[Tlc] T-response to the "joke"

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from Dr. Thongchai Winichakul. I was sent a "joke" application. I knew it was a joke (it wasn't subtle for anyone who reads Thai). However, I sent it out because it was sent in by a member and I am trying to be equitable and sending out messages from all our members. 

Professor Winichakul's response is definitely worth reading and thinking about during these confusing, violent, oppressive, and sad times.

Best regards,
justin


I don't know what this joke ("Red-shirt application") suggests, or what the 
sender implies. And I respect Justin's job as a "postman". But the joke 
reminds me of 33 years ago when students were ridiculed as idiotic 
Vietnamese communists. Not a day went by without cartoons or flyers of jokes 
about Vietnemese and communists. After many students got killed in the Oct 
76 massacre, the "jokes" about them continued a long while. Their deaths 
were funny to some. As many were in jail, their families got ridiculed at 
work and by their neighbors.

Last month as I launched the campaign for the reform of the lese majeste 
law, I got several anonymous emails. You can guess what kind of emails. A 
few of them are "jokes" about my Chinese parents, my career as an 
intellectual prostitute in the US, and my less-than-human, stupid and 
un-Thai life.

Remember a taxi driver, Nuamthong Praiwal, who crashed his car against a 
tank on Sept 19, 2006, to protest against the coup? As he was still alive 
after the crash, he was ridiculed in public by one of the coup leaders. A 
day after he was released from hospital, he hanged himself from a pedestrian 
bridge to protest the coup again. He left a suicide note which is one of the 
most powerful political statements in Thai political history. His protest 
and his fight for democracy was not a joke. Had he been alive, it is 100% 
certain that he would be among the Red-shirt protesters.

One of the most thoughtless "jokes" in Thai and international media is the 
protrayal that these Red shirt protesters only fought for Thaksin for no 
reason, and for 500 baht. On Monday, I listened to the leaders of the 
Red-shirt protest at what they believed to be their final hour before 
getting killed. Veera Musikapong, the top leader, talked about his rocky 
political career because of his stubborn convictions. He talked about his 
deep believe in (Buddhist) Karma and why he fights this battle as a good 
Buddhist. Their fight -- with all the mistakes and shortfalls -- was highly 
honorable. Right now jokes about them and the Red-shirt people, their fight 
and their defeat, are not in short supply. The Red shirt Application is an 
example of them.

All of these "jokes" are funny only to those who see their political 
opponents less worth, perhaps less human, than they are; their lives, their 
convictions and their sacrifices worth little, perhaps less than an ugly, 
distasteful joke itself. All of these jokes are thoughtless dehumanization 
of those honorable people and their actions. These "jokes" are toxic to our 
mind and our spirituality.

Thongchai Winichakul




______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu