🇹🇭 Today's the day, Thailand

Hello friends!

A short one today ahead of Thailand’s potentially historic protests this weekend. 

Organiser Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak told Reuters yesterday they expected up to 100,000 protestors at the Thammasat University Bangkok campus, which would make it the biggest protest since 2014. Police, for their part, say they’re expected half that amount. 

A COVID-19 cesspit in the making, says Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. He would. But he says any further outbreaks would exacerbate stressors on the economy and could force Thais back into lockdown. Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta has overseen the shutdown of access to around 2,000 pro-democracy websites and social media pages.

"Most of the websites that were closed contained inappropriate content that could harm the country's security, including the content that harassed the monarch," an official at the Technology Crime Suppression Division, the kingdom's law enforcement agency said, as reported by the Nikkei Asia Review.

It feels very ‘wait and see’ at the moment, so while we do wait here are some of the pieces I’ve read and watched in the last few days to get across what will be taking place today.

Stay safe and healthy, Bangkok readers!

We’ll follow this up Monday,Erin Cook

A still c/o the VICE video

Thailand’s Youth are Challenging the Government in the Biggest Push for Democracy Yet (VICE YouTube)

Produced by Friend of the Letter Caleb Quinley and featuring the most prominent organisers of the movement (and an iconic smokers balcony), this one does what VICE documentaries do best. The video runs through the issues at hand, the larger context as well as the historical fight for democracy in the country. If you read/watch just one thing to get across what’s happening — make it this.  

11 ways Thailand’s ultra traditionalists miss the point (Thisrupt)

Of course, not all Thais are on board with the movement. Traditionalists — who so far have been a couple of generations older than the students taking to the streets — have some key arguments and criticism, including the complicated 2017 referendum and the kinda bad look democracy has elsewhere (thanks, US!). Thisrupt has taken a look at the most common refrains with a few rebuttals. 

In Thailand, it’s protesters versus ‘salim’ as Bangkok prepares for mass rally(SCMP)

When it comes to dessert, salim refers to a rainbow-hued confection made of mung bean flour noodles topped with crushed ice, coconut milk and syrup. Its alternate use emerged in 2005, during Thailand’s long decade of colour-coded political deadlock between “red shirts” who support the Shinawatra clan and royalist “yellow shirts”.

At the time, salim represented a “multicoloured” group of conservative, middle-class Thais who were uninterested in change of any kind, but it is currently used to describe those who remain apathetic at a time protesters say no one can sit on the fence – a term that points to a split emerging at the heart of Thailand.

'Thailand’s Inconvenient Truth.' Why This Billionaire Is Risking It All to Back Reform of the Monarchy (TIME)

The military is getting richer in the process, controlling golf courses, horse-racing tracks and muay Thai stadiums. It owns hotel chains, conference centers, free trade zones and even TV and radio stations. In parliament, the 81 senators who are also generals have an average wealth of 78 million baht ($2.5 million) each, but 40 years of a general’s official earnings amounts to 48 million baht ($1.5 million)—and that’s assuming not a satang (or penny) is spent. According to legislative documents obtained by the FFP, Thailand’s military had off-budget spending of 18 billion baht ($580,000,000) last year.

“It’s a state within a state,” says Thanathorn. “Even MPs cannot see through their budgets, cannot audit income [and] expenses. Imagine if we used this money for schools and hospitals.”

The student daring to challenge Thailand’s monarchy (BBC)

But Panusaya was shy growing up and was bullied at school. It was five months spent in a student exchange programme to America that changed her completely.

"I returned home a different person who was not afraid to speak out and act."

She became increasingly politically active after entering the prestigious Thammasat University. Two years ago, she joined the "Dome Revolution", a student union political party.

In February, she helped organise the first pro-democracy flash mob protests after the dissolution of the Future Forward Party, a reformist party popular with younger voters that was disbanded after a controversial court ruling that it had accepted illegal loans from its own leader.