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Thai protesters make the three-fingered Hunger Games salute. Photo: AFP

Thailand protests: how Hong Kong and the Hunger Games inspired revolution of Thais

  • With a three-fingered salute from the Hunger Games, and a playbook from Hong Kong, Thai protesters say now is the time to take on authoritarianism
  • But they are political novices armed with smartphones, vastly outgunned by an army-backed opponent
At the “Bad Student Union”, 18-year-old Min harvests complaints received through Twitter and Instagram from pupils across Thailand, decrying how their public school teachers have made them suffer everything from corporal punishment to mandatory haircuts to markdowns for minor breaches of school rules.

But most complaints Min posts on the @BadStudent_ Twitter handle centre on the dreaded student haircut – the song nak rien in Thai. For boys, it leaves them with a sheer grade zero on the back and sides, with a military-style buzz-cut on top. Girls are left with an unflattering ear-lobe-level bob.

It has become a metaphor for the strict hierarchy which shapes Thai society – from a king who sits at the top of the Thai power pyramid to the military that orchestrates its politics and the Poo Yai (“senior”) culture that values age and status over initiative at school and work.

Protesters defy coronavirus restrictions to demonstrate in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Reuters
Over the past week, Thailand’s youth, united by social media and fuelled by a defiance of authority, have been pushing back in anti-government protests that have taken place in at least six provinces and the Thai capital.
They say now is the time to ignite a movement against authoritarianism, with the hashtags #removetheyoke and #thismustendinourgeneration trending in Thai on Twitter, even as the country struggles to get its tourism-dependent economy, battered by the coronavirus, back on track.

“We’re doing this now because we see no future and we don’t want the next generation to have to fight any more. This ends with us,” said Tatthep “Ford” Ruangprapaiserikit of the Free Youth movement.

The first target is the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, an irascible, distant former army chief who six years after seizing power is widely ridiculed but still in control.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. Photo: AP

The main group Free Youth has issued three core demands: scrap the constitution that helped Prayuth win an election last year; dissolve a parliament loaded with 250 army-friendly senators; and end the harassment of dissenters.

Rallies, which draw hundreds and are peaceful, have adopted the three-fingered “Hunger Games” salute to reflect the three demands.

But they also flash it as a symbol of a defiant movement that appears ready to butt into all pillars of Thai power, including the billionaire business elite, the military and royalist establishment.

“True democracy is not beneficial to these elitists. How long will 99 per cent of this country’s population have to suffer?” Ford added.

A Thai protester holds a sign during a demonstration in Bangkok. Photo: Reuters
Free Youth and their friends are borrowing heavily from Hong Kong’s anti-government movement which convulsed the city and posed an unprecedented challenge to Beijing. Like their peers in Hong Kong, Thailand’s protest movement is articulate, young and inventive – but also far outsized by an authoritarian opponent. An inspiration for many of the young Thais is the Netflix documentary Teenager vs. Superpower, about Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong’s resolve despite jail and repression.

In Bangkok, young Thai protesters inspired by Hong Kong demand change

“A political movement needs to have a symbol. Theirs is an umbrella … ours is a torchlight,” Ford said.

“We believe our country is run by a dark force, so we need torchlights to lead us from the darkness.”

They also hoovered up ideas on the power of social media to amuse, educate and unify and on the art of the leaderless protest – though it is unclear whether the movement is truly leaderless or whether there are influential personalities backing it.

Black T-shirts and masks, flash mobs, symbols, clever word play and memes have been ramped up.

Hundreds have come out across the country each day to shine lights from camera phones, pick litter from beaches and hold rallies as they goad the government and its army supporters.

Tactics are being refined in invite-only Line groups and over Zoom calls, with a network of like-minded young rebels seeding protest cells across the country.

Thai police officers attend to a protest in Bangkok. Photo: Reuters

A large, loud rally at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument last Saturday has emboldened the students.

They have not firmed up a date but are teasing the first week of August for a major nationwide show of force if their three demands are not met.

Joshua Wong rallied behind them in a July 19 tweet urging Hongkongers to “never forget how our Thai fellows stood with us against China’s nationalist trolls”, referring to a social media squabble in which Thais, Taiwanese and Hongkongers joined hands against China’s bot army – an act dubbed the #MilkTeaAlliance.

TACKLING TABOOS

Unlike previous Thai pro-democracy movements – which ended in bloody crackdowns by Thai security forces and their affiliates – the new generation are not hooked on old political loyalties. Observers say they are therefore unlikely to be mollified by power and positions.

“There are no links to political parties, powerful people,” said Chaturon Chaisang, a student leader during the 1970s at Bangkok’s radical Thammasat University and education minister in the government toppled by the 2014 coup.

“They are an independent force and they know they have no future if the status quo continues,” he said.

But as political novices armed with smartphones, the students are also unpredictable, and potentially reckless.

Placards aimed at the monarchy and the law that protects it from criticism have been prominent at many of their demos. Article 112 of the criminal code says anyone who insults the king, queen, heir or regent can face punishment of up to 15 years in prison, and this, as well as the extensive apparatus at the command of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, has made the monarchy untouchable in Thai society.

Thus, the students’ challenge has alarmed veterans of Thailand’s combustible street politics.

01:04

Thailand commemorates late King three years after death

Thailand commemorates late King three years after death

“I’m glad to see this uprising,” Jatuporn Prompan, a rabble-rousing leader of the pro-democracy “Red Shirt” movement, said recently.

“But there has to be a line – do not touch the institution. Once you cross that line, it will eventually become your weakness and you’ll end up with the same result [crackdowns and coups].”

Some students have already scrubbed social media profiles, fearing they may have overstepped the mark, while pockets of protesters say they have been questioned by police, including a student theatre group in Chiang Mai which gave a “Spew Out Poem” reading in front of the city gates.

In response, the Lanyim Theatre has vowed to hold free performances every Sunday through August across the whole of the city as defiance greets the authorities’ attempts to curb their actions.

The government has so far been quiet.

Scuffles as thousands take to streets to protest against Thailand’s government

In his only comments on the protests, Prayuth last week skirted questions on the monarchy and protests.

But he issued what many read as a gloved warning, saying he understood the youth. “But at the same time I am worried for their parents,” he said.

The words carry weight in a country where heavy jail terms accompany dissent and army crackdowns are bloody, swift and unexpected.

A small royalists rally was held on Friday afternoon at the army headquarters in Bangkok. A few dozen people dressed in the royal colour of yellow held signs including one reading, “We love our institution”. The rally was posted on Facebook Live on the “We Cheer Prayuth” page, which has 137,000 followers.

Earlier, army chief Apirat Kongsompong was door- stepped by the media. He was in a conciliatory mood but said “things have happened on social media [where] insulting, unsuitable words [were used] … I think many people were upset.

“We are all his subjects, not only the military.

“Although I am army chief, I speak as a Thai citizen to say that whatever you do, you may regret it when you look back.”

Thai anti-government protesters gather at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok. Photo: AP

DIFFERENT GENERATION, SAME RESULT?

The nascent student movement is the latest chapter in a near 90-year political saga.

Thailand was an absolute monarchy until a bloodless 1932 revolution established a constitution with a king at the head of civilian government. But the country is yet to find a lasting political settlement.

Since the revolution, the royalist military has refused to leave the political scene, periodically ousting civilian governments in coups – even taking out its own generals in coups within coups – while endlessly rewriting constitutions and rewiring the parliamentary set-up.

Billionaires making bold power plays have come and gone, while court cases and bloody street protests – broadly for and against the conservative military and the establishment values they represent – have seen fear of instability replace hope for lasting change.

Since 2005, the polarisation has deepened, much of it pivoting around telecoms magnate-turned-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family, who shook the Thai establishment by winning elections with a pro-poor policy platform.

Thaksin was booted from power in a coup in 2006 and went into self-exile after a corruption conviction in absentia.

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Photo: AP

Courts dismantled the subsequent government linked to him, as the kingdom sunk into bloody rounds of street protests between the Shinawatra-supporting “Red Shirts” and royalist “Yellows”, who backed the military and establishment.

Another military intervention – led by then army chief Prayuth – took out the administration of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014.

Prayuth has been in charge since, morphing from a coup leader to an elected civilian prime minister in 2019 in elections held under a new constitution written by his appointees. Critics say nationalist education has increased in schools since.

Shortly after his 2014 coup, Prayuth introduced “12 values” into the school curriculum, including ordering pupils to vow to preserve Thai tradition and the monarchy. His supporters say Prayuth brought stability after years of draining protests and has encouraged foreign investments in major projects.

Yingluck Shinawatra. Photo: Reuters

But most students at the protests, despite having known no other leader, are not impressed, going by the placards and T-shirts ridiculing him. On Friday, demonstrators burned images of Prayuth and his deputy, Prawit Wongsuwan.

“Our politics has been like a game of tug of war, you pull the rope forward on one end and it’s being pulled backwards further on the other end,” said Panumas Singprom, 21, a co-founder of Free Youth.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

Youth anger has in part been stoked by the political demise of Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the pugnacious army critic who was booted out of parliament in February and banned from politics for 10 years over a media shares holding he says was a political fabrication.

