Red, Orange, and Reaction: Thailand’s Electoral Crossroads

by Tricontinental Asia / February 18th, 2026

As the people of Thailand go to the polls this February, voters are offered three competing visions of progress: one that builds power from the village up, one that critiques from the seminar room, and one that pays to keep the countryside quiet. Amid the ongoing border war with Cambodia, Thailand is a microcosm of the Global South’s political laboratory.

The Phue Thai Party (PTP), often known to outsiders as the ‘Red Shirt Party’, has defined Thai politics for over two decades but has somehow itself defied definition – a peasant-backed populist movement in alliance with urban capitalists; privatising state assets while investing in public welfare; nationalist yet socially progressive. By every rule of 21st-century political science, the PTP should not exist. Yet for over two decades, the PTP has delivered a paradigm shift that baffles the literate classes while tangibly transforming Thai society.

Pratuang Emjaroen (Thailand), Red Morning Glory and Rotten Gun, 1976.

As the Global South shifts towards new models – that of regionalism, multilateralism, and economic sovereignty – states like Burkina Faso, Mexico, and China are also breaking from western political science textbooks. In many ways, PTP’s vision was ahead of its time.

Today, Thailand’s political landscape is defined by a three-way struggle between PTP’s disruptive populism, the liberal Peoples Party’s westernised idealism, and Bhumjaithai Party’s reactionary clientelism. The February elections are also a direct outcome of a judicial coup against the PTP’s coalition government, leading to the outbreak of war with Cambodia and the subsequent coalition of the liberal Peoples Party and the ultra-conservative Bhumjaithai. February’s election will decide which paradigm prevails.

Rainbow Agrarian Populism

Since the 1957 Royalist military coup, power in Thailand has been conserved by a narrow elite: the military, monarchy, and old-money families aligned to Washington. This Cold War relic is a bloated, clientelist bureaucracy incapable of modernisation, leaving outer provinces impoverished while a narrow core in Bangkok prospers. This ‘deep state’ alliance has been the constant ambient, often lethal, background of Thai politics, with 11 successful coups since 1957.

The 1997 financial crash exposed this elite’s incompetent state management and created an opening. A new post-Cold War cohort of domestic capitalists, led by outer-province telecom billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, forged an unprecedented class collaboration. Thaksin was able to unite military officers, national capitalists, former communist insurgents, and western-educated academics under the Thai Rak Thai (later Phue Thai) banner. Their economic imperative was to modernise the state and develop the periphery, which aligned with the material needs of the rural masses.

Their manifesto delivered universal healthcare, a farmer debt moratorium, and a million-baht local village fund. For the first time, the poor were addressed in terms of class interest rather than moralism. Thaksin’s communications empire broadcast this message nationwide and, in 2001, they won by a landslide.

Policies like the 30-baht universal healthcare scheme and direct village funds scheme began the process of structural change that bypassed the old bureaucracy and patronage networks, establishing a direct relationship between government and masses. Communities could decide how to use funds – for school buses, clinics, or markets – redistributing not just wealth but decision making. This broke down semi-feudal rural relations in the countryside, integrating peasants into the national market and providing them with political agency.

PTP’s rural empowerment also benefitted urban workers. For example, rural migrants, who make up 30–40% of Bangkok’s population, are often forced to urbanise under economic coercion. By making rural life viable, PTP reduced that coercion, giving urban workers the leverage to quit and go home. This indirectly improved conditions for all lower classes.

Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006, resulting in the famous Red Shirt (Phue Thai) versus Yellow Shirt (Royalist) street battles and the military massacres of Red Shirt protesters (2008–2014). But the PTP machine continued to hold on and periodically regain parliamentary presence despite persecution from reactionary elites.

Damrong Wong-Uparaj (Thailand), Monks, 1961.

PTP’s seemingly left-wing programme has relied on ugly alliances with the national bourgeoisie and security-state hardliners. The party oversaw a brutal drug war and violent suppression in the Muslim-majority deep south (likely concessions to the police state as a buffer against the military). Conversely, in recent years, the party has pivoted to becoming extremely socially progressive, introducing the legalisation of same-sex marriage as early as 2013, as well as making trans-affirming healthcare accessible on the universal healthcare scheme and officially participating in pride parades. Again, this breaks the political science textbook; while agrarian populist movements are too often known for undercurrents of social conservatism, PTP has turned that on its head. The same goes for foreign policy, while the party was initially Islamophobic and aligned to the US bloc in the early 2000s, they have since recognised Palestinian statehood, joined BRICS, and cooperated with Iran and Hamas (rather than Israel) to secure the release of the Thai citizens accidentally taken prisoner in Gaza.

PTP governments were boom eras for most: living standards rose and political consciousness grew. It was a deal: the poor gained agency and material improvement and the new elites gained a mandate without a violent revolution. Socialist outcomes, without the capital S Socialism, what we have called ‘Rainbow Agrarian Populism’.

Orange Westernised Idealism

In 2018, a new electoral force emerged: what is referred to as the Orange movement (Future Forward/Peoples Party). Founded by disaffected Red elites, academics, NGO leaders, and younger capitalists like Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. It positioned itself as the modern, progressive alternative. Its leaders were clean, western-educated, and articulate, mastering social media and popular leftist theory (from Antonio Gramsci to David Harvey). Their base was young, urban, middle-class, and deeply anti-military and anti-monarchy. Yet their critique was always ideological rather than material. They championed abstract ideals: democracy, freedom and a western-style welfare state; often speaking as if PTP’s foundational programme didn’t exist.

Orange politics often revolves around vague social progressivism and generational angst. They see the PTP, military, and monarchy as functionally the same power bloc. This attracted a voter base that would have historically supported PTP and developed a leadership that has been historically ultra-conservative. In recent years, this new leadership have flocked into the burgeoning Orange tent, where they were welcomed with open arms. While these arch-conservatives-turned-supposed-progressives would describe their switch as ‘seeing the light’ and apologising for their previous positions, it was clear that they were merely following the political winds, bringing with them a significant voter demographic.

Sinsawat Yodbangtoey (Thailand), Untitled, 2009.

PTP supporters often say, ‘Som are the new Salim’ (Orange are the new ultra-right). The leadership of the Orange movement is ultimately a vehicle for a different faction of the urban elite, the ‘3%’, not the ‘1%’, seeking to supplant the old monopolists while leaving class hierarchies relatively intact. Their supporter’s angst is directed not at capitalism, but at its ‘bad people’ (like Thaksin, the monarch, etc), whom they paint as corrupt dinosaurs deceiving the ignorant peasantry.

This idealistic crusade has real consequences. By splitting the anti-military vote, Orange victories in urban districts handed parliament to the military-backed right in 2019. In 2023, they won the popular vote but failed to form a government, forcing PTP into a ‘painful bargain’ – a coalition with its former military persecutors to prevent total reactionary rule. In 2025, after the judicial coup against PTP, the Orange party went into a temporary coalition with the ultra-nationalist Bhumjaithai, handing them the keys to parliament and not accepting any ministerial positions out of principle. For many, this was the moment the Orange movement showed its true face; a politics of aesthetics and moral critique, not structural economic transformation.

Bhumjaithai Machine’s Reactionary Clientelism

If PTP seeks to mobilise peasant agency, and Orange offers liberal idealism, then Bhumjaithai offers the establishment’s perfected antidote: patronage disguised as politics. Its function is to protect agrarian inequality by neutralising class consciousness through elite alliances, performative welfare, ethnonationalist sentiment, and localised division.

Founded by Newin Chidchob, a trucking magnate who defected from Thaksin after the 2006 coup, Bhumjaithai harnesses PTP-esque tactics – the populist policies and rural appeal – to serve reactionary ends. It is the intermediary between Bangkok’s aforementioned deep state and the restive rural population. Under billionaire frontman Anutin Charnvirakul, it rebranded its patronage network as a policy of ‘localist development’, using personal wealth and state contracts to finance an illusion of grassroots generosity.

Bhumjaithai’s power flows through the baanyai (local elites), landowning dynasties, and provincial power brokers. By controlling the Interior Ministry (2019–2026), it turned budget allocations and infrastructure projects into tools to pre-empt mass mobilisation. Its model – showcased in its stronghold of Buriram province, which boasts world-class sports stadiums and broad highways alongside persistent land inequality – swaps class-conscious politics for provincial pride.

Figures like deputy leader Chada Thaiseth, often described as a mafia godfather with alleged ties to organised crime and a history of unsolved family assassinations, embody this system. His political survival, despite countless assassination and corruption accusations, demonstrates Bhumjaithai’s reliance on such operators to deliver votes and enforce control.

Bhumjaithai’s supposed welfare schemes, its healthcare subsidies and debt relief, are deliberately fragmented and distributed through local elites rather than as universal rights (as with PTP). This ensures dependence rather than mobilisation and empowerment.

Beneath its folksy veneer lies hardcore reaction: anti-immigrant fervour, ultranationalism (massively benefiting from and stoking the border war with Cambodia), as well as their disdain for LGBTQ+ rights. The party frames rural poverty as a cultural failing rather than structural exploitation.

Symbiosis, Sabotage, and February’s Choice

Thai politics is often misunderstood by outsiders due to the country’s history of censorship and political oppression. However, local voters are fluent in interpreting the national meta-language, as almost all parties make lavish spending promises during election campaigns (even the ultra-conservatives) blurring outside perception of left and right. To give a brief example of this meta-language, the Orange Peoples Party addresses crowds as prachachon (the people) or polamueng (citizens), terms derived from western academia. Bhumjaithai will often use khon Thai (Thai people). Meanwhile, Phue Thai activists speak of samanchon (commoners) or por mae pee nong (fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters) – terms rooted in class and communality.

PTP’s successes have always provoked relentless sabotage. Every elected government has been overthrown by military coup (in 2006 and 2014) or dissolved by judicial coup (in 2008, 2009, 2024, and 2025). The 2017 constitution, with its military-appointed senate, was designed to permanently cripple the progressive movement. Yet the symbiotic relationship between party and poor endured. Through Red Shirt mobilisations and bloody street battles, the base remained loyal because the deal delivered.

United Artists’ Front of Thailand (Thailand), Untitled, 1976.

Despite the hostile coalition forced upon it since the elections in 2023, PTP has pushed through a stunning array of policies: universal dental care, mass social housing, same-sex marriage, cash handouts to the poorest 20%, and even community-owned agricultural drones. Rainbow Agrarian Populism persists.

The February elections present a stark three-way choice: PTP’s radical pragmatism, The Orange movement’s westernised idealism or Bhumjaithai’s reactionary clientelism.

Class Alliances and Political Experimentation

The poor of Thailand have won historic gains under PTP; gains dismissed by the opposition movement as corrupt vote buying. PTP’s ceiling, however, will always be its bourgeois leadership – it seeks inclusive capitalism, not the abolition of class distinctions. Yet, it fundamentally differs from Global North social democrats as it depends on a mobilised base engaged in economic realignment, not just welfare provisions.

This rare class alliance (usually seen on the political right) is an experiment in leveraging cross-class alliances to achieve material victories for the poor. Socialism in the 21st century requires such experimentation. PTP’s alternative model, compromised but effective, is a stepping stone for mass mobilisation that puts food on worker’s plates.

As the Global South asserts new models, this Thai triad illuminates a broader struggle: between indigenous, material-based populism; westernised liberal idealism; and adaptive reactionary control. The February vote is about which paradigm will define Thailand’s future, or, potentially, what new class coalitions could be made.

Kay Young is a writer and editor at Din Deng journal (Thailand). He has a forthcoming book on Thai revolutionary history with LeftWord Books (India).

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Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research seeks to build a bridge between academic production and political and social movements to promote critical critical thinking and stimulate debates. Read other articles by Tricontinental Asia.

 

21st Century Common Sense, Part One

by Ted Glick / February 18th, 2026

A quarter of the way through this century, there is no doubt that the USA and the world are in deep trouble. This is true for everyone, even the families of those most responsible for this state of affairs, the “Epstein class” and those supporting them. Given the fact that the burning of fossils fuels and nukes, the continued reliance on destructive war as a way of determining who runs individual countries, and the growing disparity between the billionaire/multi-multi-millionaire (MMM) class and those who must work for a living, often barely making it—these and related injustices are what must be transcended, must be overcome, asap. The future of the world literally depends upon whether we can transcend them over the coming years.

For us in the United States of America, the immediate issue is the Trumpfascist efforts to impose dictatorial rule to the benefit of the billionaire class and those MMM’s hoping to become billionaires. As of the time of this writing a key next step in the resistance to these efforts is the November, 2026 federal elections, which should result in the Democrats, aligned with progressive Independents like Bernie Sanders, winning control of at least the House of Representatives, as things now appear is very likely.

But even if they take the House and Senate, and even if the percentage of House and Senate members who are strong and consistent progressives grows significantly, this alone will not yield the kind of changes the world desperately needs. For one thing, would-be dictator Trump will still be President, able to use his White House power in destructive ways, like unnecessary and brutal wars, rising economic, racial, gender and other inequality and hateful discrimination, and major attacks on wind, solar and electric vehicles.

A huge problem, up there at the top of the list, is that the history of efforts over the last many centuries to create truly just and democratic societies, run by organized people, not oligarchs, has at best yielded mixed results since the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In a book I wrote and self-published in 2021, five years ago, here is what I put forward as the key aspect of a “winning strategy, the one that is the key link to the social transformation process so urgently needed: the building and deepening of a way of working together and developing organizations that is collaborative, respectful, democratic its core and which, as a result, is truly transformative, built to last.”¹

This has to be our starting point as we try to determine how we change the world. Also necessary is an understanding of the urgency of the climate crisis. More than any other issue, this is one which must always be seen as a top priority. The amount of damage already done and sure to be done in the future, particularly to low-income people, the vast majority of the world’s population, primarily people of color, cannot be underestimated. We are literally running out of time to transition away from fossil fuels and to be about much more community-building and collaborative approaches to solving problems as they escalate as ecosystems, food and water supplies become increasingly less dependable.

Indeed, this existential reality for the entire planet is a reason that change is not just necessary, not just possible, but very much on the agenda of humankind.

