Schadenfreude In Bangkok

In 1973, in a culmination of decades of activism and struggle, students overthrew the dictatorship in Thailand.  Various forms of military dictatorship had ruled the country, but as of yet democracy had not taken hold in Thailand.  Students began with a small protest at Thammasat University and days later found themselves at the head of an angry mob. A half million protesters led by these students marched on the government and subsequently the palace. It would be unsurprising, given both the trends of the 20^th century and past revolutions, to expect that this would be the beginning of a democratic era.  Yet it was not “the people” who ratified this political transaction.  When the students arrived at the gates of the palace seeking guidance from the king (King Bhumibol Adulyadej), the king’s representatives told the students the king wished them to disband. The “disbanding” process involved explosions, arson and violent clashes with the police. Yet, they ostensibly claimed to be disbanding.  The police and army attempted to suppress the riots, killing more than a hundred students.  When the dust settled and the army withdrew, it was the king not the students who announced the government had resigned.

With this sudden and unexpected windfall, students and professors with passion and a sense of progress strove to reform the system and create a modern social democratic republic. But they had not dictated the terms of this transition.  Forced or not, an important Schelling point remained: the monarchy.  The king had commanded the crowds; he had decided that the form of government would change.  Despite their apparent success, the students hadn’t fundamentally altered the state of the country.  They nicked a nerve, certainly but they failed to go for the jugular.  The events that followed are an object lesson in the need to understand the nature of power.

To the members of the National Student Center of Thailand it seemed that change was in the air.  There was a new constitution, elections, progress.  Students being a subspecies of the order Cathedral, share highly developed olfactory lobes.  With blood in the water students, farmers and unions (formerly banned) came out in ever increasing frenzies of protests, strikes, and factory occupations, sending disruptions throughout society.  Uninhibited by sensible laws written to prevent these very sorts of situations and emboldened by their continued success, students marched again and again.  Under the license of democracy, Thailand was belatedly thrown into the cultural revolution of the 60’s.  It was only 1973; the night was young.  Now the students, intellectuals, artists, and left-wing journalists could catch up with their American counterparts.  Giddy iconoclasm birthed wild subversion as the intelligentsia swam unfettered.  Many of the elite took note and quickly concluded that liberal democracy was a threat to their institutions and power.

Where did all these ideas come from? In an effort to “modernize” the country, the universities had been expanded and reformed along western lines for decades. They opened up to the non-elite and non-religious.  Expansion of the university had brought big changes to the social structure of society.  No longer were universities just for children of the elite.  No longer was status only aligned with royalty, religion, or the military.  Normal people not graced with birthright, virtue, or loyalty began to send their kids to school in droves.  Students looking for a leg up in gaining a position in the bureaucracy, also a western import, started going to foreign universities.  By 1973, there were nearly 6,000 Thai students studying in the United States alone. Thai schools themselves were strange chimeras, producing students cultured equal parts in the American and Chinese spheres, that is to say, the International Community and Maoism.  The students were equally aware that a peasant revolution was the path to victory, and that social democracy was the road to communist victory as opposed to the dead branch of “state capitalism” (Stalinism).

Inside and outside the universities alike, nothing was out of bounds: poems, songs, and books flowed out of campuses, as professors, students and critics shared their visions with the people.  Students grew their hair out and let their passions prevail.  They decried the feudal order and its elitist literature pouring forth “literature for the people,” “theatre for the people,” and “songs for the people.”  Teachers feeling a new culture arising began to celebrate the journalists, union leaders, and teachers who had been wisely unfairly left out of history.  Democracy won. Phrases like human rights, equality, and democracy rang.  Students spread throughout the country, leaving their urban homes.  Peasant associations began popping up.  The famers aggressively agitated and petitioned their land lords and governors. The students taught the farmers and factory workers alike about the gospel of government by headcount.  It seemed social democracy would reign in Thailand.

There was one problem.  The students never actually destroyed the true centers of power.  Unmolested elite groups plotted, regrouped, and acted to re-secure their power.  The elite needed to gather the forces newly threatened by these revolutionary developments.  There was a need for action before the infection became an epidemic.  Three years later the students of Thammasat University would pay for their arrogance and ignorance of the nature of power.

Just who would man the counter-revolution?  Naturally the less fortunate among the Thai resented the nouveau bourgeoisies flooding into whatever bureaucratic niche they could squeeze into.  Worse yet the students returned home bringing strange customs back, acting like wonton waifs with loose morals incongruous with the humble traditions of their parents.  Seizing on these feelings the Royal Family started finding openings for prestige.  Who wants to be under the patronage of students?  Being a patron of the Royal Family is much more appealing.  The Royal Family has prestige. The students have prestige. Not nearly as much. Plus, wherever students gather you get a distinctive whiff of communism.  Must be something in the water.  The students backed the Socialist Factions, and as any radio or newspaper could tell you in 1973 Thailand: “All forms of Socialism are Communism.”  In contrast, who doesn’t want a meet and greet with the King and Queen?  Even association with royalty can open doors in Thailand!

While all this was happening, Vietnam had just fallen to the Communist North Vietnamese.  Given the communist victories on either side of the country one could be forgiven in assuming that Thailand would be another domino in the inevitable march of history.  This dovetailed with a concentrated propaganda campaign to decry the communist influences in the country.  Part of this campaign was used to demonize the Vietnamese minority in the North.  The communists were in the north, the Vietnamese were in the North, Vietnam was communist, ergo communism was a foreign influence.  To boot the CCP had been sending operatives into the North since the 30’s including the notorious Ho Chi Minh and indeed many members of the early communist movements in the country were either Chinese or Vietnamese.  Many early student communist groups were nearly entirely comprised of ethnic minorities.  Ethno-nationalistic rhetoric played well with the Thai people and it was not long before the label “un-Thai” was permanently associated with communism.

Spurred by fears of an alien incursion and emboldened by religious, military, and royal backing a formal and informal campaign of terror spread through the country.  Organizations built in the late 60’s as counterinsurgency units were given new targets: students, politicians, unions and activists.  Radio stations set up throughout the country spread propaganda and coordinated militias.  These radio stations had served to give voice to the military and royalty.  What had once seemed like unincorporated backwater pieces of the kingdom were now connected with the heart of the country via radio.  People who had thought of themselves only in terms of tribal identity had in the past decade begun to imagine themselves as Thai.  What had once been a far off king came to re-form as a living deity head of ceremony.  The king was returned to his traditional position as chief patron of the religious institutions.

In addition to formal forces, para-military forces were drawn from disparate sections of society each with their own rallies and appropriate class flavor.  Red Guars were recruited from proles and led by mercenaries.  Village Scouts were drawn from the lower elite, often “middle-aged, provincial officials, rural notables, and urban nouveaux riches.”( Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars)  From former military to police and local officials, many had interests in utilizing royal sanction to reassert authority denied or diminished by social democratic reforms.  The actions and tactics of these local elite changed little between regimes. They merely found extra-legal rather than legal justification for their power.  The Border Patrol Police, a fully sanctioned government para-military organization, often trained these less official para-military organizations and served to guide propaganda, strategy, tactics and rhetoric.  Democracy, rather than diminishing the power of the Royal/Military alliance (by no means monolithic), drove the alliance to reinforce the centers of power firmly in their hands.

Some elites needed to be convinced that democracy would lead to their disempowerment.  Nawapol, often in conjunction with various para-militaries, coordinated a propaganda campaign to rile businessmen, governors and the middle class against the democratic regime.  These organizations courted the elite through “… lectures by right-wing monks, parades, oath-swearings, salutes, beauty and dance contests, visits to military installations, royal donation ceremonies, “sing-songs,”…” (Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars) Convinced that their very positions, profits and traditions were threatened by the new regime money, power and arms circled round the military royalist faction.  Let this quote from monk Kittiwuttho Bhikku of Nawapol, popular in his own right, give you clue as to the tenor of these organizations:

“I think that even Thais who believe in Buddhism should do it [kill leftists]. Whoever destroys the nation, religion and king is not a complete man, so to kill them is not like killing a man. We should be convinced that not a man but a devil is killed. This is the duty of every Thai person.”” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

Well I can’t argue with that sort of logic.  Of course here in the current year such statements would not be well received.  Imagine the international community’s response to such barbarous stirrings.  This story takes place in 1970’s Thailand though, and in 1970’s Thailand the press isn’t controlled by sycophants of the international community, it’s controlled by the military and elites.  Do not worry, the international community is lurking in the shadows but that is a topic for another time.  As opposed to listening to Walter Cronkite, Thailand listened to Nawapol, the Red Guars, the Village Scouts etc. and their feisty monk Kittwutho Bhikku on their very own radio stations to propagate their narrative.  The Internal Security Operations Command which organized much of the propaganda still sports the motto “Conquer the Evil by the Power of Good”.

Since the 1950’s the monarchy had been building both alliances and legitimacy and by the 1970’s was a strong Schelling point.  This legitimacy was reinforced by the concentrated propaganda campaigns.  In contrast to the framing anti-communist sentiments as “un-Thai”, newspapers, radio and speeches upheld the definition of Thai as “King, Religion and Nation.”  The newspapers rightly held communism and liberal democracy as a threat to this trinity of values.  Naturally a secular anti-feudal ideology seemingly backed by foreigners and actively demonized didn’t win much sympathy.

What exactly had these students accomplished?  What was the difference between Thailand on October 13^th 1973 and Thailand on October 14^th 1973?  Well on October 13^th the military, police, media, elite, middle class and bureaucrats were loyal to the royal military alliance.  On October 14^th nothing changed.  There had been no civil war, no Red Terror, no World War, no October Revolution, no Long March, no Fall of Saigon.  In other words there had been no great and bloody struggle which had thrown the elites from their high towers.  The country had become democratic and yet every center of power, most importantly the ones with all the guns hadn’t been seduced by these communist students.  Mildly perturbed that they were no longer officially in charge, these forces were finally aligned against a common enemy.  What were elites saying about these magnanimous students who had so graciously brought democracy?

“After the October 1973 incident which re-established a democratic government, it was said that if Thailand could be rid of 10,000 to 20,000 students and other people, the country would be orderly and peaceful.” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

These sentiments were reflected by our illustrious monk Kittiwutto.

“There were other public statements from September to October of last year [That would be 1976] that the slaughter of the 30,000 participants at the anti-Thanom rally would be a “cost-free investment.” -Kittiwutto, a monk

After all these are not men but devils, and what are the lives of 30,000 devil’s worth?  All that stood between the students and those guns were a few sheets of paper.  As American history has demonstrated, paper is flimsy and hasn’t yet developed the ability to walk, much less complain.  We await further developments.  In the meantime do not take the threats of the powerful lightly.

To learn who doesn’t rule you, simply find out who can be killed or maimed with impunity.  When anti-fa attack right wing protesters they get off with a slap on the wrist.  When right wing protesters do the same they get the book thrown at them.  From this we know who has the backing of an empowered interested third party. When Village Scouts murdered communists in the north, students bravely uncovered the conspiracy of the police to cover it up.  They then proceeded to whine about it.  The police proceeded to speak power to truth.

“In addition to the open operations of these groups, political assassinations had begun in 1974 as well. Peasants’ and workers’ representatives were ambushed one by one throughout the country. Student leaders were killed in Bangkok and other cities, and politicians such as Dr. Boonsanong Poonyodyana, the Secretary General of the Socialist Party, became the victims of these assassins as well. Each time, the police failed to find the murderers, perhaps because they took part in each murder.” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

This like most instances of historical whining to the opposition changed nothing.  Activism and its distant cousin terrorism only work when there is an interested third party with power.  The students had no such third party, and as we’ll see the Village Scouts did. This demonstration among many things was a plea to the powers that be not to form another coup, again activism no third party, no positive results.

The “voice of the people”, the politicians, quietly turned into cowed patrons of the elites.   Legislators protected and insulated the elite from the anger and radicalism of socialist activists.  Knowing which way the wind blew they dragged their feet and moved cautiously knowing a wrong move could be the end of their jobs and perhaps exile or worse.  In fighting broke out as petty conflict and personal ambition trumped ideals and goals.  For the astute student of history this should all be very familiar.  As government ground to a standstill, inflation, food shortages, unemployment, capital drying up and rolling blackouts contributed little to the legitimacy of the regime.  As radicals grew frustrated with the halt to progress, riots, strikes, disruptions and general chaos increased interfering with the daily lives of Thai citizens.

From the elites to the proles a plurality of citizens had become fed up with the dysfunction, vice and instability of the democratic regime.  This naturally re-enforced the military-royal narrative.   With extra-legal forces, and a narrative firmly established, in October of 1976 factions of the elite decided it was the time to strike.  Under the cover of Darkness two exiled leaders returned to Thailand.  Students gathered and prepared to protest the return of their most hated enemies.

“The radio of the armed forces (Free Radio Group and Patriotic Peoples Group) played a major part in stirring up hatred against the students. During the night of the 5th and 6th [October 1976]  it broadcast all night long a series of violent and emotional speeches, at times calling out to “Kill them … kill them.”” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

From 1973 to 1976 we’ve seen quite the escalation of rhetoric.  We started with veiled threats, and we’ve escalated to explicit ones. Its October 1976 the time is ripe. A week short of Three Years (October 6^th, 1976) after the students had revolted 3,000 stood gathered at the Thammasat University.  The catalyst of the democratic revolution, Thammasat University would soon serve another symbolic role.  After a number of attacks on students, unions, professors and other generic activists, students had taken to arming themselves. A few weeks before, a couple of activists were garroted.  The police openly admitted involvement.  The time for subtlety and denial were over.  A few student guards holding rifles and handguns stood watch over the campus.  A crowd gathered outside the gates incited by news articles claiming the students had hung an effigy of the prince.  This would have been (and still is) a grave offense, illegal under lèse-majesté.  Radio broadcasts on military and paramilitary radio urged forces to converge on the campus in the days before the protest.  Civilian radio continue to demonize the students claiming they were communists, and guilty of lèse-majesté.  Police gathered around the entrance, but instead of protecting the students they seemed to forming siege lines.

At first the protesters tore posters from the walls and burned them.  Three police boats patrolled the water behind Thammasat University.  The Police Chief issued order from a temporary headquarters set up at the National Museum.  He announced that he would clear the campus at dawn. The crowd set fire to a small dumpster and threw burning trash into the University.

Shots rang out.  The Red Gaurs made attempts to break into the campus.  Grenades and bombs were thrown over the wall.  As a few Red Guars broke through they exchanged fire with the student guards as students fled into the kill zone safety of buildings.  Para-military forces crashed a bus through a gate bringing a motley flood of Police, Red Gaurs, Village Scouts and soldiers into the campus.  As the radio called for total surrender, the students attempted to flee the attackers only to find all exits blocked and the river guarded.  As the firefight intensified, the police on the river opened fire.  Now lead flew from both sides of the campus.  As the police, paramilitary and military fought building by building, reinforcements were sent in from the surrounding police stations and the Border Patrol.  Busloads of protesters and reinforcements were brought in dwarfing the student gathering by a factor of 10.  The mob grew, gathering in front of statue of King Chulalongkor.  As some students fled the campus the police when door to door to grab the stragglers.  As the fighting died hundreds were brought out to the sports stadium and forced to lie prone while guns were fired over there backs.  The message was not to be missed or soon forgotten.

“According to figures released by the new regime, 41 persons died and several hundred people were injured. About 3,037 persons were taken prisoner… sources at the Chinese Benevolent Foundation, which transported and cremated the dead, it was revealed that they had handled “over a hundred corpses” that day.” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

The elites had attacked the spiritual center of the revolution.  When the bodies were carted away the military rolled into town as a formality.  These students were broken, no longer a threat to the regime.  Bitter and angry they slunk off into the malaria-infested jungle to join the CCP and the revolutionaries.  Awkward urbanites self-exiled into the wilderness and the dullness of rural life. The military coup had worked, no politicians needed to be shot or told who was in charge.  There was no civil war.  The one target that mattered was destroyed and the country moved on.  The coup was celebrated as bloodless.

Over 10,000 students, professors, politicians, unionists and farmers That is a small sacrifice for peace and order.  Do not assume the words of those in power are anything but a promise of what they desire to achieve.  Thailand made good on arresting its 10,000 in one year and continued to suppress communism with arrests, para-military and military campaigns.

“The military claimed the following justifications for their action: student confrontations and violence, internal and external communist subversion, parliamentary ineptness and stalemate, and deprecation of the ancient trinity of “king, religion, and country.”” –Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Vol.9, No.3: July-September 1977

When Obama made the “If I had a son speech” the media ran with it.  It was very clear who was in the right on that dark street.  When the Thai newspapers showed the crown prince taking a photo op with the army and police (including some wounded ones) and the King with the Village Scouts, it is very clear who was on the right side of history.  The rankings were in.  The military, police and Village Scouts, Red Guars, Border Patrol Police were in vogue, students were pariahs.  Photo-ops of Royalty meeting with these and other groups graced newsprint daily.  There was to be no confusion of who the heroes were.

