[Tlc] T-article

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Forwarded from a member.
Thanks,
justin


The Straits Times, 16 April 2009
 
BANGKOK PROTESTS-Red Shirts Not Just a Proxy for Thaksin
 

 

Peter Vail
		
Red shirt protesters may prominently display Thaksin's portrait, but this does not necessarily denote a palpable allegiance to the former Thai premier himself. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
 
 
NOW that the street protests in Bangkok have been quelled, however temporarily, a consensus appears to be rapidly emerging in the media: namely, that the 'red shirts' hurt their cause by tangling with local Bangkok residents; and that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has regained some political stature for 'exercising restraint' and avoiding heavy-handed violence.

This assessment ignores what has hurt the red shirt cause even more: the perception that it is an unvarnished and unwashed proxy for deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Leaders of the red shirt movement as a whole have actively fostered the connection to Thaksin in public, and it has become a standard unexamined riff in nearly all press coverage. The purportedly blind allegiance that the red shirts maintain to Thaksin, and the money the latter pumps in, has alienated many Thais from their cause. Equally sceptical of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) that helped overthrow the previous government, such Thais have no political preferences and, as a result, have resorted increasingly to cynicism and despair.

What bedevils the red shirt movement - and by extension rural Thailand in general - are precisely those links to Thaksin, shouted so loudly and frequently over megaphones and in the press that all other voices within the movement are drowned out. If we look closely, however, we find that many rank-and-file red shirts do have an agenda beyond 'Thaksin Now!'. We should perhaps start listening more closely to what they have to say.

The Guardian's Jonathon Watts reported on Tuesday: 'Another (red shirt protester) showed his slingshot and said he expected the soldiers to come soon, adding that the outside world did not understand the reasons for the protests. 'We don't care about Thaksin. We just want democracy, we've never had it in Thailand.''

In the many years I've spent living in north-eastern Thailand, I have come across such alternative discourses almost daily. But they are typically uttered by people who are politically and socially powerless. Once incorporated into the broader red shirt movement, such people's motives are inevitably framed in simplistic political sloganeering over which they have little control.

Tribalistic symbols like coloured shirts are a dangerous weapon in this respect. While providing a clear rallying point, they are unsubtle and slippery symbols, readily manipulated by those holding the megaphone.

In fact, for many people in the north-east, 'Thaksin' serves more as a convenient shorthand for desperately needed and highly esteemed populist policies, and a sense of political inclusion long denied them. Invoking his name does not necessarily denote a palpable allegiance to Thaksin himself, although admittedly paternalistic politics still runs strong in this region.

Citizens where I lived often said that they cared little about Thaksin per se, but that they thoroughly detested the Bangkok-centric alternatives. They were deeply offended by the flippant calls PAD made for their political disenfranchisement, and they were enraged by derisive remarks depicting them as bumbling peasants, uneducated and civically irresponsible.

If nothing else, rural Thais are pragmatic. They scorn the hypocrisy of urban elites and Democrats who complain about vote-buying in the provinces, when they can see for themselves that the pot calling the kettle black is of the same shade of black itself.

Perhaps the jingoism fuelling the yellows, reds and now blues has pushed these factions beyond any hope for dialogue or truce. I hope that is not the case. If a few inches of daylight can be prised between Thaksin and the red shirt movement - and if the movement itself will allow it - we may recognise that the red shirts have legitimate civic grievances, and addressing them substantively may heal some rifts between city and country, a first step towards national reconciliation.

But if the red shirts continue to be uncritically conjoined with Thaksin, if we (and they) are deaf to the myriad voices comprising the movement - or just as badly, if we let them be painted even more distractingly as 'Republicans' or 'Red Siamese' socialists - then we will squander what is perhaps the best chance to find some common ground and perhaps a slender ray of reason in the current bellicose chaos.

The writer, formerly an assistant professor of political science at Ubon Ratchathani University in north-eastern Thailand, teaches in the National University of Singapore's University Scholars Programme.

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