As stated by the late Father Paul Mayer, “What history is calling for is nothing less than the creation of a new human being. We must literally reinvent ourselves through the alchemy of the Spirit”—or however one describes that unseen, powerful force in the universe which, down through history, has inspired people to do things which seem impossible—“or perish. We are being divinely summoned to climb another rung on the evolutionary ladder, to another level of human consciousness.”²

To be frank, it is not enough to be against Donald Trump and MAGA, or against the control of both major parties in the USA, the Democrats and the Republicans, or even to be committed to hard work for the next eight and a half months here in the USA to defeat the billionaire-supporting, fascist President Donald Trump. Our problems are too deep to accept this essential next step as the ultimate goal. Short-term, essential goal yes, but looking at things historically, it can only be the first major step in a fundamental, revolutionary process that over time not just saves the planet and its people but, at long last, matches our desires as a species with the way that we organize ourselves, economically, politically, culturally and socially.

ENDNOTES:

• 1
  21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation, p. 22
• 2
  Paul Mayer, Wrestling with Angels” back cover

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Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org. Read other articles by Ted, or visit Ted's website.

On Marriage

Culture, population, and quality of life

by Robert Malone / February 18th, 2026

Marriage is the cornerstone of a healthy society, and children are the conduit to the future.

Introduction

For the first time in modern American history, we are quietly entering an era in which having children is no longer the cultural default. The United States now sits well below replacement-level fertility, and each generation, absent immigration, will be smaller than the one before it. This fact is often discussed in purely economic terms: labor shortages, aging populations, entitlement systems, and GDP projections. But fertility is not merely a statistical problem or an economic variable. It reflects how people live, marry, work, and support one another. It reflects whether young adults believe that building a family is possible, affordable, and socially valued.

In public debate, falling fertility is usually treated as a technical issue to be solved with tax credits, subsidies, or immigration policy. Those tools matter, but they miss the deeper question: why are so many young people delaying marriage, postponing children, or opting out of family formation altogether? Fertility patterns do not exist in isolation. They are downstream of cultural expectations, economic pressures, educational pathways, and the presence, or absence, of extended family and community support. When marriages are delayed, when young couples are geographically scattered from their families, and when the burdens of raising children fall on isolated nuclear households, fertility predictably declines.

This essay is not simply about increasing birth rates. In fact, it questions whether perpetual population growth should even be treated as an unquestioned national objective. Instead, it examines the conditions under which families form, marriages endure, and communities remain stable. It asks whether the United States should reconsider the assumptions that have shaped its social and economic policies for decades: that young adults must leave home to succeed, that childbearing should be delayed as long as possible, and that economic vitality depends on an ever-expanding population.

If fertility is to rise, or even stabilize, it will not happen through slogans or subsidies alone. It will happen when young people can realistically imagine building families without isolation, when extended families and communities once again share the burdens of early childrearing, and when marriage and parenthood are treated as honorable and achievable paths rather than risky detours.

The discussion that follows explores how fertility, marriage, community structure, and cultural expectations intersect, and why rebuilding those foundations may matter more than any single policy lever.

Fertility

The total fertility rate in the United States is currently about 1.6 births per woman, based on recent national data.

In developed countries such as the United States, the fertility rate required to maintain a stable population in the absence of immigration is approximately 2.1 births per woman. This replacement level accounts for normal mortality and the fact that not all children survive to reproductive age. A fertility rate below this threshold means each generation is smaller than the previous one.

Because the U.S. fertility rate remains well below replacement level, the native-born population will gradually decline over time if immigration is excluded and fertility rates remain unchanged. Even when immigrant births are included, overall U.S. fertility is still below replacement. Without immigration, population aging will accelerate, the ratio of working-age adults to retirees will shrink, and long-term population decline will become unavoidable.

In short, current U.S. fertility is not at replacement level. The country’s population stability and growth over recent decades has mainly relied on immigration. Because it has experienced very low fertility rates and population momentum of its native-born people.

Population momentum:

Population growth depends not only on how many children people have, but on when those children are born. Two families can have the same number of children and still produce very different population outcomes purely because of the timing of births. Earlier marriage and earlier childbearing shorten the length of a generation, allowing more generations to fit into the same span of time. This effect, known as population momentum, can significantly amplify population growth even when fertility rates are modest.

Consider two identical couples, each with exactly two children. In the first scenario, the couple has both children by age twenty. In the second, the couple has both children by age thirty-five. In both cases, the parents fully replace themselves, and fertility is identical.

Over a sixty-year period, the early-childbearing scenario produces substantially more generational overlap than the later-childbearing scenario. Families that begin childbearing by age twenty can fit roughly four generations into that timeframe, while those that wait until age thirty-five fit only about two. As a result, the early-starting population can be roughly twice as large at any given moment, despite identical family size. The population grows faster not because people are having more children, but because generations are turning over more quickly.

When this timing difference is applied across an entire society rather than a single family, the effects compound rapidly. Earlier marriage and earlier births lead to more overlapping generations, a larger working-age population at any given time, and a broader base for subsequent generations. This is why populations can continue to grow even when the average family size is close to the replacement level. The tempo of reproduction, not just the total number of births, plays a decisive role in shaping long-term demographic trends.

Younger marriages

If the USA truly wants to increase the fertility rate, and that is an IF (as I will get to later), the best way is to encourage young women not go to college or to defer college or a trade school, marry early, and have children early. Instead of penalizing women for entering college or the workforce later in life, they could be encouraged to do so via financial and societal incentives. For example, young women of childbearing age could have free daycare while attending classes, or more online classes could be made available to women with children. Or to set up programs that allow young women to attend college or trade school part-time.

Women should not be looked down upon for having children early, instead society should honor them. Successfully running a household, including cooking, cleaning, saving money, teaching and caring for children, washing clothes, etc., is one of the most challenging and complex careers a woman and a young couple can embark upon. Yet it is also one of the most important and fulfilling responsibilities of our lifetimes.

Extended families and churches can play a decisive role in whether young couples with children merely survive or actually succeed. What they provide is not abstract “support,” but concrete reductions in stress, risk, and isolation during the most fragile years of family formation. If young people know they have such support, they are more likely to start a family.

Extended families help first by sharing the practical load. Childcare from grandparents, aunts, or older siblings gives parents breathing room to work, sleep, and recover physically and emotionally. Even small, routine help, such as watching a baby for an hour, picking up from school, and preparing meals during illness, dramatically reduces burnout. Financially, extended families often provide support through shared housing, temporary loans, or pooled resources, reducing the pressure that money stress places on young marriages.

Instead of encouraging young folk to attend college far away, never to return to the support of the extended family, what about parents encouraging young people to stay close to the family? Online classes, trade schools, entering the family business, or learning a trade are all options that can help keep families together and create close extended families.

Older relatives have faced many of the same challenges, such as their children’s infancy, sleepless nights, marital ups and downs, and career sacrifices. Their stories help normalize these struggles and remind young parents that such difficulties are just phases, not failures. Equally important, families serve as inspiring models of lasting commitment by demonstrating how marriages can withstand stress, conflict, and tough times. This quiet example fosters patience and the importance of working through issues rather than giving up.

All of this should be normalized, not treated as an anomaly.

Does the USA “need” population growth?

Many argue that the model of continuous population growth being necessary for economic growth is outdated and never really met reality. That idea comes from a 20th-century industrial model that assumed growth meant more workers + more consumers. In a world shaped by the internet, AI, automation, and capital-light businesses, that logic is increasingly outdated. In this new reality, the United States does not inherently “need” population growth to remain prosperous.

The idea that the United States “needs” population growth is largely a holdover from a 20th-century industrial model in which economic growth depended on ever-larger labor forces and consumer bases. In an economy shaped by the internet, automation, and artificial intelligence, output increasingly comes from productivity, capital, and energy rather than sheer population size. Raising the population can increase total GDP, but it does not necessarily raise living standards and often puts greater pressure on housing, infrastructure, and natural resources.

What matters more than population growth is demographic balance and adaptability: higher productivity per worker, retirement systems based on need, not age, and the intelligent use of technology to offset labor shortages. In this context, population growth should be a by-product of a healthy, affordable society, not an economic requirement in itself.

Maybe the U.S. government would benefit from changing its mindset that population growth is necessary.

The Japanese example:

Japan is often labelled as a “declining” economy, because its population has shrunk. However, it is actually functioning quite well despite depopulation, because it adapted early and intentionally. Instead of increasing headcount, Japan emphasized productivity by investing heavily in automation, robotics, and process improvements, so that fewer workers could produce about the same output and sustain a high standard of living despite declining population growth, including an aging population.

At the same time, Japan built systems oriented toward social stability rather than rapid growth, resulting in low crime, well-maintained infrastructure, world-class public transportation, and reliable supply chains; factors that shape everyday quality of life more than headline GDP figures. Culturally and economically, Japan also adjusted to an older population by keeping seniors engaged longer, allowing flexible retirement, and integrating healthcare and elder services into community life, treating aging as a design constraint to manage rather than a crisis to fear.

Healthy marriages equal healthy people

The truth is that study after study shows that the happiest people have the healthiest marriages and are married. Overall, divorced people tend to be lonelier, less financially stable, and unhappier.

Such studies also demonstrate that people in long-term relationships live longer lives.

So, how do we teach children to have happy marriages?

Teach character before chemistry

Many parents warn their kids about the obvious dangers of choosing the wrong partner, but fail to emphasize the slow, boring traits that predict long-term success in a marriage. Children should learn early that character beats charm. Reliability, emotional regulation, honesty, work ethic, and kindness under stress matter far more than intensity, attraction, or “spark.” Parents can point this out explicitly when discussing friends, relatives, movies, or real relationships:

Who shows up? Who keeps promises? Who gets better under pressure?

