ABSTRACT
The present chapter is more self-consciously geared than the last towards the explication of the present, being concerned with relevant developments in the five countries of primary interest from the defeat of Japan to around 1970-71. In a sense, we are dealing with ‘the present’ already, for either the institutions of monarchy had assumed, by the early 1970s, the shape which they have today, or dramatis personae had emerged who are still alive and incumbent today, only different in terms of 25-30 years’ added experience and authority. Certainly the beginning of the eighth decade of the twentieth century can be seen in retrospect as a turning point of consolidation in general. The present power of the Thai monarchy was manifest in – or indeed took the essence of its new shape from – the student revolution in October 1973. The modest, new muscle of Malaysian monarchy was adumbrated at least between the lines of new legislation to protect the Malays in 1971. The British handed over control of internal security to the monarchical government of Brunei in 1971, after the latter had abolished elections the previous year. Even the monarchy which was formally abolished in 1970 (Cambodia) has since enjoyed a revival of sorts from 1993. On the other hand, however, its Laotian neighbour, which was still flourishing quite well in a constitutional guise in 1970 and incorporated into the structure of the Peace Agreement between conservatives and Communists in February 1973, lasted less than three more years. The post-war story is taken up with Laos.
