There have been a few problems along the way, but by and large the red-shirts have managed to maintain an orderly campaign against Abhisit’s government. A good description of Saturday’s well attended rally and march on Government House is provided in this blog entry by Nirmal Gosh of the Straits Times. Here is an extract:
Thailand’s pro-democracy ”red shirts” began gathering at Sanam Luang around midday on Saturday for their scheduled rally. I got there at around 5.30pm and found well over 10,000 people. By the time I left two hours later it had reached over 30,000. Organisers claimed it had reached 50,000.
I bumped into former National Human Rights Commissioner Jaran Ditta-apichai who supports the reds, behind the stage. In the course of our chat he said ”Even if Thaksin (Shinawatra) stops fighting, the red movement will go on. Reds are not fighting for any leader, they fight for an ideology.” And as we parted he added cryptically : ”The ultimate ideology.”
Later professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn turned up as well, wearing a black T-shirt with a red baseball cap. He had joined the reds, he said. In the course of talking about the composition of the red shirts, Giles who has always been critical of Thaksin for his human rights abuses, said ”Being pro-Thaksin doesn’t mean people are puppets of Thaksin, or are being paid by Thaksin. The movement is beyond Thaksin, it’s a movement for democracy and a better future.” …
I followed Prof Giles up on to the stage and took a picture of him greeting Jakrapob Penkair. To me that moment was one of many symbolic ones of the last three years of political turmoil in Thailand : Jakrapob and Giles both face lese majeste charges. In that moment, the lese majeste issue converged with the issue of democracy.
Nirmal’s account is well illustrated, and includes pictures by Nick Nostitz, who has featured regularly on New Mandala. Here are some additional pictures of the rally taken by Nick.
Protesters from Isan at Sanam Luang
The army blocking the streeet to Government House
The march to government house
Jumping over the first barricade
Removing the barricades
Leena Jungjanja, serial Bangkok Governor candidate, joined the red shirts
12 responses so far ↓
1 Susie Wong // Feb 2, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I was thrilled when I saw Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn and former PM’s Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair greeting each other at this gathering. I know then the leadership is in good hands.
2 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Feb 2, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I must say that the term ”The ultimate ideology” creeps me out a bit. Whatever the hell it means. However, all is forgiven with the sight of Leena Jang, Thailand’s premier MPILF.
3 Srithanonchai // Feb 2, 2009 at 4:44 pm
LSS:
Off-topic: Have you finished your paper on socio-pedagogy already? The current talk about the “second round of education reform” might make it even more interesting.
4 landofsnarls // Feb 2, 2009 at 11:13 pm
LSS: I am your hairy Godbrother. Your wish (MPetc) is granted. Just call the Minister for Thai Commerce…
5 Jeffrey // Feb 2, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Excellent pictures.
Interesting to see the army blocking the road to Government House. They had refused to oblige with any such defensive manoeuvre as the International Airport faced the threat of terrorist attack by the PAD.
The rest is history.
6 nganadeeleg // Feb 3, 2009 at 9:46 am
More pictures:
http://www.2bangkok.com/09/090131/red-shirts.shtml
and
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/rajdumnern/topic/P7480658/P7480658.html
7 Susie Wong // Feb 3, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Everyone must understand who and what we are dealing with. The game we are playing goes beyond the domestic politics of class struggle, it involves international politics of Southeast Asia. Neither the planners nor the funding are local. As such, the political project of this magnitude reflects studies, research, planning, implementing beyond local capabilities. Their objective is a civil war to kill the Red Shirts across the country. That was what LSS and Sri.. were communicating.
“Socio-pedagogy”, means the sociology of the “in group” killing the “out group” concept. They succeeded in Indonesia with ½ million killed in 1965, and in Cambodia over 1 million killed in 1975.
“Second round of education reform” means deepen the psychological operation among the PAD members to kill the Red Shirts, claiming to protect the monarchy as they did in the 6th October 1976.
Do we all understand the game?
8 Markus N // Feb 4, 2009 at 8:27 am
“S.Wong”,
1. I am not sure whether I get your point – please elaborate it a little bit more.. Are you serious about this? Are you comparing the succumbend thai government with the K.Rouge??
2. If this is sarcasm, how can the admins allow such a deviance..
9 Darma // Feb 6, 2009 at 6:10 am
I commend the orderly and generally peaceful fashion in which the Red Shirts carried themselves out. It is healthy for a democratizing country that its citizens be allowed to freely expressed their opinions.