His demands for the military to quit meddling in Thai politics, an end to conscription and wide social and economic reforms, including a tax hike for the richest, won his Future Forward Party six million votes in a March 2019 election. That made it Thailand’s third-largest political force with 81 out of 500 seats in parliament.

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But it also rattled the military and its proxy party in government stuffed with veteran politicos unused to being held accountable in public.

Future Forward was also disbanded by the interventionist Constitutional Court over an alleged breach of finance rules after Thanathorn, a photogenic heir to a fortune, lent the party US$6 million.

The party has rebranded. But it is wounded, thinning the political voice of millions of millennials, many of them first-time voters in the polls.

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Photo: EPA

There have been questions about whether Thanathorn or Thaksin are linked to the protests. But the latter has been in self-exile for years, and while he still wields behind-the-scenes influence in politics, his affiliated Pheu Thai party, the largest opposition in parliament, is fragmented after years of legal battles with the establishment.

Instead, many millennials have turned to social media and the street. Their feistiness and ability to quickly harness numbers is new for Thailand, where protests have generally been slowly constructed and well funded by big political interests.

“What used to take the old generation a decade to do, these kids are doing in a much shorter time,” said Sustarum Thammaboosadee of the College of the Interdisciplinary Studies at Thammasat University.

“Thai culture and tradition has long suppressed Thai youth. But technology and the political dynamics are enabling these kids to express their opinions freely.”

WHERE NEXT?

The menace of the Thai army hangs over every protest moment. Since 1932, military crackdowns have killed hundreds – possibly thousands – of people who have troubled its position in politics or been accused of threatening the monarchy.

Current army chief Apirat is a hardline royalist who took part in the crackdown on Red Shirts in Bangkok in 2010 which left scores dead in the commercial centre and parts of the city ablaze. Prayuth, army chief at the time, ordered the crackdown.

Thais protest against ‘disappearance’ of activist

Analysts say the government will maintain its wait-and-see approach, hoping the protests fizzle out, while picking off key leaders with police charges.

But they warn that this approach might not put a stop to dissent. Covid-19 has changed the game, ruining what was once the star economy of Southeast Asia. With millions likely to be dumped into unemployment by the end of the year, discontent could quickly find its way to the street.

“Farmers, unemployed workers and the middle class who are suffering [from the] economic crisis could be real serious political threats to the government,” said Wutthipol Wutthiworapong, a political science lecturer at Ramkhamheng University in Bangkok, warning that a mass movement needed the support of a cross-section of society to be sustainable.

01:20

A flourishing ‘high society’ in Thailand puts its widening wealth gap in election spotlight

A flourishing ‘high society’ in Thailand puts its widening wealth gap in election spotlight

On Thursday, Thailand’s parliament voted down a motion calling for Prayuth to open negotiations with the students by 261 to 177, a sign that compromise is not close at hand.

Thai history also gives a grim indication of what happens when protests meet political impasse.

“The youth have no direct experience of the past violence, but they have experienced oppression under this regime and the weak economy. This makes them fearless,” Chaturon, the veteran pro-democracy politician, said. “It’s up to those with the power to decide how they will respond, change or invoke certain laws from their playbook.”

Thais are closely watching the next few days and weeks as rallies unfold daily across Thailand on Facebook Live. Anecdotal conversations and social media posts suggest many older Bangkokians tacitly support the students but are waiting for the right time to come out.

“In Thailand, we grow up in a box that is called ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’. This box suppresses our freedom to think for ourselves and our creativity. But the kids are finding answers that completely conflict with what they’ve been told,” said Headache Stencil, a prominent Thai graffiti artist and perennial thorn in the side of the military.

Protesters display the flashlights on their cellphones at a rally near the Democracy Monument in downtown Bangkok. Photo: EPA

“I think a lot of us adults prefer to observe the kids’ movement on the sidelines. Their fight is pure and organic, no one should contaminate it.”

Meanwhile, the Twitter page of Bad Student continues to collect fuel to feed the fire. It was started by Min, who requested his full name not be used for fear of repercussions, to rebel against what he describes as an education system that rewards rote learning over creativity, imprints a herd mentality on children and demands absolute deference to teachers.

This system had contributed to Thais being the worst-educated graduates in the region, he said.

Schools were the gateway to “Thai authoritarianism”, said Sanitsuda Ekachai, veteran journalist and social commentator. “They train young minds to be submissive to power.”

The latest gripes on the Bad Student page followed a photo of school pupils standing in a heavy storm in neat lines, wearing blue caps and toggles, apparently at a scouts’ rehearsal for the king’s birthday celebrations on July 28.

A Twitter user’s comment read: “If only they devoted half this energy to actual education, Thailand would not be a backward country.”

 
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