phli District,
Samut Prakarn Province.
As the then-president of the Thailand Olympic Committee, the
late Air Chief Marshal Dawee Chullasapya emphasized when presenting the King
with the highly-prestigious honour of “The Insignia of the Olympic Order”,
at the Rajanives Hall, Chitralada palace, in December, 1987: “The King is not
just a world-class yachtsman, but he has also participated in - and encouraged -
many other sports”.
“The Olympic award was made not only to recognize the
King’s prowess as a dinghy sailor,” said ACM Dawee, “but also to
acknowledge the leading role he has played in promoting all sports - in
Thailand, in the region and internationally - always displaying a firm grasp on
the history and the finer points of a multitude of sports,” ACM Dawee added.
His Majesty
the King, accompanied by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn,
presiding over the 2001 Prince Mahidol Awards Presentation Ceremony at the
Chakri Throne Hall, the Grand Palace.
In boxing, too, the King has proved to be most knowledgeable.
In 2001, president of the World Boxing Council, Dr Jose Sulaiman, in bestowing
upon His Majesty the WBC’s “Golden Shining Symbol of World Leadership
Award”, was “amazed at the King’s knowledge of boxing”. Whereupon, the
King urged Dr Sulaiman “to promote boxing not only as a sport ... but also as
an art of self-defence.”
In Mexico, August 11, 2003, through the Royal Thai Embassy in
Mexico City, the King, in turn, bestowed the title of “Second Class Knight
Commander of the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn” on Dr Sulaiman -
one of the highest Royal Awards ever to be conferred on a sports official.
Another sportsman who has enjoyed Royal recognition is snooker player
Noppadol Saengnil. His Majesty had watched Noppadol play and learned that this
talented young man had been chosen by the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sport
to represent the region in the 2003-2004 Challenge Tour in Britain, but there
was no funding. His Majesty awarded Noppadol a grant, drawn from his own
personal funds, to ensure that the rising snooker star would be able to
participate.
Epilogue
A s one would expect from a Monarch
defined as “Mahasammata”, or a “King of Righ
teousness”, by all the people and who, upon his accession to the Throne in
1950, embraced the “Tenfold Moral principles of the Sovereign”, His Majesty
has ruled quietly and without ostentation.
Michael
Codd, Chancellor of the University of Woolongong, conferred a Doctorate degree
on the King, “in recognition of His Majesty’s distinguished leadership and
humanitarianism” - the first time that this University has awarded such a
degree.
Starting very early in his reign and continuing to this day,
the King, usually accompanied by the Queen and second daughter Princess Maha
Chakri Sirindorn, travelled to the far corners of the kingdom to learn
first-hand from the farmers and peoples of the rural areas about their problems.
His Majesty
the King, accompanied by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn,
presiding over the Opening Ceremony of the Golden Jubilee Museum of Agriculture,
Khlong Luang District, Pathum Thani Province.
Again, as with all his other interests, the Monarch studies,
observes, photographs and imbues himself with all the relevant knowledge and
facts which he needs to move forward with recommendations, implementation of
beneficial projects and follow-up.
An informal
moment at Klai Kangwol Palace (Photo by Peter Cummins ca. 1985).
The Thai Monarch is probably best known, universally, for his
unbending resolve to improve the lives of each and every one of his people - a
singular dedication to their welfare which has been acclaimed from all corners
of the world.
The King
shares some yachting lore with HSH Prince Bhisatej
(Photo by Peter Cummins ca. 1985).
A lasting image of the King is that of a man, often kneeling
or sitting on the ground, poring over charts and topographical maps of the area,
while surrounded by local farmers and villagers discussing their problems.
Sailing is a
Royal pastime. Here the King’s granddaughter, HRH Princess Bhajrakitiyaba
tries a Laser off the King’s own Royal Varuna Yacht Club (Photo by Peter
Cummins ca. 1995).
It has been recorded that the King has spent more than 200
days per year, for more than three decades, in rural areas where he has
initiated some 2,000 projects aimed solely at improving the well-being of his
people.
Peter
Cummins is awarded a trophy by HM the King. HSH Bhisatej looks on (ca. 1986)
Thus, through the illustrious decades of his rule, the King
has been the very embodiment of his “Oath of Accession” that “We will
reign with Righteousness for the Benefit and Happiness of the Siamese People”.
The world’s longest-reigning Monarch, today celebrating his seventy-sixth
birthday, continues to be, as he has been for the half-century of his just
reign, “the light of his land, the pride of his people and a shining example
to all peoples of a troubled world”.
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