Thongchai Winichakul's hypothesis on the emergence of the "geo-body" of Siam is widely accepted by scholars in Thai and Southeast Asian studies. Thongchai argues that the traditional Hindu-Buddhist paradigms of culture, space, governance, and power were challenged by a significantly different civilisation, arising mainly from Latin Christianity tempered by the humanism of the Enlightenment. The East became increasingly described as "barbaric", "ignorant", or "inferior". The mission to "civilise" the "barbaric Asiatics" became the "raison d'être" for colonialism and imperialism. The "siwilai" ('civilise') programme in 19th century Siam was part of a strategy the Chakri monarchy adopted to justify their country's continued existence as a legitimate independent state to fend off colonial intervention. Other components involved the spatial and political reorganisation of the Siamese polity along Western lines to strengthen the state and gain recognition from the Western powers. Thongchai argues that the tactics adopted by the Siamese state were similar to those adopted by Western colonial powers in administering their colonies. Space and power were essentially redefined by the Siamese state. Autonomous and semi-autonomous mueangs were brought under the direct control of the state by the beginning of the 20th century. Cartography was employed to define national borders, replacing the vague frontiers of the Mandala kingdoms. People were assigned to ethnic groups. To promote the new Western-inspired definitions of "siwilai", the educated Siamese of the 19th century, mainly the aristocracy, began writing ethnographies and creating their own versions of the "other" to strengthen the identity of the Siamese nation by emphasising its superiority, in contrast to the barbarity of upland tribal peoples such as the Lue and the Lahu. These new perspectives created a politically dominant Siamese aristocracy that became increasingly powerful from the "modernisation/self-colonisation" process it initiated and directed. This seems to contradict conventional perspectives, which are based on the assumption that the Chakri absolute monarchy by the early-1930s was a relatively passive actor, due to the political weakness of Rama VI (King Vajiravudh) and Rama VII (King Prajadhipok) and crises such as the Great Depression. No longer in control of events and political developments in Siam, they were swept aside by adherents of democracy and nationalism.