Smoothing the future, stirring up the past

26 July 1999

How to be a radical? How to make things change? The 7th International Conference on Thai Studies, held recently in Amsterdam, focused on the theme of: Thailand as a civil society. For the 400 academics and activists who gathered for the event, this resolved into one main issue. Does the explosion of political debate, NGO activism, and enthusiasm for reform of all kinds signify real change in Thai society? Are there really new opportunities to make a difference (over AIDS, the environment, human rights, gender, minorities, political reform) by joining organisations and working with the system to try to change it? Or is all this activity just a sideshow, a distraction? Have the great victories (like the 1997 constitution) been more symbolic than real? Is the Thai state at heart still so shaped by its absolutist and dictatorial past that any attempt to work with it can end only in dire disappointment or corrupting compromise?

For the generation that dominated the conference, the twin events of October 1973 and October 1976 are the defining moments of Thailand’s modern history. Two of the keynote speeches dealt with these events and their impact on the present. And two of the 1970s leaders offered contrasting images of how to be a radical a quarter-century down the road.

Thirayuth Boonmee was a leader of the student revolt against military dictatorship in October 1973. Now he has become a kind of lay abbot. He immerses himself in the texts and practices of modern Thai society and politics. He emerges from his ivory kuti once a year to preach a sermon guiding his followers through the world of political illusions in search of a better future. Through the 1990s, he has been largely optimistic about the decline of the military, the growth of political activism, the reform of the constitution. His sermons say: get involved.

But the resulting progress is so slow. To move ahead, Thirayuth preached to the conference, a society needs to have some shared vision on what a better future might look like. Nationalism and Marxism have been tried and rejected. Now the words ‘civil society’ project a vision of reduced state control and greater individual participation. But, Thirayuth wonders, can Thais really imagine such a future? After their history of absolutism and dictatorship, even the words are not available. All the Thai translations of ‘citizen’ are words invented by the state to enforce duties on the people, not rights. The word for ‘society’ (sangkhom) originally meant ‘high society’ and has barely lost this meaning of division. All the new words beginning with ‘pracha-‘ invented to convey ideas of civil society, popular rights and people’s power are comprehensible to only a small intellectual minority. There are no good Thai terms for things like decentralisation. If Thailand is to have a civil society, Thirayuth suggests, it first needs the vocabulary. And his self-appointed job is to create it. Despite the slow progress, Thirayuth is still involved.

Thongchai Winichakul was prominent in October 1976 when the army violently suppressed student radicalism. Since then, he has become the most feted modern Thai historian in the international arena. But he has been removed from Thai society - first by jail, and then by self-exile. He functions now as a distant spirit who resides most of the time in the remote chilly regions of north America. He can be summoned up from time to time only by the proper spirit mediums (conference organisers). He is a disorderly spirit who concentrates the chaotic energies from bad events in the past. His role is to stir things up, to spread doubt, to challenge any slide to complacency, to remind the optimistic reformers just how difficult their task truly is.

While Thirayuth dwelt on the problems of building a future, Thongchai talked about the difficulties of understanding the past. The roots of Thai democracy have become very murky. Originally, the story began with the revolt against absolutism by the People’s Party in 1932. But after this movement collapsed into fascism and military rule, this version was forgotten. In its place, a new story traced the origin of Thai democracy back to King Prajadhiphok’s benevolence in granting a first constitution to the Thai people. One story stresses revolt from below. The other highlights benevolence from above. Which to believe?

Similarly, Thongchai went on, there is difficulty about understanding the great events of the 1970s. Should October 1973 and October 1976 be remembered as two complementary parts of one single movement - a revolt from below against military dictatorship and domination of all kinds? Or are they different? Is 1973 a good story in which the King sided with the students to bring down the military dictators; while 1976 is a bad story in which student radicals went too far in challenging the whole structure of power? Thongchai’s suggestion was clear. Is there a limit on what can be achieved from below? Is this the true limit on ‘civil society’?

In the conference’s most fragile moment, Thongchai brought all this together. For years, activists have pressed for a monument to commemorate those who died in the events of 1973 and 1976. Recently, the project has suddenly become possible. But the monument commemorates only 1973. Thongchai hinted this had come about because Thirayuth, in the course of his earnest efforts to build a civil society, now works closely with the great and the powerful. These connections made it possible to overcome opposition to the monument project. But only by sacrificing the memory of 1976. The meaning of this hint was not purely or even mainly personal. Thongchai was pointing to a much bigger danger. Many of the veterans of 1973 and 1976 are now important figures in the day-to-day political life of Thailand. Thirayuth is a thinker. Many others have become MPs. Some are important in business. Several figure in the professions, in academia, in the media. They are working inside the system. They often retain at least some of their youthful zeal for change. But how much can they achieve against a deeply conservative system which is capable of Kremlin-like rewriting of the histories of 1932 and 1973-6?

This same theme echoed through panel after conference panel - on environment, health, rights, minorities, political reform, rural protest. Some said: reform will only come by working alongside state agencies. Others countered: that route leads always to deadening compromise; the strategy must be to wrest power away from the state to popular hands. The first group replied: but that is hopeless idealism.

The same theme ran through the conference’s most dramatic scene. Me Ju is an Akha woman who participated in the hill people’s protest for citizenship rights in Chiang Mai in June. She addressed the conference in an old Dutch church, with the black and silver of her Akha costume standing out against the setting’s gloomy grandeur like white fire. She spoke in fluent and articulate Thai, showing off the strings of identity cards, certificates and medallions which her people had received over the years. These were the product of working with the system and accepting its authority. But none of these trinkets grant true nationality. Rather they are an official way of avoiding doing so. They are certificates of the state’s bad faith.

The June protest was broken up by the police. But it may in the long run lead to some change. Me Ju herself signifies both compromise and protest. She has been through Thai education to master the language of negotiation. Now she wears her traditional dress as a badge of difference and defiance.

Perhaps change really comes from a mixture of earnest cooperation and chaotic protest. Perhaps Thailand needs both its lay abbots (Thirayuth) earnestly working inside the system to plot routes towards the future, and its disorderly spirits (Thongchai) stirring up memories of the past to warn of the dangers of compromise.