The Irish community in the Thai capital is used to day-to-day instability, although the last few months have been challenging, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Bangkok
THAILAND IS a country that has captured the Irish imagination with its friendly people, its graceful culture, its fantastic weather and its relative ease as a place to live and work within southeast Asia.
The country is home to between 1,000 and 1,500 Irish citizens, and thousands more fly there to relax on its beaches every year.
However, the Land of Smiles has been dealing with a political crisis for years now. The latest escalation has seen downtown Bangkok occupied by the Red Shirts, supporters of the ousted populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The unrest has killed 27 people, devastated tourism and prompted the Department of Foreign Affairs to issue a notice advising people not to travel to Thailand until the current unrest is over.
There are signs of optimism this week as the Red Shirts say they will consider a proposal by prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, for an election on November 14th, aimed at ending the crisis.
The Irish community in Bangkok is used to day-to-day instability, which leaves them largely unaffected, although the last few months have been challenging.
“I’m not as pessimistic as I was two weeks ago but let’s see what happens. It hasn’t affected business in any way,” says Jerome Kelly from Belfast, chairman of the Irish-Thai Chamber of Commerce and also managing director of insurance brokers Lawton Asia.
“We have a contingency plan in place if it affects the schools and that kind of thing.
“Overall everyone understands what is going on. I’ve lived in Northern Ireland long enough to know that if you go looking for it, you find it, and if you don’t, you won’t.
“It certainly means there is more politics in the home than before,” Kelly adds.
An Irish figure who has featured prominently in the protests is Conor David Purcell, an Irish-born Australian who has trained with the Australian SAS and has been a regular feature on the stage in the Red Shirt occupation zone.
“I don’t think I should fight. What I’m trying to do is keep the world informed, those speeches which are then put on the internet are keeping the world informed,” he told the Bangkok Post.
Purcell (29) apparently has two infected hip wounds, no money, no passport and survives on handouts from his Thai and foreign friends.
Orla McAleer from Dublin is marketing manager of Alltech, an Irish-owned multinational biotech corporation which has operations in 120 countries and runs its Asia strategy out of Bangkok.
She is a big fan of the city and finds it a safe place to be.
“But from a larger perspective, this unrest is bad for business in Thailand,” she says.
“Even though Thailand has always been so central in Asia, people are not coming here any more.
“If they want to schedule meetings one year or two years down the road, instead they are looking at Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.
“The reality is that it doesn’t affect my life here day to day as an expatriate, but from a business point of view, it’s disappointing that you can’t call a meeting a couple of months down the line because you don’t know what the situation will be,” McAleer adds.
Dubliner Paul Scales has lived in Thailand for 20 years and works in real estate.
“Risk is a factor in emerging markets, but markets don’t like uncertainty,” she says. “It’s the same for every business and this is difficult in the long term.”
Despite his long experience of Thailand, Scales says that living in Thailand is often like being a visitor looking in on a very complicated situation.
“A lot of manufacturing business here has come back very strongly because of China, but now the political uncertainties have bitten in and I don’t know what the impact will be.
“If I’m deciding whether to put my next manufacturing plant in, say Malaysia, rather than Thailand, then the answer could be a negative for Thailand.”
Scales adds: “It’s dividing society very deeply. It’s not as clear cut as in Ireland as you had say with the unionist and the republican side, and everyone is tired of it.”
Many people who have offices in the area occupied by the Red Shirts have relocated.
“I hope the pain we are going through is worth it in the long run.
“The Thais are very passionate and tough and they are looking for strong leadership,” Scales says.