🇹🇭 Waiting on 10 demands

When a plaque is more than a plaque

September 21, 2020

Hello friends!

What an incredible day in Bangkok! We will, of course, continue following this story as organisers wait on a response from the Privy Council and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha.

These last few years most protests we’ve observed have been marked by violence, so well done everyone.

Care of the fantastically talented Pachara Ampaieimtrakoon, a street photographer. Go give a follow although it may make your heart hurt for how long it will be until you get to Bangkok again.

After things like this, I immediately go photo-essay hunting. This collection from the AP is full of stunners and two things here stand out to me. Much has, rightfully, been made of the university students organising as well as their younger siblings and cousins taking part in high schools. I’m somewhat surprised at how many older faces are in this crow. The young progressives vs older traditionalists might be the broader story, but it isn’t the whole story. 

Secondly, the mood is much less sombre than I’d expected. After weeks of talking about the taboo-pushing of organisers, the legacy of Thammasat and the possibility of further coup darting around, I’d expected the vibe to be as dark and stormy as the weather. But it looks kinda fun? Like a huge sleepover that could change the course of your own history. It would be a different story entirely, of course, if we’d seen any violence or scuffles but thankfully we’re not there — although police will be looking into potential charges for student leaders.

It’s a win, claim organisers after the 10 point manifesto was presented to the Privy Council by Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul. “The biggest victory of all is that ordinary people like us can submit a letter to the monarchy,” Parit Chiwarak told attendees. That doesn’t mean it is over yet. Student leaders say getting the demands heard is just one hurdle. Now it’s time to get them ratified. 

On the plaque

This plaque is important — but we have to go way back to get across it, care of Jonathan Head and his 2017 biography of the plaque. Phraya Phahol, one of the leaders in the 1932 uprising that ended the absolute monarchy and a former prime minister, laid a plaque to commemorate the spot he declared the new system nearly five years after the fact. "Here on 24 June 1932 at dawn, the People's Party proclaimed a constitution for the country's advancement,” the plaque read.

And that’s where it sat for decades, writes Head, largely ignored by the Bangkok traffic but with the occasional tending to by pro-democracy activists. Until April 2017 when two separate groups of researchers went to check it out. On the 2nd, no dramas, there she is, you beauty. On the 8th? There’s a new plaque. This one says: “To love and respect the Buddhist trinity, one's own state, one's own family, and to have a heart faithful to your monarch, will bring prosperity to the country.” It’s got a Chakri Star on it, the symbol of the current ruling dynasty. Yikes. 

Honestly, I kinda forgot about all this. It happened in the real infancy of this project and I was hyper preoccupied with trying to understand the Constitution business happening at the same time (a clue???). But still, I could appreciate the continuity this weekend. 

A new plaque took its place, briefly, in Sanam Luang. It read “At this place the people have expressed their will: that this country belongs to the people and is not the property of the monarch as they have deceived us.” It was gone by this morning.

“We have to conquer our fear because if we don’t come out to fight then our future will not improve,” said Rewat Chusub, a 41-year-old tailor sitting under a red umbrella with the gilded Grand Palace as a backdrop.

Even as rain occasionally poured down, muffling the sound system, a procession of speakers addressed a big tent’s worth of issues in presentations that stretched through the night: the military’s monopoly on power, L.G.B.T.Q. discrimination, social welfare, women’s rights and the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Kicking out his government and that of his proxies in the September 2006 and May 2014 coups and December 2008 judicial intervention has been costly to the established centres of power because these manoeuvres awakened and raised the political consciousness of voters who previously never felt they had a stake in the system. In the last two coups, building on the 1981 and 1991-92 episodes, Gen Prem effectively became the coup broker.

Without him and well into the new reign, the symbiosis of military and monarchy no longer holds. It appears there is more of a unilateral influence and control rather than an enmeshment and shared rule. There may be a dilemma between would-be coup-making generals and the palace. Either side staging a takeover may not be able to ascertain if the other side would acquiesce. Moreover, unlike past military takeovers, any future coup may well be resisted and opposed by a more conscious electorate and broader swath of the population, perhaps led by the student movement.

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