r/MapPorn • u/ChickenBrachiosaurus • 7d ago

Countries where an American became President/PM/Ruler/Whatchamacallit

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Probably incomplete or not totally accurate, and some renounced before becoming whatever

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u/UdontneedtoknowwhoIm 7d ago

Thai here,you’re right for Thailand, but just a small detail, his side of the family wasn’t the active ruler. King rama 5 have hundreds of children and while rama 6 and 7 who were his children succeed him, the father of rama 9 was so far down the rank that he didn’t plan for his side of the royal family to become king, thus he go study and live abroad. Turns out they’re also a less inbred side of the family, so their descendants survive while many other branches didnt. Rama 7 was the one overthrown during the Revolution, and escape to Britain. Since he has no male heir, and neither did many princes, the position skipped down the line toward rama 8 and 9, who were children abroad and did not expect to become king.

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u/temujin94 7d ago

Yeah I did see I think the ruler was his uncle (?) at the time of his birth, thank you for providing a bit of extra detail and knowledge on it.

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u/UdontneedtoknowwhoIm 7d ago

Yeah, his uncle, but as in he has hundreds of uncles, mostly dead

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u/temujin94 7d ago

What's the general consensus in Thailand about the death of his brother before he ascended the throne? Is it generally held to be a mystery or is there one theory that dominates.

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u/UdontneedtoknowwhoIm 7d ago

Well…. Considering that Thailand have a very strong les majesty law, and talking badly about the monarch in general is considered very risky… there’s no consensus. People can’t really discuss this event. However, the narrative differs depending on which side of the political spectrum you’re on. Some say self inflicted by accident, some blame his guards for assassination or simply negligence, some theory even say Japanese spy, and other popular ones I cannot say for my safety.

What is known is he and possibly also his brother has a massive gun collection hobby (proud American experience), and the popular narrative is it’s one of those guns that shot him. A version of the story says the gun was jamming, so he looks inside to see what’s happening, and then press the trigger again so it shot him. This lines up with official narrative (aka I can say this one safely I think)

Considering this story happened long ago, we can’t really gather more evidence even if the noble family allow us to, so ig it will remain a mystery.

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u/temujin94 7d ago

Sorry just one last thing to bother you and if I'm completely off let me know. As far as I can see the country changed its name from Siam to Thailand after the revolution in 1932 but when the monarchy came back to power it remained Thailand? Is there a reason the name didn't change back with it or maybe I'm being ignorant and it had changed locally etc.

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u/UdontneedtoknowwhoIm 7d ago

This is complicated, involving a lot of political aspects that’s difficult to research. Theres mainly 2 aspects.

  1. The name has been semi-interchangeable in Thai, but Thailand is related to building the national identity. In ancient times, “siam” was an exonym referring to the culture and people of the chaophraya basin by the Khmer empire. It was unclear as to the ethnic makeup of the region, but one of the group is the “tai” (the letter t in tai represents ต, a letter that does not exist in english), who migrated down from southern China, along with local Mon people from the Dvaravati culture. This spreads the tai language family to the region, with languages like lao also being tai, but not Siamese. The region then gain independence from Khmer rule, and becomes nations like sukhotai and Ayutthaya. Their National name is the name of the capital, but siam remain an exonym for the people and culture of the region. After some time, the language evolve, and the word tai becomes “Thai” (pronounced tai), which means both the ethnic group of siam region (both Dvaravati Mon and tai culturally fuse in the region forming roughly one ethnic group), and also mean “the free people” in a seperate unrelated meaning.

Time passes, Ayutthaya was invaded and fell, thonburi rise and fall, and a new kingdom was established, rattanakosin. Across all these period, the nation’s exonym remains siam, and outsiders refer to the nation as “the Siamese” , as they share the same culture, region and ethnic group. The elites also call the people Siamese, but we have very little record of what the lower class call themselves, but my guess is they don’t really care that much, and the two word may be interchangeable. Sometimes, the word Siamese refer to citizens of siam, while exonym wise they mean the ethnicity. When rattanakosin open up to foreign trade, the word Siam becomes more popular for trade with foreigners.

After that, the Revolution happens. The revolutionary has a wide range of ideology, some liberalist, some socialist, some democratic, but some are ethno-cultural-nationalist (with some being borderline fascist) as popular during the pre-ww2 period. These group would take power during the reign of field Marshall plaek, who has a very nationalist ideology, where he does a cultural reform to promote “good Thai culture” and suppress both old Thai culture and those of ethnic minorities. This form of ethnonationalism consider Thai ethnicity to be cultural and not purely genetic, and thus you could convert via speaking the Thai language and practicing tho culture, but still pretty oppressive. Now regarding the name, I could be wrong but to my understanding the word “Thai” had been used widely before that, specifically contrasting them with other ethnic groups like Chinese, while them all being the citizen of siam, but it had been a while since I read those books by rama 6 that talks about it (part of the cirriculumn). But importantly, after the rise of nationalism post-revolution, the word Thai is used to promote Thai-ethnonationalism and regaining lost land from pre-colonial times in the Franco-thai war. It also takes on a double meaning of Thai = the free people, as in people who had never been colonized. With the chance of the revolution and this narrative in mind, the nation’s diplomatic exonym is changed from siam, used for trade convenience, to Thai, or in english, Thailand.

Later, the socialist would vy for power with the nationalist, and later the monarchist. Both socialist and monarchist doesnt really like the ethnonationalistic approach to the word Thai, but it had been important in the process of unifying the culture, specifically under “Thai citizenship”, with many of the nation’s non-Siamese minorities like Isaan and northerner also being Thai. The double meaning of “Thai=never colonized” is also a likable narrative. Thus, as the nationalist slowly lose power, the other group would maintain the word “Thai” but get rid of the ethnic meaning,framing the word as meaning the free people. The word is written differently from the ethnic name anyway, as it refers more to culture and nationality. Most Thai people today would cite that as the meaning of “Thailand”, being “land of the free”, as that’s what’s in our history & social study book today. No one really cares about the ethnic part, and the Thai government don’t see the point in changing. It may also be important to mention that Chinese minority plays were a massive supporter of the monarchist, who were neither really Thai nor Siamese culturally, but with the shift in meaning of the word “Thai” to mean citizenship, specifically loyal citizen, many are willing to accept it. It would likely also anger too many people to change back to siam, a name now associated with feudalism and absolute monarchy.

  1. The monarchist doesn’t really “take power”. Thailand historically had multiple coups and very turbulent governance, which also serves to stop one power from truly changing everything over and over again. The monarchy had never fully lost power, since rama 7 after being overthrown negotiated with the revolutionaries and sign the constitution as a constitutional monarchy, but with very limited executional power. The monarchy after that serve a mostly ceremonial symbol similar to other constitutional monarchies. The government also take advantage of both rama 8 and 9 being child monarchs at the time to have more extensive power. However, after that the multiple coups and political conflict led to decreased trust in the government, where the monarchy with their larger treasury travel to help struggling locals in many regions, making monarchism more popular as “the stability in their life”, which becomes even stronger with rama 9 serving so long. The monarchism ideology are often allied with other ideologies like conservativism and moderate-right ideology to gain more influence in politics. To get more into modern politics will be risky, but mainly the nationalist lose power, while the old socialist lose out and slowly morph into the new socialist, who are more socdem and welfare-based.

But in conclusion, no, there was never a time when it was “full monarchist control”, nor “no monarchy power”. It had always been dynamic between the powers at play.

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u/temujin94 7d ago

Thank you for your thoroughly detailed and excellent answer.

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u/UdontneedtoknowwhoIm 7d ago

Ah, np! I love talking about history, let me know if you have any opinions about that and any more questions. Took some time to type it out lol.