It would be very interesting to see if the Red Shirts would devolve into two separate factions – those that are pro-Thaksin and those that are pro-democracy. To date both groups seem to be in the mix, sending out unclear messages to the public. There are people, such as Giles, who may not necessarily like Thaksin but want to make a statement about democracy. If the Red Shirts would organize themselves around this new theme and mark a clear separation from being an organ of Thaksin, they may attract more supporters.
10 Raymond // Feb 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm
If the redshirts had any political credibility at all they would be concerned about the irreconcilable differences between being pro-democracy and being hero-worshippers of one man and his one-size-fits-all over-simplistic solutions. The fact that they can’t see the contradiction is evidence that they represent yet another dead-end in Thai politics. Do I really want to support yet another set of paid-up fascist thugs (a la PAD)? I’d rather wait a few more years for a political grouping that begins to know its social elbow from its populist arse.
11 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:32 am
re: Srithanonchai
Your comment about school reform made me think of the following quote from Johann Gottlieb Fitche. Commenting on the purpose of the Prussian government-sponsored education system, he wrote “The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.”
To answer your question, as you may know, for the past year my professional life was basically put on hold as I dealt with my daughter’s illness and things are just starting to settle down now. As such, the original scope of my paper, a full examination of Thai sociopedagogy from the insitutional level to all the way on down to the individual, is just too ambitious for me to pursue at the moment. I have chosen to focus on just comparing American and Thai classroom practice, classroom environment, classroom management, and student/teacher expectations. Then I will attempt to connect such practices to cultural values and beliefs. I am now working on constructing an instrument that will allow me to do that.
If all goes well, it should be ready to present by TESOL 2010.
12 Srithanonchai // Feb 11, 2009 at 5:29 pm
LSS:
Sorry to learn about the illness of your daughter, and glad to hear that she is better now. I look forward to reading your paper. Maybe, you can email it to me via Andrew or Nich.
Reading your quote from Fichte on Prussia made me chuckle (and reminded me of the reason of state as a distinct governmental rationality). In an earlier text, I had written the following (in particular, see the concluding sentence):
“Finally, it took educational efforts—the process of edu¬cationalization—an equally long time to get differentiated not only from the highest stratum but also from reli-gion, family, and from its local interactional embeddedness and con¬trol. For example, the local priest being the schoolmaster’s superior characterized local-level education in 16th- and 17th-century Prussia. The schoolmaster earned his livelihood in his usual profession, except during the wintertime when he taught. Education had not been differentiated from the agricul¬tural cycle nor had it created a specialized professional role, the “teacher.” Moreover, instruction at school and reli¬gious duties in church were mixed whilst teaching materials con¬sisted of religious writings. Even to speak of a “school” often made no sense, as in many areas the “teacher” was boarded alternately by different farmers in their homes one room of which served as the “classroom” (Ahrens 1991:3). Although this organization might have been devised out of budgetary constraints, it nevertheless produced a tight communal control of educational activities. This organization was used well into the second half of the 19th century; in some villages, it even persisted up to about 1918 (ibid.).
Besides financial considerations, it is certainly also correct to say that communities maintained a “tenacious preference for time-honored arrangements, wedding the teacher to the local fabric and keeping him vulnerable to its sanctions” (La Vopa 1976:451). The teachers’ change of role toward being “missionaries of popular enlightenment” demanded that they became “disentangled from face-to-face dependencies” (ibid.:450). This differentiation became even more imperative when the teachers were ascribed the mission “to realize, and secure, the democratic, unitary Nation State” (ibid.:464), “to integrate popular culture into a new whole—into the cultural and political unity of a German (or at least a Prussian) State—despite the stubborn particularism of local life” (ibid.:466). It seems that there is little difference between Prussia and Thailand.”
Sources mentioned:
Ahrens, P. 1991. Die Geschichte der Agathenburger Schule von der Gründung durch Gräfin Catharina Charlotta Königsmarck 1697 bis zum Jahr 1900: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Landschulwesens im Elbe-Weser-Raum. Stade: Landkreis Stade – Der Oberkreisdirektor.
La Vopa, A. J. 1976. “From Schoolmasters to Schoolteachers: The Making of a Modern Professional Corporation in Prussia, 1763-1850.” PhD thesis, Cornell University.
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