King Pumipon of Thailand was a weak and characterless monarch who spent his useless and privileged life in a bubble, surrounded by fawning, grovelling, toadies who claimed that he was a “god”.
He was a pathetic creature who should not in any way be pitied. His life’s work was in self-enrichment, support for military regimes and the defence of inequality. He played a significant role in preventing democratic rights, the development of social justice and the fair and unbiased use of the law. He did this by legitimising all the worst government policies and atrocities committed by Thai rulers.
In recent years he remained silent while more and more dissidents were jailed, under the draconian lèse majesté law, for merely speaking out against the destruction of democracy. He always remained silent about the killing of innocent civilians by the military. Pumipon was a willing tool of the military, who constantly staged coups and obstructed democracy and the economic development of the Thai people.
For Pumipon, this resulted in great rewards. He amassed so much wealth from the work of others during his reign, that he became the richest man in Thailand and the richest monarch in the world. Yet he preached, through the “Sufficiency Economy Ideology” that his “subjects” should be happy in their poverty and he always opposed any redistribution of wealth. Thailand is one of the most unequal countries in Asia.
His toadies had to constantly project a photo of him with a drop of sweat falling from his nose. The photo was always the same one, since Pumipon seldom did anything to work up a real sweat. Unbelievably, his followers wept when the Palace released a photo of him tying his own shoe-laces without help from any servants. He allowed the use of crawling and special royal language in his presence, without any sense of shame, and he passed on his warped and elitist view of the world to his dysfunctional children.
Pumipon was born in the United States and spent much of his youth in Switzerland. His love of fast cars and the good life resulted in him losing an eye in a car accident. He came to the throne after his elder brother died from gunshot wounds to the head in 1946. His brother’s death was either a suicide or a gun accident, involving Pumipon. Either way, Pumipon was fully aware of the circumstances of his brother’s death, but chose to keep them a secret, allowing three innocent palace staff to be executed and allowing Pridi Panomyong to be falsely blamed for the incident by his political opponents. Pumipon carried on his career as a monarch in this deceitful and spineless manner for the rest of his life.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was used by Thailand’s corrupt and despotic ruler, field marshal Sarit Tanarat, to build a strong coalition between the military and the monarchists. The monarchy had fallen into disrepute and was very unpopular among the Thai people in the 1930s and 1940s, before and after the successful revolution which overthrew the absolute monarchy in 1932.
Even key military leaders had republican leanings in those days. Sarit and the monarchists used the Cold War as a means of building up the prestige of the conservative elites. King Pumipon was systematically promoted as the symbolic figurehead of this “anti-communist” alliance and Pumipon became very fond of Sarit. Even the US government helped out by distributing photos of the king to villagers in rural areas as part of the fight against communism. Any house without such a picture would be deemed as “red”.
When the dictator Sarit died, his deputies, Tanom and Prapart, became the next bunch of corrupt military rulers and Pumipon carried on working with them. Never once did Pumipon ever speak up for democracy or social justice. Never once did he criticise corruption. The military promoted the king and his so-called “Royal Projects”, but over the years these projects had little impact on the standard of living of the majority of Thais.
In October 1973, the military regime was overthrown by a mass popular uprising and Pumipon was called upon by the elites to step in and protect the status quo. This he did by appearing on television and announcing a new civilian government. Thus he also managed to pretend that he was a “democratic king”.
But the dark clouds of class struggle were looming. This was at the height of the Vietnam War and the students and social activists in Thailand were looking for real social change. They were attracted by the ideas of the Communist Party. Pumipon joined up with the military and conservative elites in promoting right wing paramilitary groups, such as the Village Scouts, which attacked the students and the left. The end result was a bloody crackdown at Thammasart University in October 1976.
Pumipon supported this crackdown, the military coup that followed and the general repression and censorship under the new dictatorship. He justified this, saying in December 1976 that Thailand had had “too much democracy”. Left-leaning Thais hated him for this. After the massacre, Thailand was plunged into a civil war between the government and the Communist Party.
By the mid-1980s, the democratic space in Thailand was opening and an elected civilian government came to power. This was toppled by another military coup in 1991. Pumipon supported the military leaders again. However, a mass popular uprising and street fighting in Bangkok in 1992 ended the dictatorship.
When it was clear that the army had lost, Pumipon appeared again in public in order to claim his democratic credentials. But scores of people had been killed. Democratic elections were held and the political elites fell over each other to grovel and praise the “Great King”, while promoting and re-promoting his “super human talents”. By doing this they increased their own legitimacy. Pumipon lapped this all up and probably came to believe himself that he was divine.
One of those elite politicians was Taksin Shinawat, who won repeated elections because his party had serious pro-poor policies. The vast majority of the Thai electorate enjoyed real and immediate economic and social gains from these policies. This was in stark contrast to the king’s supposedly good works over many decades. Going with the flow as ever, Pumipon praised Taksin’s brutal War on Drugs, in which 3,000 people were killed by extra-judiciary means.
Taksin’s influence among the majority of the electorate eventually enraged his rivals among the conservative elites: the army, the bureaucracy and the conservative political and business classes. The result was the 2006 and 2014 military coups and the subsequent destruction of democracy. Pumipon was a willing tool in these coups too, allowing his name to be used by the army and the royalist thugs who had laid the ground for such coups. He never once had the courage or the integrity to help prevent the growing political crisis. In fact, Pumipon has never built stability for Thai citizens and never managed to “hold the country together”. He is a symbol of naked class oppression.
When the army gunned down nearly a hundred civilians in April and May 2010, Pumipon remained silent. He was old, but he could still speak, often making speeches to newly appointed judges. This event alone was enough to show that having a king as head of state was at best a complete waste of public money. This event, and the two military coups, have raised serious questions in the minds of millions of Thai citizens about the so-called benefits of having Pumipon, or anyone else, as king. There is now a strong republican sentiment throughout Thailand. But it faces real repression.
Many wrongly believed that Pumipon was powerful and ordered the 2006 coup and even the 2010 killings. By the time of the 2014 coup, he was so incapacitated by old age that he probably had limited awareness about what was happening. This did not stop general Prayut from using him, however.
The fact is that Pumipon never had political power. His role was always to provide a strong ideological legitimacy for the elites and their actions, especially the actions of the army. Pumipon was never brave or resolute enough to be a political leader. He was the bright fairy on top of the Christmas tree. His ideological role was not just about defending the military and the undemocratic elites. His reactionary “Sufficiency Economy” ideology was designed to oppose any redistribution of wealth and to support neoliberalism by opposing state intervention to alleviate poverty. All sections of the Thai elite sought to use him for their own benefit. This included top businessmen, including Taksin, and the civilian and military bureaucrats.
Pumipon lived a life of luxury built on lies. He was promoted as the “Father of the Nation, loved by all”. Yet his son, the crown prince, is a half-wit and a bully, hated by many. He oppresses all women by publishing naked pictures of his women on the internet.
Pumipon was supposed to be a “genius”. It was claimed that he led a “simple life”. Yet any criticism of his actions or those of the royalist elites would be harshly punished by the use of the lèse majesté law. This is why many obituaries about him written by foreign journalists will continue to repeat the usual lies and nonsense in praise of this pathetic and loathsome man.
Pumipon was a shy and alienated individual, more comfortable in the company of his dogs than that of fellow human beings. Millions of Thais will hope that his death will open the door to progressive changes to society. But they will be disappointed because nothing is automatic.
We must continue the fight for democracy and social justice and we still have to deal with the military and Pumipon’s reactionary successor. It is time for a genuine democratic republic. The amassed wealth of the Thai royal family and all their palaces should be turned over to the people in order to build a welfare state. Shed not one tear for Pumipon. Instead, think of those who were killed in his name by the military and all the people who will have to suffer from the long drawn out and very expensive funeral rites.
Lazy journalists will claim that the long-running political crisis was all about the succession. But the main reason for the decade of political crisis was never about the king’s failing health or succession but can be traced back to the 1997 economic crisis and the attempt by Taksin Shinawat to modernise Thai society. The Asian Economic crisis was the spark that exposed the existing fault-lines in Thai society, and the actions of political actors in response to this eventually led to a <a href="http://bit.ly/2d9UUAu">back-lash against democracy</a> by the conservatives.
The King is dead! Long live the Republic!

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The king is dead! Long live the republic!

In just one week at the end of 2015, the long and disgraceful tradition of impunity for state murders was reinforced once again in Thailand.
