Tag Archives: pro-democracy movement

The flawed theory about the so-called power of King Wachiralongkorn, and how he supposedly controls the Thai military junta, has led to idiotic conclusions among some Thais about the struggle for democracy in Burma/Myanmar and Thailand.

Comments on social media claiming that it “easier” for the people in Burma to fight the military “because they have no king” totally ignore the Burmese military’s history of brutality in suppressing unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. In fact it is likely that the Burmese army has shot down even more civilians in the streets than the Thai army. One academic, who believes in the power of the Thai king, even posted on social media that the British had done the people in Burma a “favour” by removing the monarchy! Hardly a favour when they replaced it with a brutal colonial dictatorship.

The comments also under-estimate the bravery of pro-democracy activists in Burma. They ignore the level of organisation among activists which have allowed the anti-coup protests to spring up in many towns and cities across Burma.

The idea about King Wachiralongkorn’s power, or even Pumipon’s power, was always a myth. Unfortunately it has been used by some as an excuse not to get involved in the struggle against the military. These people see no point in overthrowing the junta since the “all powerful” monarchy, which is “really in charge” will remain. It is a recipe for inaction based on a lie.

So those who are obsessed by the King and the Royal Family prefer the comfort of merely engaging in gossip about the royals on social media. They are not interested in proposing or debating concrete ideas about how to strengthen the mass movement against the military.

In the real world, the fact of the matter is that whether there is a monarchy or not, the military regimes in Thailand and Burma are both capable of using brute force to cling on to power. The issue about the monarchy is irrelevant to any strategy to fight both juntas.

The only difference between the Thai and Burmese militaries is that the Thai military uses the monarchy to justify its repression. But both use “the protection of the nation and religion” as excuses.

On the issue of using the monarchy, the “Move Forward Party” has tabled an amendment to the lèse-majesté law. But it insists that the law must be retained and that a maximum prison sentence of 1 year must also apply to those who insult the monarchy. It justifies this by saying that the monarch and his family must enjoy more protection than ordinary citizens in order to protect the “dignity” of the monarchy! The word “dignity” and the actual nature of the idiot parasite Wachiralongkorn are a contradiction! The Move Forward Party should change its name to the “Standing Still Party”.

Meanwhile scores of youth activists now face lèse-majesté charges and some are in jail because they have not been granted bail.

Workers

The organisation among activists in Burma is also seen in the number of strikes and protests by workers. We have seen action in the hospitals, schools, universities, civil service offices, the central bank, the railways, the courts and in at least one copper mine.

Workers in Burma are continuing a tradition of working class action from the past. The great uprising in 1988 started with a dock strike and expanded to a general strike against the military dictatorship.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Thailand. Workers did join last year’s youth protests, but only one protest on the Eastern seaboard was organised by trade unions. Strikes did not occur. When asked if worker activists were discussing building for strikes, a long standing activist from Rungsit replied that workers could hardly feed themselves, so they could not strike. Yet, Burmese workers are poorer than Thai workers and have equally been affected financially by Covid. So we see yet another excuse to not attempt to use the potential power of workers in Thailand.

We do not know if the people of Burma will manage to overthrow the junta there. But so far they are doing as much as they can to achieve this. If they are successful, the hope is that it will inspire renewed struggle in Thailand and an interest in building strikes.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Further reading:

Wachiralongkorn’s power https://bit.ly/2EOjsNL

Absolutism https://bit.ly/2teiOzQ

Can an absolute ruler hold power from abroad? https://bit.ly/3hxGFCv

Thai politics

Rubber Ducks Can’t Defeat the Military

December 2, 2020 uglytruththailand

The youth-led prodemocracy movement that erupted in August has been inspiring. It has made huge strides forward towards getting rid of the conservative and corrupt, military dominated, society. But it is time to take an honest look at what has been achieved while assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the movement.

Strengths

The movement has successfully rebuilt the pro-democracy movement on the streets in Bangkok and other locations up and down the country. This is after the bloody repression of the Red Shirt movement in 2010 and the following years when only small symbolic protests took place. At its height over 100,000 people have now taken to the streets in recent months. This is a remarkable achievement.

The protest movement has been invigorated by young people who are not afraid to defy the Old Order. Apart from the demands for the resignation of General Prayut as Prime Minister, and the demand to write a new “peoples” constitution, the protesters have dared to demand that the monarchy be reformed. This is long over-due and occurs in the face of a long history of stifling royalist propaganda and draconian laws used to protect the monarchy.

Young women have played key roles in the movement and activists from a wide range of campaigns have join the protests. LGBT and abortion rights issues have been raised. The right to self-determination for the people of Patani has also been flagged up. And the pressing need to reform the conservative and backward education system has also been a feature of protests by school students.

Rank and file organisation of the protests under the slogan “we are all leaders” has meant that demonstrations have continued when the original leaders have been arrested. The flash mobs are clearly well organised and continually use innovative styles of protest.

But there are weaknesses

Symbolism during the protests, for example, the use of rubber ducks, might be very photogenic and excite foreign journalists, but it cannot hide the fact that so far the protest movement has not been able to make the country ungovernable. Without doing this, Prayut’s parliamentary dictatorship cannot be overthrown. Rubber ducks are no substitute for real protest power that comes from strikes and workplace walk-outs. Unfortunately, little is being done to go out and visit worker activists in offices, banks, hospitals and factories in order to argue for strikes. This is mainly due to the appalling weakness of the left and the unwillingness of activists to rebuild a left-wing political organisation which can argue within the movement for an orientation on strikes.

The “we are all leaders” strategy means that it is difficult to have serious and democratic discussions about the way forward because no democratic structures exist within the movement which can encourage participation in decision making. The top protest leaders become de facto unelected leaders. This is not because they wish to be authoritarian, but it is an unintended result of the “we are all leaders” strategy. Instead there could have been mass discussion meetings and elections of a united front leadership committee. The Thai movement is not unique here. The same problem occurred with Podemos in the Spanish State.

If the movement fails to get strike action, we shall end up with a miserable compromise, carried out in the junta dominated parliament. Some sections of the constitution might be amended, but Prayut and the junta will not resign and the monarchy will not be reformed. [See https://bit.ly/3qol8Bl ].

A dozen protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté with the prospect of long drawn out court cases ending in draconian prison sentences. There does not seem to be any strategy to defend these leaders and to be able to pressure the regime to drop the charges.

Given the great strides made by the protest movement, it would be a terrible tragedy if very little was achieved in the end and the leaders ended up being isolated.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Thai politics

The history of struggle in Thailand

October 31, 2020 uglytruththailand

Watch this video of my talk on The History of the Peoples’ Struggle for Democracy in Thailand organised by the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM).

Issues covered include the present mass movement for democracy, the role and power of the monarchy and how the military are really in charge, and the power from below that can defeat the junta.

Thai politics

Youth-led movement challenges the Junta and the Monarchy

October 15, 2020 uglytruththailand

[updated 16th Oct 2020]

The impressive demonstration against the junta and the monarchy on 14^th October 2020 shows how far the movement has developed and it has raised the level of struggle for democracy.

Large youth-led pro-democracy protests have hit the Thai military junta from August this year. Crowds of up to 50,000 gathered around the Democracy Monument in the centre of Bangkok on 16^th August. On 19^th September, an important anniversary of a military coup against an elected government in 2006, crowds swelled to over 100,000. On the 14^th October, on the 47th anniversary of a mass uprising against a military dictatorship, crowds gathered in similar numbers and marched to Government House to demand the resignation of the dictator Prayut Chan-ocha. They also demanded the writing of a new constitution and the reform of the Monarchy.

This time the stakes had been raised by the military government, which insisted that the protest should be cancelled because the king had decided to visit a nearby temple. Protesters ignored the government and the numbers swelled to 100,000 by nightfall, when people joined after work. The government conscripted state municipal employees and soldiers to line the roads wearing yellow royalist shirts in order to welcome the royal cavalcade. The Thai ruling class treated the civilian conscripts like dirt as many were transported in open trucks and some even had to sit in dust carts. Many voiced their displeasure and some were seen making the 3 fingered salute used by the pro-democracy protesters.

Police allowed the queen to be driven through the demonstrating crowds and she was met with the 3 fingered salute and even a few middle finger gestures. The crowd shouted “my taxes!” at her.

The protests were organised by a group of mainly young people and university students, initially calling themselves the “Free People” organisation. They have now created a coalition calling itself the “Peoples’ Party” after the movement that led the 1932 revolution that successfully toppled the Absolute Monarchy. The new generation leading the protest movement has become acutely aware of the importance of the historical struggle for democracy. What marks this latest movement out from the previous Red Shirt movement for democracy ten years ago is that they are independent of any political parties. In fact the main stream opposition parties cannot keep up with the movement.