The actions of the para-military forces might in modern parlance be deemed acts of terror.  So why were these Red Guars and Village Scouts the heroes of day?  Why did it work?  If we are going by the cool kid’s club definition (would the participants be welcome at a progressive party? Bill Ayres? Yes. Doui the scar faced Red Guar Merc? No.) then these attacks would fall definitively under right-wing terrorism.  Sorry Village Scouts but killing communists is considered a left wing faux pas.  So how did right wing “terrorism” work?  Well unlike say socialist Sweden, in 1970’s Thailand there are not one but many Schmittian third parties.  These included the royal family, regional governors, elite business owners, military, The Internal Security Operations Command, and last but not least the CIA.  In addition some of these factions had control of the narrative to properly frame these events.  These events could have been framed as the work of dangerous extremists, but instead they were loyal patriotic Thais protecting “King, Religion and Nation.”  Take heed at the amount of factors which had to coordinate to make these attacks successful.  Next time you see a riot in some unfortunate suburb or city considers that it is not happening in a vacuum.  Successful terrorism is proxy violence for a powerful third party, and usually current or soon to be sovereign.

So how did Thailand react to this egregious set back to freedom?

“Bangok on the surface has remained as it has been for years, with traffic jams (but worse than ever), bustling activity, pollution, noise.  Moreover, many ‘ordinary people,’ not to mention the traditionalist elite, approved of the coup.  To them it promised an end to turmoil, ‘confusion’ (a word constantly heard) and uncertainty, and a return to stability law and order…But the propensity to short-term comparisons (before and after October 1976), the belief in firm authority, the easy identification of democracy with disorder and violence, and indeed an attitude of living from day to day, are still prevalent.” – “Thailand: The Coup and Its Implications” J. L. S. Girling, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn, 1977)

The Thais seemed to buy into the royalist military narrative, or some close approximation.  They had watched their country fall apart and they were told democracy was the cause.  Certainly democracy was the proximate cause for many of these issues.  The newspapers found democracy at the scene of the crime.  Was it guilty?  Certainly it was guilty of some charges, but there were a number of other culprits crashing through the 70’s.  To be fair we don’t know what other crimes it was planning on committing; it never really got the chance. The democracy family does seem to produce a lot of criminals.  Some experts are starting to believe it might be genetic.  Despite all the pamphlets, plays, and books wafting out of academia singing the praises of democracy, people [“Thais”] didn’t much seem to care when it died.  The fire hose of national media just tends to drown out small voices even during the short interim of freedom of the press.  The media declared the culprit and the lynch mob showed up.  People were shocked and abhorred by the brutality, but they quietly accepted that the massacre was a necessary evil.  After all, what was the alternative Disorder? Violence? Communism?

By 1980 overt communism was dead in Thailand.  Dead in the strongest sense of the word, its sole artifacts were bodies of students, peasants and guerillas strewn across the north of the country.  The ones that weren’t dead were allowed back into society, provided they renounce their views.  Many ironically found their way back into politics supporting royalist factions.  Isn’t it funny what a decade or more in exile under the imminent threat of death can do to change people’s loyalties?  During the 1980’s Thailand and the PRC made their peace and there were no longer funds and weapons pouring into the hands into Northern Thailand.

“For academics, professionals and other urban intellectuals with views ranging from the Centre to the Left, on the other hand, the situation [in 1976] is depressing.  They are still in a state of shock, staggering from what must appear to be a mortal blow to democracy.  They face the numbing realization that not only is there an end to their hope of taking part in creating a better society, but that conditions especially of academic work are likely to prove unbearable-given the present atmosphere of political intolerance (maintained by the armed forces and the government), suspicion (inflamed by informers), jealousies (‘patriots’ getting their own back against ‘progressives’) and a spate of repressive regulations.”  – “Thailand: The Coup and Its Implications” J. L. S. Girling, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn, 1977)

Never confuse speaking from power with the whining that your regents may currently acquiesce. Power is not symmetrical and it certainly isn’t fair.  Before you do your victory dance and certainly before you even make a move it is imperative that you know what you’re doing.  Without understanding the nature of power how can be sure that your struggle is not salubrious?   A controlled opposition is no opposition at all.  Believe it or not the physiology of power matters.  A nerve is not the carotid artery. Indeed if you do manage to hit a nerve, make sure you keep hacking.  A cleaved head plots not and a plot can be the difference between success and your body in a ditch.

“Reconciliation Thai- style is like the father who tells his children to go to bed and get some sleep after brutally punishing them for disobedience. The crime was a family matter. Good children are not supposed to cry for being abused.” –Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law, and Violence in Northern Thailand,Tyrell Haberkorn

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