That week, former unelected prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his thuggish right hand man, Sutep Teuksuban, were cleared of wrongdoing for their part in ordering the cold-blooded murder of nearly one hundred pro-democracy demonstrators in 2010.
This was no surprise, because the present junta leader, Generalissimo Prayut, was also centrally involved in this state crime and had a hand in appointing the Abhisit government against the express wishes of most citizens. The grotesque justification for this crime was the need to clear the roads around luxury shopping centres. The unarmed protesters were demanding democratic elections.
In the same week, the courts quashed a long-running case concerning the murder of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaichit. Somchai was defending a group of Malay Muslims who were tortured by police into confessing that they took part in a raid to steal weapons from an army base in the south. Somchai was “disappeared” by policemen from several different units, indicating a green light from the top. Thaksin Shinawatra was prime minister at the time. Thaksin also has blood on his hands from the deliberate murder of unarmed protesters at Takbai in 2004.
Impunity for state crimes in Thailand has a long tradition stretching back to 1973 and beyond. No government official, politician, policeman or soldier has ever been put on trial for unspeakable crimes of violence committed in 1973, 1976 and 1992. All these crimes were carried out in order to defend dictatorships.
Impunity for state crimes also extends to non-state actors who are allied to the state, such as the violent mobs in 1976, and more recently the royalist mobs led by the yellow shirt PAD, the fascist monk “Buddha Isara” and Sutep Teuksuban.
It is obvious that there are no standards of human rights in Thailand. Why is this so? The main explanation is the prevailing conservative attitude of the elites, reinforced by military brutality, which does not tolerate the fact that citizens should be equal. The Thai people are usually called “Ras-sa-don” which means “people who live in the land belonging to the king”. It is an out of date concept and is incompatible with the modern democratic world.
In workplaces, employers think that they have absolute rights over their employees. The attitude is fully enshrined in labour laws as well as in the minds of the judges who fail to deliver justice. When judges sit in court, they look at the poor with contempt. The children of the rich can get away easily when they kill people because “daddy” buys the police and judges.
We see inequality in the mainstream body language in Thai society. Ordinary people have to crawl to show their respect for people who are in power or are their seniors. This grotesque culture has been taught through schools and families. In the elite households, they make their maids crawl to them as well. The unequal concepts can be easily seen in daily conversations, especially with personal pronouns that signify social position. Women are told that they need to call themselves “Noo” which means “little mouse” in a childish fashion. The idea simply identifies women as second class citizens.
Yet all this is only half the picture. The other half is about the continuing struggle by ordinary people against injustice and inequality. This is met with violence from above, but on many occasions dictatorships have been overthrown and the elites pushed back.
What is needed more than anything is a powerful mass social movement that can establish more long-lasting democracy and high standards of human rights. Throughout the world, including Thailand, independent trade unions have played a vital part in this struggle. Without such a movement, impunity for state crimes will continue. “People power” is the key here. Hopes of establishing a “truth commission” by well-meaning academics will achieve nothing without this power.
We need to abolish the National Human Rights Commission. The organisation is full of soldiers, police and academics who stand against democracy. A pro-democracy mass movement, which can influence public opinion, is much more effective than a state-sponsored human rights commission.
We need to overthrow the physical and political power of the army and the ideological influence of the monarchy in order to bring state criminals to justice. In the long term, we need to increase rights in workplaces, schools and universities. And we need full gender rights.
We need human dignity and respect. These things have to be fought for because no-one is going to hand them down from above.
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Giles Ji Ungpakorn is an exiled socialist and Thai dissident living in the United Kingdom. First published at <a href="https://uglytruththailand.wordpress.com/">UglyTruthThailand.wordpress.com</a>.

A tradition of impunity for Thai state murders

Giles Ji Ungpakorn, exiled Thai socialist and dissident, comments on recent events under the military dictatorship of Prayut Chan-ocha, which took power last year.
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Brave young pro-democracy student activists, who call themselves the “New Democracy Movement” and the “Dao-Din” students, have thrown down a challenge to all of us and also to themselves.
In a statement read out a day before they were arrested and sent to a military court for peacefully demanding freedom and democracy, they made the following call to all of us who want an end to the vile Thai military dictatorship.
