Knights, Lords, Barons & Burning Bangkok
The homemade, improvised barricades have finally been breached by armoured vehicles. Soldiers open fire at Red Shirt protestors, numbers unknown. Seeing their comrades fall, the Red Shirt leaders surrender. The government declares victory over the rebels, but instead of restoring peace, almost 30 buildings in Bangkok are set on fire. Similar acts of arson and sabotage hit the Northeast. The rally has been busted, leaders are in custody, but the war goes on. The bloodhounds are out - hunting for scapgoats.
Those were the shocking words and images that came through to me “live” yesterday. Many friends who are frequent visitors to Bangkok or Thailand were shocked. One shopaholic was almost in tears when she heard that Central World is no more. Others were totally puzzled that no stern voice came from the palace to stop the violence. They could never imagine that things would spiral out of control. They thought this was the Land of Smiles. They thought there were stabilising forces in the country. How could all this happen?
People are shocked because as tourists enjoying the good food, good shopping and nightlife, it’s so easy to visualise a simplistic and romantic mechanism which holds this complex, highly diverse society together.
As far back as 2006 when Thaksin was ousted, I took a decidedly pessimistic view of Thailand, in sharp contrast with the majority of opinion leaders who apparently didn’t like Thaksin’s face. I assured them that Thaksin will be missed and barely 6 months into the coup, people were already protesting against the military government. Elections were called and some people were again surprised. Thaksin’s party won. Thaksin returned to Thailand. His enemies were jumping. They dissolved his party, they tried to put him in jail and Thaksin fled once more. Another round of elections. Thaksin’s party won again.
What to do? Bring in the Yellow Shirts. Give it instant legitimacy by associating the movement with His Majesty. Occupy Government House. Occupy the airport. Dissolve the ruling party. Buy over their MPs. Bring in the Democrats who are supposed to have boycott the elections. Doesn’t matter how ridiculous and illegitimate it is. Thaksin doesn’t have a face that people like. It’s hip to hate him. Abhisit will keep the people happy. Peace and stability at last. Thailand does not need a democracy to progress and prosper.
Wait a minute. You mean another movement is taking shape? And it’s a far larger and more determined group called the Red Shirts and they want Thaksin back at the helm? How can this be? They must be pretty simple folks bought and manipulated by Thaksin. Or are they?
About 2 years ago, at the height of the Yellow Shirts protest, I was telling some people that these folks do not represent the concerns of the average Thai citizen. Many of them probably just didn’t like Thaksin’s face. I was predicting the rise of an opposing movement with far deeper convictions which will lead Thailand to a civil war. I didn’t mince my words. I said “civil war”. The last phrase shocked everyone in the discussion. They thought I was paranoid and nobody believed that Bangkok would be burned by its own citizens today.
To be honest, I did not arrive at these opinions/predictions on my own. I was reading Thai author Pira Sudham’s novel The Force of Karma, published in 2002. Pira is perhaps the only writer who writes Thai literature in English and given that the vast majority of Thais don’t read English and those who do can’t be bothered, Pira can perhaps afford to be a bit more daring. Most of his readers are foreigners like me. Even though I find his portrayal of the elite in Thailand a bit hollow, the book paints a very vivid picture of class struggle, social injustice, exploitation and ignorance. The most absorbing part of the novel is Pira’s description of the military coup, protests and crackdown of 1992. It’s as if the author was there among the protestors. Interestingly, the author wrote about Farangs in the midst who were not journalists but genuine protestors.
Pira projected: “A tree, rotten at the core, falls of its own accord. The crash of July 1997 is merely a rash. The fall is yet to come.” Thailand’s superficial harmony is easy to see but not easy to maintain. At any moment when there is stress in the crust, all hell will break loose. All the ingredients for that recipe for disaster were there and the optimists just refuse to see them. My hopes for Thailand were raised when Thaksin came to power. They were dashed when he was ousted.
Pira was born in the village of Napo in Northeast Thailand. He wrote that before he went to Bangkok at the age of 14, he couldn’t believe that this glitzy city was a part of his country. His short stories revealed the ugly side of temple politics, the lives of taxi drivers, prostitutes, narrow-minded and ignorant Thais who don’t even realise that they have been short-changed and never given a share of national funds which the elites continue to plunder. Thailand is a land of knights, lords, barons and peasants. The more ignorant the peasants, the better it is for the lords and barons. But the barons’ party can’t go on forever. There is a price to pay for keeping people ignorant for one’s own benefit. The force of karma.
At the beginning of this current Red Shirt initiated crisis, we often hear “experts” and other “educated” people dismissing the Red Shirt movement as a bunch of ignorant peasants manipulated and sponsored by Thaksin whom the government and the media has conveniently “hitlerised”. And it’s quite laughable that the government still wants people to believe that it’s still Thaksin’s political game. They have even branded him as a terrorist. We now have evidence that there were more than a few angry Farang Red Shirt protestors - just as Pira Sudham “reported” in his novel. Not that much a work of fiction after all.
Would it sound surprising to you that ignorance is not confined to the uneducated? Aside from the folks who can afford to buy entire stores in Sukumvit, there are many other folks who are angry and constantly unable to make ends meet. The government is right. This is not a fight for democracy. But we should realise that this is also not a fight for Thaksin anymore. The ongoing battle will be one between the authorities and all the unhappy and seriously disturbed people in Thailand. They realise now that the country can afford to finance projects in their hometowns but is just not doing it.
Since a certain general took over after ousting his boss some 60 years ago, Thai education and media have taken a form which would keep the knights (not the renegade ones), lords and barons in their “rightful” positions. The peasants, on the other hand, were supposed to be loyal, obedient, subservient and be thankful for the occasional gift and blessing from the palace. Thaksin or no Thaksin, karma will eventually balance things out.
