For a start it has been unsettling for many people because it was simply so big...The logistics are a lot more difficult and expensive when the rally site is hundreds of kilometres away. Provincial governors were ordered to obstruct the movement of people. Police set up countless checkpoints. Pro-Newin elements in the northeast laid on entertainment and issued threats to deter people from leaving for the capital. The media carried reports about money distributed to protesters to move. None carried reports about the money spent to prevent them moving. Despite all these efforts, downtown Bangkok was a sea of red. The 10-kilometre column from Rajdamnoen to Phaholyothin broke records.
Red March was unsettling also because (so far) it has truly been non-violent....Partly this orderliness is due to the police who invested enormous efforts in keeping the traffic moving. This effort betrays considerable sympathy within the force for the red-shirt cause � another thing that is unsettling. The lack of violence is all the more remarkable given the disorganised state of the redshirt leadership. These were supposed to be the rural hordes, the barbarians at the gates, the great unwashed, red in tooth and claw. But there was no sign of ploughs beaten into swords, let alone barbed wire, gun-toting "guards", or piles of used golf clubs.
BP: BP has also seen on at least two occassions on TV and also reported in the print media, the police visited the red shirt leaders for details on what route they would take the following day. On each occassion, it was reported that information was shared and hence the police were able to make more informed decisions so as to re-route other traffic etc.
Chang Noi continues:
Red March was worrying also because of the number of pick-up trucks. The protesters were supposed to be the downtrodden. And the thing about the downtrodden is that they really are trodden down into resignation, passivity, deference. They can usually be ignored or easily managed. But these were the aggrieved with assets. Of course many foot soldiers of the movement do count among the least well off. But the social range of the protesters is much wider than the simple analysis of the poor against the privileged. In the far north and the northeast, it is not just the poor who support the red shirts but just about everybody.
Most of all, Red March was disturbing because of the enormous show of local support in Bangkok. From the moment the columns of pick-ups began arriving in the city, people gathered on the pavement to clap and cheer and wave in welcome. Some of these fans were taxi drivers and motorcycle taxi riders, the movement's staunch allies. But others were true-blue Bangkokians. All along the route to Phaholyothin people came out of shops and offices to line the street and cheer...Alongside, people had come to windows, or onto office balconies, or out from shops onto the pavement. Most had snatched up anything red to wave along a tie, a towel, a hat, a piece of paper. The press and the pundits have played the conflict as the provinces against the city. But how does that analysis fit with these pavement scenes?
BP: BP's view is that many of these Bangkok supporters are the lower urban middle classes (think of convenience store workers, waitresses and other occupations which don't require a university degree). They are not on the poverty line. The same applies for those up-country. Most cannot afford a passenger vehicle/sedan. Motorcycles are the most common form of transport, but pick-up trucks are everywhere and can be necessary for some because of business and as they are significantly cheaper than sedans so they are the next step up from a motorcycle. Hence, the reason for the pick-up trucks - also they serve as a good way of transporting people and were necessary to prevent buses hired suddenly no longer being available to hire after the owner came under political pressure.
You also have the nouveau riche who often come up against the established elite. This is what really the ammat is about. It can be translated as elite, but BP thinks aristocrat is the better word. It is the older established elite. Thanong did a breakdown of the red shirts and while earlier in his blog post he makes reference to a number of red shirts being part of the ammat or associated with it then later when in the breakdown (you have to scroll down) you come to:
8. Red-Shirted Ammat: Many Ammats have turned Red because they are confused who they are and what they really want. Thanphuying Viriya Chavakul is one of the ultimate Ammat insiders. She has turned Red.
BP: She famously fell out with the ammat and was seemingly banished (well, say seemingly because of the later lunch). You could put Samak in this category who fell out with Prem in the early 80s and many others too. Once you have seen how the system works and you have been at the table with ammat, can you not then criticise it? It can be easier to dislike something once you have seen it firsthand.
Chang Noi continues:
In Chang Noi's neighbourhood, there's a worker community. They used to be pro-Democrat because the local Democrat politicians helped them to get residence rights and basic services. They served as Democrat canvassers in several elections. They are now deep red. In the evenings, the kids come out to play on the street. For a year now, one of their favourite games has been "street protest." They march up and down and wave flags. They shout "No more double standards," "Down with amat ," and "Abhisit out." They are not in any hurry to move off the road to allow a car to pass. Their average age is around ten. ... Instead of reportage we got endless predictions of a bad ending. The numbers are increasing, so it will turn violent. The numbers are dropping, so it will turn violent. The temperature is high, so tempers will snap.
Red March has been disturbing because it has messages so striking that they slip through the walls. Despite government efforts using taxpayers' money, it was huge. Despite the chaotic state of the red movement's leadership, it held together through fellow feeling. Despite the conventional analyses, the support spreads far beyond the rural poor. Hard to ignore despite those bricks.
BP: Essentially BP agrees. Because of the lower than expected numbers, the reds failed with the knockout punch to pressure the Democrat's coalition partners from switching camps so from this perspective it was a "failure". However, BP sees this as a short-term failure, but in the medium to long-term the red shirts will have gained because the protest so far has not been violent.
Thai Rath's political analysis for March 21 is entitled "ถอยคนละก้าว หาจุดลงตัว" (Take one step back to find the middle ground) is summarized below:
It is fortunate that the only blood spilled last week was done voluntarily by the red shirts in a manner of an activity and not through fighting. The situation today is that the red shirts will continue in their protests. Some return home, but then more reinforcements arrive.
The reds long caravan moved around Bangkok on Saturday asking Bangkokians to come out onto the streets to support them in their class conflict. While there are those with untoward intentions firing the M79 grenades, there have been no violent incidents in the red shirt rallies. The government has put in place security measures, but there are many in Bangkok who are concerned especially those who live in the vicinity of the main red shirt rally. Others don't want to go outside as they are concerned about traffic problems.
For the government, the Cabinet are afraid of the red shirts besieging the meeting. For parliament, the PM and government MPs are not turning up.
The red shirts leaders have stated the protests will continue peacefully.
Many in the social sector are looking for a solution. You also have the House of Representatives and Senate Speaker likewise looking for a solution and for discussion in parliament.
The government is also looking at negotiations as long as it doesn't involve Thaksin. The red shirts have also said they agree with negotiations, but it must be direct negotiations. It is good that both sides agree to negotiate to find a solution, but it is unlikely they will be able to.
The political desk of Thai Rath would like both sides to negotiate as quickly as possible. Abhisit, as the head of the government, should lead the negotiations. Whatever conditions that each side have should then be put on the table for the public to see clearly.
However, last year, after a parliamentary committee recommended that six provisions of the constitution be amended Puea Thai pulled out. Nevertheless, the stakes now are more serious so it is unlikely the same problem would arise again.
Some are sceptical whether the negotiations would end in a positive outcome. Reuters:
But analysts said the stakes were too high for both sides and talks were unlikely to produce any compromise.
"There's nothing to talk about," said Somjai Phagaphasvivat, a political scientist at Bangkok's Thammasat University.
"The minimum the 'red shirts' will accept is house dissolution and the government will not yield to that. The root cause of the problem will not be addressed and talks will just pave the way for more protests and upheaval in future."
Protest leaders, though, say they are only willing to discuss Thailand's chronic political problems directly with Mr. Abhisit after the prime minister appointed Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat to handle the discussions. "We will talk only with the prime minister," Jatuporn Prompan, one of the three main protest leaders, told reporters.
Thai Rath today quotes red shirt leader Nattawut as stating that the red shirts are prepared to negotiate to find a peaceful solution to the problem, but as power rests with the PM we want to negotiate with him directly. He states we are not the underling of anyone so don't want to negotiate with Abhisit's underling. As Abhisit is the sole person with power to dissolve parliament we want to talk to him.
BP: Now, it will depend on how flexible each side is perceived to be. Both sides have said they will negotiate, but have various conditions. Do the red shirts require an immediate dissolution (Dr. Weng said last week a mere promise to dissolve parliament three months into the future was ok)? Will the government even put the dissolution onto the table? If Abhisit agrees to meet a red shirt representative, what will the reds be willing to compromise on?
As Abhisit is the PM and he has made a concession to enter into negotiations, the red shirts should meet the Education Minister at least once to see what the groundwork for negotiations will be.