“We understand very well that you may not feel ready to come out and fight in the open. We understand if you have fear in your hearts. We also harbour that fear. But you can no long remain silent and inactive because by doing that in the face of the junta’s illegitimate use of power, you end up condoning the regime by your silence.
“Our struggle today will be meaningless if you remain passive. You might not feel that the state of affairs has had a negative impact on you right now, but we all know that this cannot remain the case forever. Do not wait until it is too late and there is no one left who is prepared to fight.”
One thing is clear: it is no longer enough to praise these young activists and wish them well. If we remain mere spectators, viewing some symbolic defiance of the junta by the students, the dictatorship can never be overthrown.
But merely making a call for action, in the way that these activists have done, does not automatically result in a mass uprising against the military. The act of merely writing this short article which you are now reading is also not going to result in an uprising.
We need to learn from the lessons of the <a href="https://uglytruththailand.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/the-14th-october-1973-uprising/">14 October 1973 uprising against the dictatorship</a>, when half a million students and working people came out on to the streets of Bangkok and faced down tanks and guns and beat the military. That uprising was sparked by the arrests of pro-democracy activists. But there are some crucial differences.
We can obviously ignore the infantile stupidity of junta leader generalissimo Prayut when he said that “today is not like 16 October”. In Thailand, people who refer to “16 October” show a total ignorance of Thai history. The uprising against the military in the 1970s took place on 14 October BE2516.*
The repressive back-lash that destroyed those hard won freedoms took place three years later on 6 October BE 2519. “16 October” therefore has no meaning. For all his Thai nationalism, Prayut knows nothing of Thai history.
But we must take seriously a mistaken view among some of the student activists who believe that the difference between 1973 and today is the power of the media and the internet. Certainly there was no internet in those days, but people still knew what was going on.
One of the most important lessons from the 14 October 1973 uprising was that it did not just arise out of thin air. Students and workers in those days had mass organisations and the anger at the military repression fed into those mass organisations and resulted in half a million people being pulled on to the streets.
Added to this was the political influence of the Communist Party in putting forward a clear and unified critique of society, even though the party played little role in organising the uprising.
What we urgently need is mass organisation. The Red Shirts were a mass movement, but the UDD leadership [the opposition United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship] has placed the Red Shirt Movement in cold storage. It is up to all of us to step up to the challenge and rebuild a democracy movement which can eventually respond to the call by today’s students.
The absence of a left political party has also created difficulties. The idiot generals may claim that “they know who is backing the students”, but this is just a routine lie. Unfortunately, there is no organisation backing the students.
If we look around Thai society we see that the so-called NGO-led “Peoples Movement” is blinded by its post-communist adherence to single-issues. Many even support the junta. The Labour Solidarity Committee can make a futile call to Prayut to raise the minimum wage, while refusing to oppose the junta. Many other single issue campaigners are doing the same.
But the “Dao Din” students have gone beyond single issues. They campaign for land rights and against the dictatorship at the same time. Such an approach is of vital importance. The 14 October 1973 uprising linked discontent with social and economic issues in with the struggle against the military. That was why it was so powerful.
Today the challenge for us all, but also for the active students, is whether we can all help to rebuild a mass movement for democracy which weaves together all the pressing issues of society.
* The legal calendar in Thailand refers to the Buddhist Era, which begins 543 years earlier that the Christian Era calendar used in the West.
[First published at <a href="http://www.redthaisocialist.com/">redthaisocialist.com</a>.]

Pro-democracy students throw down a challenge in Thailand

Lese majeste is the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state. It has been prohibited in Thailand since 1908.
From 1990 to 2005, the court system heard only four or five cases per year. After a military coup in 2006, which was backed by the Royal family, the number jumped to an average of 80 per year.
The law is not really about causing offence, but is deployed against activists and those questioning the role of the royal family and the military in Thai politics. Activists, academics and the press all have come under attack or have been threatened with the use of the law. 
Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a socialist and academic who was forced into exile after his book, A Coup for the Rich, was published in 2006, here argues that abolishing lese majeste, getting rid of the monarchy and breaking the power of the military are preconditions for a truly democratic Thailand.
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In the wake of yet more outrageous jail sentences given to two young activists under lese majeste, it is important to continue to condemn this law and demand the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
Let us not pretend. The use of the lese majeste law in Thailand is tied up with the power and influence of the military and the use of the monarchy by the Thai elites. Therefore freedom in Thailand is conditional on destroying the power of the military and abolishing the monarchy and lese majeste. Tinkering about with one or the other will do nothing to expand the democratic space.
Lese majeste cases are about punishing people who dare to criticise the powerful establishment and the status quo. They have little to do with “insulting the monarchy”, a phrase often used by much of the international media.
It is unnecessary to explain to most people that the lese majeste law represents a gross attack on the freedom of speech, freedom of expression and academic freedom. The practical impact is that Thailand has struggled for years to achieve a fully developed democracy, a free press and internationally accepted academic standards in universities.
Lese majeste prisoners are tried in secret courts and denied bail. The royalist judges claim that the offence is “too serious” and “a threat to national security”. Jail terms for lese majeste are draconian for those who do not admit “guilt”.
Today the military junta is also hearing such cases in military courts. Meanwhile state killers like self-appointed prime minister General Prayut, and many others, are never punished. The consequence is that there is no functioning justice system in the country.
Thai dictatorships have used the excuse that their opponents were seeking to “overthrow the monarchy” in order to kill unarmed demonstrators in 1976 and 2010.
Lese majeste is not just about censorship, violence and intimidation by the state. The widespread use of the law and the manic promotion of the monarchy by the military, and others, is a green light for royalist thugs and other non-state actors to commit violence or make threats against citizens. It applies to all those who are merely accused of lese majeste by anyone, whether or not they are actually charged or found guilty.
Because the military has always had a problem with trying to legitimise its actions by quoting “democracy”, it has relied heavily upon using the monarchy to shore-up its legitimacy. At the same time, the military also needed to promote the monarchy because royalist feelings are never automatic among the Thai population. This process was initiated in the 1960s.
Today the military always claim that they are “protecting the monarchy” and that “they are the loyal servants of the king and queen”. We see the generals in photo poses, supposedly taking orders from royalty. Yet it is the generals who are really in charge of the Palace. The Palace willingly cooperates in this arrangement, gaining much wealth and prestige.
If we are to understand the role of the king in Thai society, we have to understand the double act performed by the military and the monarchy. For ruling classes to achieve hegemony in most modern societies, they require both coercion and legitimacy.
The monarchy symbolises the conservative ideology which gives legitimacy to the authoritarian actions of the military and their allies. It is a double act of “power” and “ideological legitimacy”. In this double act the weak-willed king Pumipon has no real power. Throughout his wasted life king Pumipon has never promoted democracy, social peace, harmony, or the well-being of Thai citizens. He has only defended authoritarian power and gross inequality of wealth.
That is why we need to get rid of the monarchy and destroy the power of the military.
[First published at <a href="http://redthaisocialist.com/">Red Thai Socialist</a>.]

Freedom for Thailand!

The Thai military junta’s handpicked government, which came to power in May overthrowing the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, on 23 January voted to impeach the former prime minister.
Yingluck has been banned from political activity for five years and is charged with criminal negligence relating to subsidies for rice farmers. She faces up to 10 years in prison.
Here, exiled Thai socialist Giles Ji Ungpakorn explains the latest developments
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Let us be clear. The impeachment motion against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawat, submitted to the junta’s appointed Assembly by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, over her role in the rice price support scheme for farmers, is a total farce and a red herring.
It is a deliberate part of the anti-reforms designed to destroy democracy. It has nothing to do with the rice scheme.
Yingluk is accused of “allowing corruption to take place” in this rice scheme and of presiding over financial losses to the government.
Firstly, it should be made clear that there is no evidence what so ever to prove that Yingluk herself was corrupt. In fact “corruption” is now a convenient insult to be thrown at anyone who the middle classes or the elites dislike.
The most corrupt organisation in Thai society is in fact the military. Nearly all Thai generals, including the present junta leaders, have accumulated wealth amounting to hundreds of millions of baht, way beyond what they could earn from their normal salaries. This has been going on since the bad old days of the military dictatorships in the 1940s. Part of this money comes from corrupt deals and bribes. The other part comes from their abuse of power and influence to do business, own sections of the media and appoint themselves to the management boards of state enterprises.
Anyone paying attention to the mainstream media’s comments about Taksin Shinawat would be forgiven for believing that Taksin and his cronies were filthy corrupt politicians who had been pocketing millions and bleeding the country dry by offering “too many” pro-poor policies to the “ignorant” masses. These reports mentioned Taksin’s corruption as though it was an indisputable fact and that he alone was responsible for corruption.
Taksin is a super-rich tycoon. He is still super-rich even after having a large portion of his assets seized by the pro-military courts. His wealth primarily comes from exploiting the work of others, no different from any tycoon or business leader and no different from king Pumipon who is the richest man in Thailand. This is a form of gross robbery, but it is “legal” robbery under the capitalist system.
The only corruption charge placed against Taksin was the charge that he was prime minister when his wife bought a plot of land from the government. This was undoubtedly against the rules. But the courts accepted that the price paid was the genuine market rate and they also ruled that his wife had no case to answer. Taksin also used various tax avoidance schemes to avoid paying tax on his immense wealth.
Secondly, it may well be the case that corruption occurred at some levels of the rice price support scheme, probably associated with dishonest rice milling and rice trading companies. Yingluk’s opponents want to punish her for failing to stop this corruption. If failing to stop corruption is a reason for impeachment, then every single Thai prime minister, including Prayut, should be impeached.
Thirdly, much of the financial losses to the state which resulted from the rice price support scheme come from two sources. The government was using state funds to guarantee rice prices paid to poor farmers. Such losses are totally justified and are part of distributing income to the rural poor. But other losses came from relying on the world rice market and hoping that the price of rice would rise, which it did not. Instead the government should have sold rice cheaply to the urban poor and recouped any short fall by taxing the rich and by cutting the military and Palace budgets.
Of course the middle classes, extremist neo-liberals, the military and the royalists would have been up in arms if this had happened. Already the Democrat Party and neo-liberal institutions like the TDRI were dead against using state funds to benefit the poor through the rice price support scheme.
But none of this really explains the sanction taken against Yingluk.
After the military coup last year, I wrote that the illegal junta and its various creatures were busy crafting a non-democratic system with sham elections. I wrote that the so-called National Anti-Corruption Commission was desperately trying to find a dubious corruption charge to stick on former Prime Minister Yingluk. This would be the “legalistic” way to bar her from politics and maybe there would be chance of dissolving the Pua Thai Party too.
Yingluk’s impeachment and prosecution are a fraudulent and sham “legal” means used by an illegal junta to destroy democracy and decapitate the political party which has consistently enjoyed mass popular support.
Meanwhile, the previous chairman of parliament, Somsak Kiatsuranon, and Nikom Rachpanit, former senate chairman, face similar bans on politics for trying to allow a democratic parliamentary vote to change the constitution last year. Prayut and his military gang, however, face no sanctions for staging a coup last May and tearing up the constitution. Prayut and former Prime Minister Abhisit do not face any charges for murdering unarmed prodemocracy demonstrators either. The message is clear. Whatever crimes the junta commit are “legal” and in future it will not be “legal” to change the military-sponsored constitution.
Dictatorship is due to be set in stone. But nothing remains forever when social movements get organised to fight for democracy.
[First published at <a href="http://redthaisocialist.com/thailand-news-update-in-english/718-yingluks-impeachment-a-fraudulent-legal-means-used-by-an-illegal-junta.html">redthaisocialist.com</a>.]

Another attack on democracy in Thailand

The most striking thing about this coup d’état is the speed and size of the anti-coup protests. For the last three days, immediately following the coup, mass protests of ordinary people have simultaneously erupted in many areas of Bangkok but also in Chiangmai and other towns. This is history in the making.
These protests are spontaneous but it would be a mistake to think that they were “unorganised”. For years pro-democracy activists have been creating their own grassroots networks which are independent from Taksin, Yingluk, Pua Thai and the mainstream UDD leaders of the redshirts. Nevertheless, many redshirts who are still loyal to the UDD are also taking part. So are ordinary working class people, although not as organised trade unionists. The more the protests grow, the more confidence is gained by those taking part and those watching and sympathising. Such grassroots protests make it more difficult for the military. There are hundreds of grassroots leaders, with new ones emerging every day. Arresting a few will only enrage people. It is not like arresting the UDD leaders and stopping the redshirt protests as before. Communication in these networks can be via social media, but “word of mouth” is also extremely important. This is the most positive development in Thailand’s political crisis for years.
Do not think for one moment that it is easy to defy a military junta and stand in front of armed soldiers who in the past have not hesitated to shoot down unarmed protesters. Some activists have been arrested and taken away. Others have been taken from their homes. Many people have been ordered by the junta to report to the army. This includes prominent progressive academics, some from the Nitirat group, and also including people like Ajarn Charnwit and Ajarn Suda. Some have been incarcerated in army camps. Those who are charged with “offences” will face military courts and prison.
But amazingly the protesters return in larger numbers. The hope is that this movement will grow and will reach out to the organised working class. But this will take time. It may well be a case of “two steps forward, one step back”.
There are a number of myths that have been shattered in the last few days. The first myth, constantly repeated by lazy journalists and elitist academics, is that the pro-democracy movement is predominantly rural. Millions of rural people will be enraged by this coup and hopefully they will organised themselves to oppose it in the coming days. But what we are seeing is an anti-coup movement developing in Bangkok and containing many redshirts. I have argued for years that the redshirt movement has significant support in Bangkok and that the capital city is not just made up of the conservative middle classes.
The second myth that has exploded is the idea that the palace is all powerful and controls the army. General Prayut staged his coup d’état without even bothering to inform the king until one day after the event. There were no pictures of the monarchy behind the junta as they read out their declaration. Again this is something I have been arguing for years. The military is a law unto itself, only using the monarchy to legitimise what it does. Given this fact, the Thai crisis cannot be explained as merely an elite dispute over the issue of royal succession. There is no point in fighting over a weak and powerless institution.
What the succession mongers are saying to the brave people who are on the streets and facing arrests is that they “shouldn’t bother”. “The gods on Mount Olympus will fight it out and determine your fate”.
The crisis is really about the democratic space in society. It is a two-dimensional struggle with an elite fight over the conduct of politics linked, in a contradictory and dialectical manner, to the struggle of millions of ordinary people for freedom, democracy and social justice. On the streets this is not a fight between two groups of people who support different elites, as conservative academics and NGO leaders claim.
Whether the rumours put out by Robert Amsterdam that Taksin is considering setting up a government in exile are true or not, such a move would be irrelevant to the real struggle for democracy. Taksin is firmly in the camp of the elites, though he favours the democratic process as a means to achieve power. He and his fellow party members have no intention of leading a real struggle for democracy which could tear down the structures of the old order, destroying the power of the army, abolishing lèse-majesté, punishing state killers and bringing in standards of human rights and equality via a welfare state. As Leon Trotsky argued in his theory of Permanent Revolution, such a task lies with the modern urban working class, in coalition with the small farmers.
A third myth that has been exploded is the claim by the junta that it was “an honest broker”, trying to bring about peace and stability between two warring sides. No one with half a political brain really believed this because the army and Sutep’s mobs were working together. They also were on the same side as the PAD yellow shirts back in 2006. What is now very clear is that almost all the people who have been arrested and ordered to report to the military are redshirts or progressive pro-democracy activists.
There has been a total silence from the various NGO and conservative academic “worthies” over this coup. In fact they helped create the conditions for it to occur in the first place, by demanding the elected government resign and compromise with anti-democratic thugs. The National Human Rights Commission, which is stacked with uniforms, has pleaded with the junta not to be too harsh. It is a disgrace to its name. The most that a small group of NGO figures linked to “FTA Watch” and consumers’ and environmental groups could bring themselves to say is that they hoped that the junta would return Thailand to democracy “at the earliest opportunity”. In other words, the junta should relinquish power when it feels the time is right. They also called on “both sides” in the crisis to negotiate and compromise. The result would be “half democracy”.
Supporters of Thai democracy abroad can do two simple and very important tasks. The first is to try to protect and publicise the plight of those who are arrested and imprisoned, including those who are already in jail for lèse-majesté. The second thing is to try to counter the lies and nonsense coming from the junta which appears in your own national media.
[Published at <a href="http://uglytruththailand.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/mass-resistance-to-the-coup-smashes-political-myths/">Uglytruth-Thailand</a> and <a href="http://redthaisocialist.com/thailand-news-update-in-english/594-mass-resistance-to-the-coup-smashes-political-myths.html">Red Thai Socialist</a>]

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