In the days following the August protest, secondary school students up and down the country staged “3 finger salute” protests during the compulsory flag raising ceremony before start of school. Often it was young women who were the most militant. The playing of the 8 am National Anthem at a number of mass transit rail stations was temporarily stopped for fear that people would raise the 3 finger salute. [See more about this in a previous post on this site.]

In the late evening of 14^th October, the protest leaders decided it was safer to disband and regroup the next day at Rartprasong intersection, the site of Red Shirt protests in 2010. The junta talked tough, announced emergency powers, banned all protest and arrested some of the protest leaders. However, on 15^th October thousands gathered at Rartprasong to defy the government. Prominent among the demonstrators were school students in their uniforms. Again women students were some of the most militant.

The next day (16th October) protesters gathered further down the road from the previous day because the police had blocked off Rartprasong. See below. As night fell the paramilitary riot police moved in, using water cannon, spraying the young people with water mixed with a liquid irritant. Many people were arrested. At time of writing, the movement is at a junction. Either they increase the pressure on the junta or they step back and risk losing momentum. One way to increase pressure is to try to get working people to take strike action.

The 3 fingered salute was borrowed from Hunger Games, and became a symbol of opposition to the military dictatorship during anti-coup protests in 2014. The present junta came to power through a middle-class backed coup in 2014. Elections were eventually held in 2019, but under anti-democratic rules and a reactionary constitution drawn up by the military. Despite losing the popular vote to anti-junta parties, the military appointed senate helped to propel the junta back into government with the dictator Prayut Chan-ocha as Prime Minister.

People are scandalised and fed-up by the behaviour of the new king, Wachiralongkorn, who spends his life with his harem in Germany and has changed the constitution in order to allow this life style and in order to amass even more wealth. It is the first time in decades that people have had the confidence to criticise the king in public, despite the fact that there are draconian laws against this.

The powerful military has traditionally used the weak monarchy as a tool to justify authoritarian rule. Many ordinary activists in Thailand believe that there is an Absolute Monarchy. But nothing could be further from the truth. The movement should not over-estimate the power of the king.

Since 1932, the Monarchy has had very little power in itself and is a willing tool of the military and the conservatives. Although the much welcomed criticism of the monarchy can weaken the junta and hasten the long over-due day that Thailand becomes a republic, the military and its parliamentary dictatorship remain the main enemy of Thai democracy and a strong mass movement to topple the military is still needed.

The real people with power among the Thai elites are the army, high-ranking state officials and business leaders. They prostrate themselves on the ground and pay homage to the king on TV, while exercising the real power in the land and enriching themselves. This is an ideological play, acted out for the benefit of fooling the public. The fact that it is in any way believable by many is a great example of what Marx called “alienation”. It is when we are feeling powerless that we are more likely to believe the nonsense fed to us by the ruling class.

The Thai Absolute Monarchy was overthrown in the 1932 revolution and for a period the country was rule by anti-Monarchy civilians and generals. In the 1950s, during the Cold War, the Monarchy was revived and promoted by military dictatorships. The “return” of the Monarchy reminds me of what the historian Christopher Hill wrote about the restoration of Charles II after the English Revolution. He wrote that “Charles was called King by the Grace of God, but he was really King by the grace of the merchants and squires”. One could say that the Thai king is king by the grace of the military generals and capitalists.

At time of writing it is difficult to predict what will happen next. However, lessons from the 1970s and from the defeated Red Shirt protests ten years ago show that what is needed urgently is to expand the movement into the organised working class. The working class is the main location of our side’s power. The workplace is where the ruling class’ power is potentially weak. The lack of a significant organisation of the Left makes the task of mobilising workers more difficult, but it is hoped that militants will step forward to try and achieve this. Unfortunately a call for a “General Strike” on 14^th October was made without any concrete work being done among the working class and it never happened. Socialists know that it is far easier to make abstract calls for General Strikes rather than to actually do the necessary organisational work to bring one about in practice.

Socialists do exist in Thailand and it is the job of such people, no matter how small in number, to encourage the spread of radical ideas into the working class and to strengthen trade union struggles. This is best carried out if we attempt to build the beginnings of a revolutionary socialist party.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn