A Dream Deferred… Reading Thai politics through Langston Hughes’ “Harlem”

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
 
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
 
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes’ Harlem

(Courtesy to Poetry Foundation)

ฝันที่ไม่ถูกผันให้เป็นจริงนั้นเป็นฉันใด

มันจะแห้งเหือดไป
ดั่งองุ่นใต้แสงอาทิตย์ไหม?

หรือจะพุพอง
เหมือนแผลน้ำหนองไหล?

หรือเหม็นดั่งเนื้อเน่า
เมื่อเวลาผันผ่านไป?

หรือกลายเป็นเกล็ดน้ำตาล
เกาะอยู่ตามขอบน้ำเชื่อมใส?

ไม่แน่ มันอาจจะโก่งงอ
เหมือนต้องรับน้ำหนัก

หรือเมื่อถึงจุดหัก
มันก็จะระเบิด?

On the night of 24th September through the day of 25th, the hashtag #RepublicOfThailand has been on no.1 Twitter trending with more than 875,000 tweets venting their anger towards the parliament, the government, and naturally, the seemingly undisturbed monarchy.

The parliament decided, on that day, to postpone the vote on the amendment of the constitution proposed by a non-profit human rights organization, going by the name iLaw. The total number of 100,732 signed up with the hope that the heavily junta-influenced charter currently in use would be repealed, thus paved the way for the actual Thai people to truly have a hand in drafting the law that would govern them fair and free.

Unsurprisingly, against the will of the people, the government tightly held on to the power. All but nine senators (228) and almost a half of all representatives (203) voted for setting up a panel to review the constitution amendment proposal, causing the pro-government side to gain substantially more votes that the opposed (431-255). Though the proposal was not rejected entirely, the votes caused the amendment to be delayed for a month. This is, again, another proof that the Thai parliament is in need of a makeover. The sole reason that the pro-government legislatures succeeded in blocking the immediate parliamentary review of is the votes from the senators, which were entirely selected by the National Council for Peace and Order (another name for the junta). The council said that these people were chosen based on the differences in their professions to best represent Thailand’s population. However, it seems like the only mattered qualification for the approved candidates is the fanatical devotion to the government, as they almost unanimously opted for the same option, and showed no diversity at all in depicting Thai political leanings. The disheartening response from the parliament manifested the government’s fierce resistance to protect the decades-plagued cronyism, rooted in all aspects of Thai culture and not just in politics. Again, the people’s dream of a better Thailand was deferred.

Just five days before this parliamentary meeting on 19th September, there was the biggest protest against the government ever happening since the arrival of military junta on Sanam Laung, in front of the Grand Palace, the very place that represents the monarchy and its power over Thai subjects. The challenge against the status quo bore fewer fruits than expected. Even though the turnout was overwhelmingly positive, the demonstration received international attention and coverage, and Arnon Numpa’s Ten Demands and Rung Panassaya’s direct message to the King could not be any clearer, government’s meaningful responses to the protest and the demands were close to none. To be fair, no one expected that the country would be steered toward a more democratic path overnight from a highly participated but relatively short protest. Still disappointingly, there were no substantial changes, except now Sanam Laung is open to the public, which could be considered a small step in taking back what was ours.

Without any promises to take the demands into consideration, it seemed like the prime minister was so sure of his power and status that he can afford to ignore the screaming voices from the citizens. (Although the prepared retaliation by the police at the turn of the night into 20th September seemed to suggest otherwise.) His intention is perhaps to do nothing and leave the protesters like a grape in the sun; at some point, their burning passion will become a burnout; at some point, it will eventually dry away.

It is not an understatement to say that Thai politics is like a running sore. It may look like it was healing when a democratic election was held in 2011 which followed by a victory for Pheu Thai Party. Thailand even had the first female prime minister. It looked like everything was going to be more progressive on this democratic ride; the wound was going to recover. Clearly, that was not the case. After all, who would have predicted that the discontentment of the Bangkok middle and upper-class minority against the rising provincial political and financial power was enough to break all the rules (which, I should remind you, were laid down by the Democrat Party itself), and even not allow the government to resolve the problems in a democratic way (It is even weirder that many of them now have not got the gut to say it out loud that they support dictatorship). The agenda was clear; they needed military intervention. And boy, did they succeed. In 2014, the military coup took over the civilian matters, thus began Thailand as we know it. The sore had been reopened and left untreated. Thailand once again relapsed into this political madness in which all logical reasoning ceased to function, lies became a new fundamental tool to justify junta’s existence, and laws were used strictly to those who opposed, but sparingly to its cronies.

There was a dream, a powerful dream that someday one could stand erected in one’s full height and not again submit to the weight of Junta’s yoke. On 24th March 2019, almost half of the voters had declared their stance siding with pro-democracy parties. Pheu Thai Party gained more seats than any other parties in the parliament. The future was bright, everyone was hopeful. The fight between the left and the right was seemingly neck and neck, but then the reality hit hard. Even though the pro-democracy parties gained just eight representative seats less than the pro-junta side in the parliament, the chance they could form the government was literally null. It was this old tale repeated once more. The 250 state-appointed senators had more says in this matter more than millions of people votes. When it was so obvious that who would emerge triumphant in this political fight, the undecided parties then rushed to declare their loyalty to the victor, Palang Pracharath Party. It is a bit of absurdity that those who are trusted to represent the voices of millions of people use this position to abuse the system, thus devalue the importance of the people, the fountain of their very power. Since that day on, the rigged system has persisted; the dream has been left unfulfilled; the meat has become rotten and its stench has been getting stronger and stronger as days past.

The foul smell became unbearable when the Future Forward Party, a new face in the political arena, whose political tactics were different than the veteran politicians from Pheu Thai, Democrat, and Palang Pracharath Parties, were threatened to be dissolved. It should not be a surprise, however, that the establishment would use all their might to destroy the new player who knew not when to pursue its agenda and when to stand down. The party’s young, determined, and uncompromising nature that caused a social sensation and gave Thai people too much hope that it shook the rocky foundation of the status quo, was the real reason that Future Forward needed to be eliminated from this ferocious political game. Although the overwhelming number of people came to support the party on 14th December 2019 – the first-ever major political gathering since the coming of the military junta, they could not escape the misfortunate already written in script by a higher power. 

On 21 February 2020, the news came. The end of the Future Forward Party was announced loud and clear, though the same could not be said for the explanation. The cause leading to the dissolution was because Thanathorn, the party leader, had lent 191.2 million baht to the party with an unusually low-interest rate. The Constitutional Court saw this as a way to circumvent the law that prohibited political parties from receiving donation exceeding the amount of 10 million baht per year. The point of this prohibition is to prevent political parties from being controlled by an outsider.

So many questions were raised on this issue, however, I found an article on Chulalongkorn University website particularly interesting (https://www.chula.ac.th/cuinside/27855/). Asst. Prof. Parinya Narumitrkul and Assoc. Prof. Narongdech Kharukhosit questioned the decision and the review of the court. According to Parinya, a political party was not a state organization, because for a state organization, if the law did not explicitly say that it was able to do a particular thing, then it could not do it. But for a civilian organization, which the Future Forward Party certainly was, if the law did not state that anyone was forbidden to do it, then the party was free to do so.

Narongdech focused more on the interest rate side of the equation. He said, the average loaning interest rate of Thailand’s five largest banks was around 7.187%, and according to the civil code, a lender could not charge more than 15% interest rate. For him, to say that an interest rate was “unusually low”, one needed to look at an interest rate for a fixed deposit account which is 1.57%. But Thanathorn set the interest rate at 2%, the question that followed was then what did “unusually low” actually mean?

Narongdech concluded that the objective of the Political Party Act of 2017 was to protect the principle of democracy. So if you want to prevent an outsider from gaining influence over a political party by using donation as a tool, you had to stop that outsider from spreading the influence, and not to dissolve the party. With this, too, I agreed. How could a party supported by more than six million people be overruled by mere nine people appointed by the state?

The judgement from the court seemed unfair on its own, but then it became revoltingly bias when compared to the treatment of government-sided Palang Pracharath Party whose notorious allegation on receiving the 352-million-baht donation from both public and private organization had gone unexamined. The perfect example of cronyism the Thai establishment trying to protect.

Then came the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, to which the government responded by enforcing the emergency decree. The decree was, for a reason, extended more each month until today. In the first few months, the use of the decree, though being criticized as unnecessary, was still somewhat understandable. But as time went by and the decree was still in use, it became crystal clear that the government did not intend to only use this opportunity to stop, prevent or delay the spreading of the virus, but also to put out the anti-establishment sentiment burning in the hearts of Thai youth and adults alike.

The growing discontentment against the government and the monarchy displayed firstly in form of an online sensation, especially in Twitter. It is hard to pinpoint the beginning of this social-media outburst, however, these two major incidents were unarguably the tragic and unjust events that stirred Thai people’s anger: the arrest of Niranam (literary translated as Anonymus) in February 2020 and the abduction of Wanchalerm in Phanom Pehn on 4th June 2020. Both Niranam and Wanchalerm were always critical of the monarchy, thus the incidents were perfect evidence of the non-existing freedom of speech in Thailand.

Along the way, there were several incidents that sparked the fury of people: the mishandling of the COVID-19 infected Egyptian soldiers causing public dismay, the government’s need to join CPTPP, the arrest of Tiwakorn who wore a shirt with a quote saying “we lost faith in the monarchy”, the economic hardship faced by millions during the pandemic, and many more. The anger and the hatred toward those in power had been accumulated over this whole period of crisis and manifested itself in the protest of 18th July – the biggest protest since the 2014 coup, organized by the Free Youth Movement.

If the emergency decree were meant to be used as a vaccine to stop the liberating ideology, then it would be considered as a failure. Protests now were spreading like a wildfire. In many universities, in front of numerous town halls and public spaces, people were coming out and congregated to vent their long-suppressed anti-dictatorship sentiment. The initiators of such uprisings leaned toward the young demographic tendency. Though the experienced and the veterans in protesting arena were by no mean absent from the scene, the limelight was given to the youth who best symbolized the future of Thailand.

 Now, it was clear that the people were going against the direction set by the ruler. While the prime minister had been using all effort to centralize the governing system, trying the make all other provinces depend on Bangkok, the ideas of liberation made people in provincial parts aware and pushed them to bring back the power they once had; some even talked about self-governing and self-determination. This awakening shifted the conversation to include the mistreatment of marginal people like tribal communities in the Northern Thailand who were rejected of various basic rights and the people in three southernmost provinces who were forced to live in a constant state of fear due to heavy military presence.

The July – early August protests often came in a very creative fashion. “Themes” now became an integral part in making an important statement by cooperating pop culture into the activity once considered serious and solemn. Their intention us to show that protests did not have to adhere to the old, traditional format to make an impact. Furthermore, the themes being used could be seen as a way for Thai youngsters to reconstructing their new identities that had been washed away by the dictatorship in both academic, social, and political areas.

The LGBTIQ protest held by Saeree Toey (Free Gays) on 25th July borrowed catchy phrases from a horror-comedy film, Haunting Me (Hor Teaw Tak; also Oh My Gost!) to attack the government in an amusing way, while at the same time, had an array of non-binary speakers expressing their hardship caused by the lack of their representation, the systemic discrimination in Thai legal system, and the suppressed identity originated from a dictatorial influence permeating every inch of Thai culture. Their agenda is not only to demand democracy but also to pull public attention to the topic of same-sex marriage.

Another fun political gathering was the Hamtaro protest on 26th July. In this protest, they used the opening song from their familiar childhood cartoon, Hamtaro, translated and rewritten it for people to sing along while running around the Democracy Monument. The song drew a similarity between the nature of hamsters and corrupted politicians, and perhaps a higher power in that they slept and did nothing all days while waiting to be feed with people’ tax money. This event attracted a lot of young Thais whose childhood was tied together by an affection toward the cartoon and the feeling of being betrayed by the government who failed to lift their life quality, to push Thailand into prosperity, and most of all, to give them a free and fair chance to choose the future they want.

But the event that steered all later protests into a more intense and to-the-point direction was Harry Potter theme protest on 3rd August 2020, where the attorney Arnon Nampa set an unprecedented record by talking clearly, directly, and loudly, on the stage, about the problem of the existence of the Monarchy. That was the beginning of protests as we know it. No more beating around the bush and straight to the point. Thus, on 10th August, in Thammasart University protest, the famous Ten Demands to reform the monarchy were born.

It also worth mentioning that not only demonstrations by university students that received high media coverage, the protests held by a school students group named Bad Students also fought their own battle against dictatorial mindset adopted by teachers and school directors alike. The protests, like the bigger ones, spreading into many schools across Thailand. White ribbon became the symbol of the movement. They tied it on their hair, around their wrists, on their bag, or anywhere they deemed fit. Students who were empowered by the movement came out online and on stages to share their experiences being punished with brutality, emotionally damaged, bullied, picked on, or even sexually harassed by teachers who were supposed to protect and create safe space for their students. The topics of dictatorship and autocracy in schools were widely discussed; many teachers were exposed of wrong-doings; some schools tried to improve themselves but some tried to silent students’ voices; the Bad Students still had a long fight in front of them.

Although these many protests were happening, the government still lacked meaningful responses and substantial plans to accommodate people’s needs. What they did was extending the emergency decree each month and used it to charge those who led demonstrations on the ground that they failed to follow the decree. They charged, arrested, and released the protest leaders to instil fear on to the people’s mind. They kept Thailand in an emergency state to make us familiar with the situation, then get used to it, thus accept it as new normality. They wanted to freeze our dream; they want it to be crusted and sugared over like a syrupy sweet. The dream would be there, not gone away, but then it would lack the liquidity needed to move from place to place. It would become static, there would be no burning sensation, no hopeful light – just a dark and cold void.

When the fights on the street could not bring the government into acceptance of people’s power, iLaw came in to fight using a constitutional solution. Within just 5 weeks, the overwhelming number of 100,732 people submit their documents with the hope that if we used the system to beat the system then it would legitimate enough that the establishment could not find any excuses to not accept people’s demand (the initial requirement was 50,000). It was made clear in the first paragraph that we were wrong. They would find and do anything by any means possible to cling on to their positions and power. The load of this autocratic regime got heavier and heavier each day, I afraid we might soon be crushed to death beneath it,

Yesterday, on 30th September, Arnon Nampa updated his Facebook status that he had cleared all his works and that he was ready to fully fight on the street this 14th October onwards. This was the promise that this October, we would see a protest larger than we had ever seen.

There are no more stories for me tell since it is all about tomorrow. I do not know which way the tide will turn to. Will we simply let our dream crusted over, or soon will we see how bright the explosion can get?

Arnon Nampa, Rung Panasaya, and other protest leaders have already had the answer in their minds. I, too, have one.

What about you?

What do you think happens to a dream deferred?