Thai soap angers family of Myanmar’s last king
yangon — The family of Myanmar’s last king hit out on Sunday at a Thai soap opera inspired by the palace intrigue of their ancestors, accusing Thailand of double standards in how it treats another country’s royals.
Soe Win, the great grandson of Myanmar’s last monarch King Thibaw, said his family was angered by “A Lady’s Flame”, a new hit primetime soap that recounts a bloody dynastic power struggle.
The show is set in a fictional kingdom but almost entirely mimics the final years of the Konbaung dynasty in the 19th century in the country.
It portrays the scheming among a key queen and princesses who orchestrated the massacre of nearly a hundred people to ensure Thibaw had no rivals to the throne following his father’s death in 1878.
While the massacre is historical fact, Thibaw’s scions are upset with their family’s portrayal by a country that shields its own monarchy from any criticism “We have asked Thais this, would they accept it if one of our companies here did the same thing about their country,” Soe Win told.
“If no action is taken, we will ask for help from their (Thailand’s) royalty,” he added. Thailand enforces a lese majeste law that bans scrutiny or criticism of its monarchy.
Increasing numbers have been jailed in recent years for their comments about the royal family, sometimes for as much as 30 years. It is only supposed to protect senior living royal family members. But recent cases have been brought against a historian for writing about a Thai king four centuries ago, against students who staged a play about a fictional kingdom and against a man for insulting the favourite dog of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Neighbours Thailand and Myanmar were bitter rivals for centuries and fought a number of bloody wars.
One of the most momentous battles saw Myanmar forces attack the city of Ayutthaya, second capital of the Siamese kingdom, and raze it to the ground in 1767, forcing the inhabitants to abandon the city. —