Many young people choose partners they want to fix. Parents and grandparents can gently dismantle this by emphasizing that marriage magnifies who someone already is. Love does not replace discipline, maturity, or responsibility. If a child learns that “potential” is not a plan, they choose far better.

Choose someone whose worst traits you can live with, and whose best traits show up under pressure.

It is also important that parents do not allow their children to be groomed or exposed to porn. Behavioral patterns and fetishes can easily become ingrained in young children. Behavioral patterns that will ruin or impede the ability to have monogamous relationships. It is the job of parents to protect the mental health of their children.

Before the internet, sexual interests typically developed privately and gradually, shaped by personal experience, culture, and limited media. Online social media and gaming expose young people to highly specific sexual content before emotional or cognitive maturity has developed. As a result, some fetishes today are less organically formed and more algorithm-reinforced.

The ability to form long-term bonds and derive pleasure from a single partner can easily be compromised. It is up to the parents to protect and teach children that morality is to be cherished, not ditched at the first opportunity.

Marriages in India

One very good example of a culture with a history of stability, a 1% divorce rate, and traditional early marriages is India.

Indian families often teach different marriage skills than Western families, and some of those skills do appear to lower the risk of divorce. From an early age, marriage is framed less as a pursuit of personal fulfillment and more as a long-term practice that requires patience, compromise, and endurance. Children grow up observing marriages that persist through financial stress, illness, extended-family conflict, and emotional dry spells.

Another key difference is the expectation that love develops within commitment, rather than preceding it. In many Indian households, marriage is not treated as a constant emotional high but as a partnership that deepens over time through shared responsibility. This mindset lowers the pressure placed on romantic compatibility to meet every emotional need, and reduces the tendency to interpret dissatisfaction as a sign that the marriage is fundamentally broken. When expectations are more modest and distributed across family and community, marriages are less likely to collapse under emotional strain.

Indian families also tend to normalize outside mediation and collective problem-solving, but not by using a paid “mental health professional,” as is done in Western cultures. Conflict is rarely viewed as a purely private matter; parents, elders, or relatives often step in to de-escalate disputes and encourage repair. Children learn that disagreements are expected and that walking away is not the default response. This teaches negotiation, restraint, and the ability to remain engaged during conflict rather than exiting at the first sign of distress.

Taken together, Indian marriages tend to cultivate resilience, lower expectations of perpetual satisfaction, and prioritize continuity over emotional volatility. These factors help explain why divorce remains relatively uncommon in Indian society.

Community-supported living simply means:

Families, neighbors, and local networks genuinely support each other, both materially and emotionally, creating a warm and close-knit fabric of daily life built on proximity and mutual trust. Economic activity is pleasantly localized, with trade, schooling, and small-scale production deeply rooted in the community rather than government services.

People tend to rely less on sprawling bureaucracies and more on personal, trust-based relationships that grow stronger over time. In this heartfelt model, childcare, elder care, and food production are not outsourced to corporations or driven solely by government programs; instead, they are managed close to home through reciprocity, shared responsibility, and a strong sense of social cohesion.

Having a community is a reality that requires work, responsibility, and healthy relationships. Those relationships start at home. They start with strong marriages that have been crafted and built. For many people, this process has spanned multiple generations; for others, they have had to work and learn the secrets of maintaining a marriage.

Rural communities tend to be more community-oriented because the government isn’t there to step in. People live in the same area for a long time, and reciprocal relationships develop. People have to help each other in order to succeed. And that marriage is the cornerstone of a healthy society.

Summary

We argue that strong marriages, extended families, and close communities are the bedrock of a stable and flourishing society. When young couples remain connected to their families, they benefit from shared childcare, practical help during illness, financial support, and the steady guidance of elders who have already weathered similar seasons of life. These supports reduce burnout, normalize hardship, and strengthen relationships. Rather than assuming that young people must leave home to pursue education and opportunity, we suggest that staying close to family. through local training, trades, online learning, or family enterprises. can help preserve intergenerational bonds and create healthier, more resilient households.

We also question the modern assumption that economic prosperity depends on continuous population growth. In a world shaped by automation, AI, and productivity gains, adaptability and balance matter more than sheer numbers. Societies like Japan demonstrate that stability and quality of life can be sustained even with a declining population when systems are designed thoughtfully.

At the personal level, we maintain that healthy marriages are central to human well-being. Long-term partnerships are strongly associated with happiness, stability, and longevity. We should teach children early to value character: reliability, honesty, emotional maturity, and perseverance, over fleeting attraction or charm when choosing a partner.

Cultural models, such as those in India, show how marriages rooted in commitment, family involvement, and patience can endure stress and conflict without collapsing. Communities that function well rely on trust, reciprocity, and shared responsibility, with families and neighbors supporting one another materially and emotionally. These patterns are not anomalies; they are time-tested ways of living that sustain individuals and societies alike.