David Van Praagh, a journalism professor in Canada, has an op-ed in The Globe and Mail entitled "Thai democracy on its sickbed". Given its discussion of sensitive topics, BP will not link to it, but of course there is google. The article argues in favour of enlightened generals and the Democrats (the author has written a book on one of the founders of the Democrats Seni Pramoj) and against Thaksin. Key excerpts:
The red-shirted demonstrators, joined by some well-meaning orange-robed Buddhist monks, are not really for democracy. They are for the return to power of an exiled Sino-Thai kleptomaniac, Thaksin Shinawatra, who tore the country apart politically and economically when he was in power from 2001 to 2006, and will wreak more damage it if he comes back. ... Mr. Thaksin and his followers, although most of them may not realize it, are anti-royalist.
While robbing the government of at least $1.4-billion while he was prime minister – the sum determined in an unanimous order for repayment from Thailand's supreme court ordering him to pay it back (he was allowed to keep another $900-million) – Mr. Thaksin insidiously sought to undermine the monarchy. ... Repeatedly, generals have been able to seize power. The worst such coup was in 1976; soldiers brutally beat students, and Mr. Seni, again prime minister, was overthrown. But within a year, enlightened generals ousted their regressive comrades and restored the bright shining dream of democracy.
Something similar needs to happen again. Westerners rightly view military coups as bad news. But some Thai generals who put their country above personal spoils. The army overthrew Mr. Thaksin in 2006, not to retake power but to stop him from stealing the country blind while throwing out scraps toimpressionable villagers, which had enabled him to win the first majority in the Thai parliament. ... Thaksin cynically exploited the economic divide between a fast-growing middle class and established bureaucracies in the cities, on one hand and, on the other, subsistence rice-growing families in the countryside, used to being paid for their votes. He widened this gap by distributing largesse to the poor on an unprecedented scale during and after elections – but still a small fraction of what he pocketed personally [BP: Widened the economic gap?]. If this was populism, it was unfair. If it was democracy, it was immoral. .... The inescapable if unprovable conclusion is that many well-off Thais, who worship wealth, are deep down afraid of democracy and the changes it can bring in their lives [BP: About the only sentence of the quoted excerpt that BP agrees with].
Mr. Thaksin identified this phenomenon and is still riding it as far he can. Clearly neither he nor any other demagogue is the solution. Nor is the Thai army as it sometimes had been, although it can continue to help safeguard democracy, in a way comparable to the Turkish military since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Another election is looming, not at the behest of bloody demonstrators, but under Thai law. Prachatipat must continue to be loyal to Thailand's democratic heritage as Thailand's only well-defined party. The Democrats need to erase any taint of corruption in their own ranks, and stimulate the creation of a responsible conservative party.
BP: Perhaps, if he removes the references to the monarchy, he can get a column at The Nation. He seems like a perfect fit.
In an op-ed by Stanley A. Weiss in the LA Times (the title of the op-ed would have the government censors in a state of panic, but if you google the author's name and LA Times, you will find the op-ed). About the only paragraphs that BP can excerpt are:
The "yellow shirts" -- monarchists, the military and urban middle class -- rightly criticize the Thaksin administration's abuses in office, but their preferred alternative amounts to continued domination by Bangkok's privileged, in a country where the population's richest fifth is roughly 13 times better off than the poorest. ... What about the military, responsible for 18 coups since 1935? One prominent Thai entrepreneur told me his worst-case scenario is the emergence of a young, charismatic leader at the helm of a rising red shirt movement, calling for an end to "the double standards in Thai society." This might provoke the army to feel it has the mandate to use force to preserve the status quo. Thailand-based columnist Chang Noi suspects the military may block another general election, speculating that it would likely want to overthrow the winners anyway.
BP: Calling for an end to double standards? What kind of heathen would do that......
Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow for South-East Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, has an article in the London Review of Books entitled "Red vs Yellow". Would link to it, but well the last two paragraphs talk about a sensitive subject. Kurlantzick's article is very critical of both the establishment and Thaksin. He does make some odd assertions at time, for example:
Like the yellow shirts, the red shirts were prepared to use violence. Last April, gunmen pulled alongside the car of Sondhi Limthongkul, the head of the PAD, and fired at it. He survived, though doctors had to remove bullet fragments from his skull.
Not sure this is the best example of red on yellow violence. BP would counter with Thitinan in FEER in April 2009:
Suffice it to say that the assassination attempt has raised political temperatures. Tellingly, Mr. Sondhi's only son, Jintanart, indicated that it was a "third hand" bent on creating and exploiting a clash between reds and yellows to use as pretext for intervention and a power grab. Whoever is responsible, the shooting has raised temperatures and is an indication that the crisis and turmoil will persist and could intensify. But this is also the first time that yellows are not blaming reds but in fact (based on Mr. Sondhi's son's account) the yellows are putting the reds in the same boat as mutual victims of this murder attempt.
BP: Yes, the initial suspicion fell on Thaksin/the reds, but well suspicion soon started to switch to others and everything became very quiet....
The conclusion on what the future holds is very pessimistic:
It is difficult to see a way back to stability. Right now, even a free election would be unlikely to calm things down. As Montesano notes, it would probably return Thaksin or his proxies to power, which would provoke his enemies all over again. The rural poor will never go back to the days when they simply accepted the rule of Bangkok. Yet the elites remain unwilling to give up any of their power. The anti-Thaksin forces are doing nothing to help calm the situation. In recent years, Thailand’s courts have been on the offensive against the former prime minister. Some observers speak of a judiocracy: courts hand down decisions hamstringing opponents of the Democrats, the military and the crown (the king has given several speeches essentially calling on the judiciary to play precisely this role). People on the wrong side of court decisions are given little room to appeal. In February the courts seized the majority of Thaksin’s assets; his allies vowed to fight on, calling for a million-person march in Bangkok. With Thaksin gone, his supporters have formed their own self-sustaining networks, which will probably survive even if he is no longer able to fund them. From exile, Thaksin promises: ‘I haven’t received justice and I will not give up.’
BP: Well, that judiocracy reference sounds familiar, but Kurlantzick is right to be pessimistic.
btw, this was funny though:
After the coup, and the subsequent questionable judicial decisions which disqualified pro-Thaksin candidates from standing as prime minister, the elites were able to install Abhisit Vejjajiva, a suave young British-educated technocrat who was about as comfortable dealing with the working class as Prince Philip.
The following is a summary of Anek's two of tale democracies argument* where the rural people elect the government and Bangkokians overthrow the government:
Many will read this good/bad coup as support for Anek Laothammatas’ (1996) argument that Thai democracy is a tale of two democracies: where the rural masses elect vote-buying politicians, and the urban middle class, frustrated by the corrupt and inept nature of such governments rally to bring them down by weight of social sanction, protest and persuasion (and, in this latest episode, by cheering on a ‘‘good coup’’).
"In the past, people said that people from the countryside formed the government and Bangkokians brought down the government, but now those from upcountry and those from Bangkok have joined together to bring down the government. When I was prime minister, Abhisit, who was then head of the opposition demanded that [I] dissolve parliament three different times of the day, but now when such demands are made of him, he doesn't listen"
BP: Well until it happens, there can be no version of the "tale of two democracies", but BP thought talk of this new version was interesting as it was the first time that BP had heard it.
*This is rather an elitist argument and you can see critiques of it by Federico here.
Anonymous on 03/22/2010 12:50 am says about The fear of the elite:
Where did Chang Noi says the army may block another general election or overthrow the winners anyway?... > Read More
Anonymous on 03/22/2010 12:45 am says about Tale of two democracies... the new version?:
Citing what Thaksin allegedly said does not mean that the statement is true. In Bangkok TRT lost to the Democrats in both elections. TRT also lost at Bangkok governorship and BMA assembly.
bp: TRT won 32 out of 37 Bangkok seats in the 2005 general e... > Read More
No choice not to be an Anonymous on 03/22/2010 12:32 am says about The fear of the elite:
fall:
it's quite obvious to me he's referring to Jakrapob... > Read More
Qualtrough on 03/21/2010 11:55 pm says about Red shirts take to the Bangkok streets:
My wife (not from Isaan, college educated) wanted to attend with her brother. I told her I would prefer she didn't as we still have kids to raise and you never know what can happen at events like that. She was not happy about it. I bring that up because the idea that all these people are turning out because they are paid is just a big lie. I live j... > Read More
Qualtrough on 03/21/2010 11:45 pm says about Thai language media on the red shirt protests:
Did it again, read too fast. I see what farangs you refer to, sorry to have asked. I don't think all farangs regard Thailand as a cheap playground, and in any case a functioning democracy is no guarantee that the economy is going to suddenly get so good that Thailand becomes an expensive country to live in. ... > Read More
Bangkok Pundit
