Last Friday evening, I went for a haircut. My barber, who’s an old friend, started a conversation with me about the move by the Suthep Thaugsuban-led People's Democratic Reform Committee (PRDC) due today. Being an outsider, I kept quiet reminding myself that it’s not my business.

“We (red shirts) are boycotting (name of a beer brand),” he continued, “because it’s supporting Suthep.”

I steeled myself to remain quiet again.

But then he spoke about the plan being floated to secede from the rule of Bangkok in the event the PRDC comes up on top. “We Lanna people used to be independent before,” he said. “We have our own written script. So do the people of Isarn (the Northeast which is closer to Laos by culture). We can become free again once more.”

This time I was shaken.

“We are only spending only 30% of all the revenue we earn,” he went on. “The rest is being spent by Bangkok. The North would have been far developed if we were spending our own money.”

I gave him a few incoherent non-committal response and returned to the place I call home away from home. But his words just refused to leave my mind and my whole being — up to now.

I have been in and out of this country since 1971 and since 1996 have made it my second home. Burma and especially its Shan State may be considered the mother that had given birth to me. But Thailand has always been a girl that I love, who I can never marry because I’m already married (happily too) to a cause.

During the 19th century, it was still a collection of, as my friend said, independent kingdoms with Bangkok overlording and taking tributes from them.

But then the British began to expand from the west and the French from the east. And if Bangkok just let it be, both Lanna and Isarn were in danger of falling into their hands (perhaps Lanna to the British and Isarn to the French), to be followed later by the badly downsized Bangkok itself.

It was King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) who had almost singlehandedly prevented the impending disaster.

By wit and cunning, reinforced by force, he changed both from states under his suzerainty to territories under his sovereignty from where today’s Thailand was born. By the same wit and cunning, he also managed to convince both the British and French to leave his domains alone.

He was understandably one of the heroes of my youth (he still is to this ageing guy) as one Tai (as the race which includes Shan, Thai, Lao, Dai and Zhuang are collectively known) who was able to unite some, if not all, the Tai-speaking peoples.

By the same token, it has always been painful to me to see Laos and Thailand, the only independent Tai nations, still separate from each other.

So the questions are: Are Tais going to become Arabs of the east? If so, are they going to have as much leverage as the latter by the division? What will be its effects on the rest of the Tais spread out in India, Burma, China and Vietnam and their struggles for a place in the sun?

I think all these questions and more are worth studying and the outcome worth meditating among the Tais.

But, being human, I don’t want to wait that long. I just wish there’s another Chulalongkorn lurking among the 100 million Tais.