Conclusion

The main point here is simple: strong societies begin with strong marriages supported by extended families and cohesive communities. We should normalize interdependence and connectedness rather than isolation, stability rather than constant mobility, and character rather than impulse.

Economic strength does not require endless population growth, but it does require resilient people, individual responsibility, and supportive networks. When families stay connected, when elders mentor the young, and when communities, including churches, share responsibility for care and stability, individuals are better equipped to weather hardship and build lasting relationships. By restoring these foundations, commitment, proximity, and mutual support, we can create a society that is both more humane and more durable for generations to come.

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Robert W Malone MD, MS is president of the Malone Institute whose mission is to bring back integrity to the biological sciences and medicine. The Malone Institute supports and conducts research, education, and informational activities. Contact: info@maloneinstitute.org. Read other articles by Robert, or visit Robert's website.

From Lunar New Year prayers to high-tech displays, millions usher in the Year of the Horse


Fireworks lit the skies and incense smoke filled the air as millions rang in the Lunar New Year on Tuesday. From bustling temple fairs in Beijing to a high-tech Spring Festival gala, the Year of the Horse began in a swirl of prayer, pageantry and cutting-edge spectacle.

Issued on: 17/02/2026 
By: FRANCE 24
Video by: FRANCE 24

Local Chinese attend a celebration of the Lunar New Year of the Horse at Thuwunna stadium February 14, 2026, in Yangon, Myanmar. © Thein Zaw, AP
01:43




Traditional prayers, fireworks and fairs marked the Lunar New Year on Tuesday – alongside 21st-century humanoid robots.

The activities ushered in the Year of the Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, succeeding the Year of the Snake.

Thousands of people in Beijing jammed into the former Temple of Earth to buy snacks, toys and trinkets from stalls. Sun Jing, who brought her parents to the capital for the holiday, said the atmosphere was as lively as in her childhood.

"I haven’t felt such a strong sense of Lunar New Year festivity in a very, very long time,” she said.


Crowds descended on popular temples to burn incense and pray for happiness and success in the coming year. The Lunar New Year is the most important annual holiday in China and some other East Asian nations and is celebrated outside the region, too.

Humanoid robots perform in front of a festive backdrop during a media preview of a robotic temple fair ahead of Lunar New Year in Beijing, China, February 13, 2026. © Vincent Thian, AP


As every year, China celebrated the Lunar New Year with a TV show and once again the humanoid robots were a central part of the performance Monday night.

One of the highlights of the CCTV Spring Festival gala was a martial arts performance by children and robots. For several minutes, humanoids from Unitree Robotics showed different sequences and even brandished swords.

The performance showed China’s push to develop more advanced robots powered by improved AI capabilities.

Viewers applauded the robots, with one saying they give good guidance and direction for young people. One man, though, said that while China's advances in robotics are great, they detracted from his experience.

“It lacks a bit of the New Year atmosphere,” Li Bo said. "It’s not as enjoyable as when I was little watching the gala.”

Actor Lana Wong Wai Lin, center, and other worshippers burn incense at Wong Tai Sin Temple to welcome the Lunar New Year of the Horse in Hong Kong, February 16, 2026. © Chan Long Hei, AP


Incense smoke wafted into the air at a temple in Hong Kong where people line up every year to make wishes for the new year at midnight.

Holding up a cluster of incense sticks, many bowed their heads several times before planting the sticks in containers placed in front of a temple hall.

Entertainers in Vietnam sang at an outdoor countdown event before multiple fireworks shows at several cities in the Southeast Asian nation, where the festival is called Tet.

Light shows lit up bridges and skyscrapers as the fireworks went off and crowds clapped in rhythm to live pop music performances.

People sampled Chinese cuisine from stalls and strolled along snowy streets decorated with red lanterns and dragons as two weeks of events got underway Monday at various venues in the Russian capital.

Spokeswoman of Russia's Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova and China's Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui attend the Lunar New Year festival showcasing traditional Chinese culture, arts and performances in central Moscow, Russia, February 16, 2026. © Ramil Sitdikov, Reuters

The third annual Lunar New Year celebration comes at time of warming relations between China and Russia – ties that have frustrated many European governments because of the war in Ukraine.

The solemn peal of a temple bell rang out 108 times – an auspicious number – as people flocked to the Baoan Temple in Taipei on Tuesday morning.

They lit incense sticks, bowed their heads and left offerings of colorful flower bouquets on outdoor tables on the temple grounds in Taiwan's capital city.

Thousands of Argentines gathered in Buenos Aires’s Chinatown to celebrate the Lunar New Year and enjoyed dragon and lion dances on the main stage, alongside martial arts demonstrations.

The Chinese immigrant community is among Argentina's most dynamic, accounting for more than 180,000 people in the South American country.

