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SULAK SIVARAKSA<br>BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
president of the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute
Sulak Sivaraksa of Bangkok, Thailand (or Siam, the more traditional name he prefers to use for this country), is probably country’s most prominent social critic and activist, and one of the major contemporary exponents of socially engaged Buddhism. Now sixty-nine years old, he has for the last 40 years combined provocative intellectual work with continual grassroots organizing in Siam. He has founded rural development projects as well as many non-governmental organizations dedicated to exploring, in Siam and internationally, alternative models of sustainable, traditionally-rooted, and ethically- and spiritually-based development. Periodically, Sulak has been persecuted by the various dictatorships that have mostly ruled Siam since 1932. In 1976, following a coup and the deaths of hundreds of students, Sulak was forced to stay in exile for two years, during which time he was visiting Professor at Berkley, Cornell and Toronto. In 1984, he was arrested by the government for lèse-majesté and also with defamation of the Army Commander, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, for a speech given in Bangkok on “The Regression of Democracy in Siam”; Sulak went immediately into exile. In December 1992, he returned to face trial. The trial finally began in June 1993, and he was not only aqquitted but praised by the judges that he was one who really protects the monarchy. In the meantime, Sulak was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 1993 and 1994 and received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1995.
Sulak’s main works published in Siam include: Siamese Resurgence: A Thai voice on Asia in a World of Change (1985), Religion and Development (1986) A Socially Engaged Buddhism (1988) and Siam in Crisis (1990) and Global Healing (1990). As US edition of some of Sulak’s work, Seeds of Peace (Parallax, 1992) translated in Dutch, German, Italian, Korean and Singhalese and his autobiography ‘Loyalty Demands Dissent’. His latest book in English is “Powers That Be: Pridi Banomyong and the rise and fall of Thai Democracy”, which is being translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Hindi and Tibetan. He is invited to teach at Swarthmore College and Harvard University for Autumn and Spring semester of 2002 and 2003 respectively.
Sulak Sivaraksa of Bangkok, Thailand (or Siam, the more traditional name he prefers to use for this country), is probably country’s most prominent social critic and activist, and one of the major contemporary exponents of socially engaged Buddhism. Now sixty-nine years old, he has for the last 40 years combined provocative intellectual work with continual grassroots organizing in Siam. He has founded rural development projects as well as many non-governmental organizations dedicated to exploring, in Siam and internationally, alternative models of sustainable, traditionally-rooted, and ethically- and spiritually-based development. Periodically, Sulak has been persecuted by the various dictatorships that have mostly ruled Siam since 1932. In 1976, following a coup and the deaths of hundreds of students, Sulak was forced to stay in exile for two years, during which time he was visiting Professor at Berkley, Cornell and Toronto. In 1984, he was arrested by the government for lèse-majesté and also with defamation of the Army Commander, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, for a speech given in Bangkok on “The Regression of Democracy in Siam”; Sulak went immediately into exile. In December 1992, he returned to face trial. The trial finally began in June 1993, and he was not only aqquitted but praised by the judges that he was one who really protects the monarchy. In the meantime, Sulak was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 1993 and 1994 and received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1995.
Sulak’s main works published in Siam include: Siamese Resurgence: A Thai voice on Asia in a World of Change (1985), Religion and Development (1986) A Socially Engaged Buddhism (1988) and Siam in Crisis (1990) and Global Healing (1990). As US edition of some of Sulak’s work, Seeds of Peace (Parallax, 1992) translated in Dutch, German, Italian, Korean and Singhalese and his autobiography ‘Loyalty Demands Dissent’. His latest book in English is “Powers That Be: Pridi Banomyong and the rise and fall of Thai Democracy”, which is being translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Hindi and Tibetan. He is invited to teach at Swarthmore College and Harvard University for Autumn and Spring semester of 2002 and 2003 respectively.