Why Russia may have turned to dart‑frog toxin epibatidine to poison Navalny

ANALYSIS


Two years after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison, five European countries claim they have identified the substance that killed him: epibatidine, an extremely lethal toxin produced by the South American poison dart frog. But why go through the trouble of using such a rare, exotic poison naturally found only on the other side of the world? Some experts believe Navalny may have been used as a lab rat.


Issued on: 17/02/2026 - 
FRANCE24
By: Sébastian SEIBT

The phantasmal poison frog is a poison dart frog endemic to Ecuador. It is one of the most poisonous animals in the world. © Pauln/Wikipedia commons

Two days prior to the two-year anniversary of Alexei Navalny's sudden death in a Russian prison, Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden on Saturday presented the conclusion of their joint investigation.

“[We] are confident that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” they said in a statement issued on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause," they said.

Navalny was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critics and was serving a 19-year sentence in an Arctic prison colony when he died. “Meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity ‌to administer this poison to him,” they added.

Russia flatly rejected the allegations.

"Naturally, we do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and not based on anything. And we strongly reject them," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

From polonium to epibatidine

The five countries said their finding was “conclusive”, and came after having carried out extensive “analyses of samples” from his body.

Russia has been accused of using poison when targeting its enemies before.

The nerve agent novichok was used in the attempted assassination of Navalny in 2020, and former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury 2018. A woman in Salisbury died after accidentally coming into contact with a perfume bottle that had been contaminated with the nerve agent.

Russia has also been accused of the fatal poisoning of Russian defector and former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Litvinenko died after having used a tea set contaminated with the radioactive chemical element polonium-210.

The independent Russian media outlet Meduza said Navalny’s symptoms matched with “what is known about epibatidine’s effects”.

Toxicology expert Jill Johnson told BBC Russian that epibatidine is "200 times more potent than morphine". Among the symptoms, she said, are "muscle twitching and paralysis, seizures, slow heart rate, respiratory failure and finally death".

Hard to detect and lethal

But why go through the trouble of using such a rare type of poison which is naturally found only in dart frogs native to South America?

“With Navalny in Russian custody, there was no need to use such an exotic poison,” Luca Trenta, an associate professor in International Relations at Swansea University. “They could have used anything."

One of the reasons, experts say, might have been its effectiveness.

Alistair Hay, a toxicologist at the University of Leeds, said that when it comes to nerve agents like novichok, death can be prevented if the person gets proper medical care quickly enough. “I don't know how you treat a patient with epibatidine. I haven’t seen anything out there.”

To date, there is only one documented case of a person having survived epibatidine poisoning: a lab worker who was allegedly exposed to it in 2010. Hay said that the person’s own account of his survival – apparently thanks to the use of antihistamines – raises “quite a lot of questions”, however.

Hay explained that epibatidine is also very difficult to detect because only very small doses are needed to make it lethal – “so it's harder to find traces" of it.

When analysts do not know the specific substance they are looking for, detection becomes even harder. And since epibatidine has not been associated with any other known poisoning cases previously, it would not be the first toxin that analysts test for.

It is also a poison that is fairly easy to administer.”The known routes are ingestion and through the skin,” Hay said. “It would be equally effective, I'm sure, by inhalation as well."

Was Navalny an experiment?

Kevin Riehle, an expert in intelligence and security studies at Brunel University London, said that all of the above-mentioned reasons still do not explain why Russia would use such a rare and exotic poison on someone who was already behind bars and in very poor health.

“The only thing that could possibly be the reason, and this is rather quite villainous, is that they were testing it," he said. "They were trying to see how this thing was going to work on somebody, and he was going to die anyway.”

Hay said the toxin has been known to scientists for decades, and they been able to reproduce it in their laboratories. It was initially researched for its painkilling capabilities because it can block nerve transmission, but those ideas were ultimately abandoned because the risks of getting the dose wrong were too high.

"Developing this kind of weapon is not difficult," Trenta said.

Mark Galeotti, a Russia security expert and director of the London-based think tank Mayak Intelligence, said that for Russia, the alleged poisoning would also have been a way of reminding the world that "they have had a laboratory working on poisons for decades”, and that it is capable of producing “new and more interesting and more complex toxins and venoms".

Galeotti said the Russians may have had dual motives in opting for such an unusual poison as epibatidine. “On the one hand they're happy for people to think that Navalny was poisoned because that sends out a warning,” showing not only what the Kremlin is capable of, but the lengths to which it is swilling to go.

“But on the other hand, by using something more exotic, maybe they hoped the details would never actually come to light.”

In addition, Trenta said the poison would likely have been used to kill two birds with one stone: to avenge an enemy while setting a memorable example. “These types of weapons in particular have to do with a certain element of theatre. So they want to appear grandiose, and [contain] a certain element of signalling. There is a communicative element here."

This article was adapted from the original in French by Louise Nordstrom.