Will Brehm 0:58
Kanokrat Lertchoosakul, welcome to FreshEd. So, what’s going on with the Thai protests today? Can you give us a little bit of background and context?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 1:06
Actually, the protests started since January this year. There were several rounds of the student protests in many universities throughout the country, but it has been suspended because of the Covid. And we have seen this phenomenon emerge again in September. And now the protest has proliferated throughout the country. Every day, including both not only the university students, but also the high school and primary school students.

Will Brehm 1:46
Wow. And so, it’s happening throughout Thailand? I mean, the photos that I see seem to be pictures of Bangkok. But you’re saying that this is happening in more places throughout Thailand.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 1:58
Yes, particularly during the past six or seven days, there were around at least ten locations of the protests throughout the country in every region. In the north, in Chiang Mai, in the south in Hat Yai in Songkla and in the northeastern of Thailand in Khon Kaen in Ubon Ratchathani, and in Bangkok, there were at least five locations nearly every day.

Will Brehm 2:26
Wow. Wow. And how many people are protesting? Do we have an idea of the size of these protests?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 2:33
For example, yesterday there were at least 20,000 people on the streets in Bangkok in probably five locations. And there were for example, yesterday there were, in Khon Kaen, around 2,000-3,000 people. And in other provinces at least 3,000-4,000 people at least in different locations.

Will Brehm 2:58
Is it mostly students or are other people joining these protests?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 3:04
Mostly, particularly in other provinces there were university students and also the high school students. In Hat Yai, for example, mainly were high school students. But in Bangkok, because now there were around five locations every day, there were not only just students. They were including other workers in the city center of Bangkok, and also the urban poor, those who used to join the red shirt anti-establishment movements.

Will Brehm 3:42
Why are all of these students and a few other people protesting?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 3:48
At first, I have to say that I start interviewing since all the participants, I mainly focus on the participant of this protest since February. And I think there were three major reasons that why the students they are now on the street. I think they were first, there were three changes. And the second is there were two not changes in this society. And the last is their dream. I would like to elaborate. The first is the first changes that the younger generation in Thailand are now facing. The first is the change in their socialization. But the socialization in Thailand has changed during the past 10 to 20 years. The younger, modern family have changed the way of raising their kids, no longer using the authority like in the past. Their parents are the same age as mine around 40, 30 years old, and they are now raising their kids with a new kind of idea, more liberal, they would like to promote self-criticism among their kids, they would like to promote think out of the box, they would like their kids to be different. And they have already created a new generation, that parents are very proud that when they ask questions about nearly everything. And most of about 80% of the student that I interviewed, they live in the pretty more open family mixed with different ideological groups of people. Many joined the anti-Thaksin protest, many support the royalists, many anti-establishment. So, this generation they grew up in a very vibrant society which has never, ever seen before in the Thai political history. The second change is a disruptive world. As you have known, not only in the Western world, but in Thailand, the changes in our economic and also technology and also this globalization have challenged this generation like none any other generation have mentioned before. I asked that why they start to protest. I think nearly 60% of the students told me that because of their future. They have been very worried about their future in the way that I have never, ever heard the high school students talk about this before. I interviewed one of the 14-year-old students and she keep up the information about the price of the material trade every day, because their family have involved in this agricultural trade. So, she has been very aware about the impact of the government policy on agricultural products, the age of 14 years old. She followed up the information, the news all the time because she is very worried about her future. She told me that the future for the younger generation is very difficult, more difficult than the older generation. And the last change is the technology of the media. I call it modern media. It’s not only about social media, but the younger generation comparing to the older generation in Thailand, they have been able to access to new kinds of political tools, both the printed media and also the online media, offline/online. For the online, Twitter has changed the generation. Not only access into the information, but they also use Twitter as the political mechanism in participating in politics, which for me, is more of the extension of the face-to-face communication. But for the Twitter, this generation, they communicate with this kind of the wider world, communicate with those who they haven’t ever known. And they used it to access into the new information. Not only that, but also to do their political campaign. The Twitter, the re-tweeting, the hashtag campaign have become the new political tool for them to voice out their demand and also their frustration. But the reason that why they stood up on the street because after two or three years of campaigning online, their voice have never, ever been heard. So, they got very frustrated, particularly after the dissolving of the Future Forward Party. We can say that this party is the representative of the younger generation. So, the government decided to dissolve this party in January and since then, the protest began.

Will Brehm 8:41
What was the logic of the government to dissolve Future Forward as a political party? Because from my understanding, it won many seats in Parliament and then was dissolved.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 8:52
Yes, that’s right. There were two reasons, two issues why the government decided to dissolve this party. The first is because they alert this party as the connection with the old movement. For example, like the red shirt and the Thaksin groups, that they perceive that the Future Forward is the new version of the crony of the Thaksin government. On the other hand, they perceive this as a new threat, as the younger generation supporter, they argue that this group of political party, the Future Forward tried to mobilize a younger generation to support their power. However, this is not the allegation that has been used to dissolve this party. For example, the fundraising gives the loan to the Future Forward party in order to do the political campaign because the government has drawn up to constitution which limits the ability for the new emerging party to do the fundraising.

Will Brehm 10:04
It might be helpful if you could give a little bit of context about who Thaksin was and the sort of political history of modern Thailand where there was this political coalition that was supporting the rural poor, and they kept getting removed from office more or less. But maybe you could give a little bit of history for the listeners who might not know who Thaksin was.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 10:28
Okay, during the past 20 years, Thailand has been under a political battle between the two polarized movement and polarized elite. On the one hand, we have seen the emerging new generation of the politician and political party like the Thai Rak Thai and Pheu Thai, which have been led by former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. His background is coming from the IT tycoon, and he promotes the policy platform party, promoting the policy for the poor and for the lower middle-class people in Thailand. For example, like universal health care, the cheap loan for the small and medium enterprise. However, he successfully mobilized support from the lower middle class, which is majority of the Thai population. On the other hand, it was the old establishment including many political party would have been … including, for example, the Democrat Party, and the old elites like those in the royalist, military, and technocrats. Since, before 1997, the old elites have dominated the politics of the Parliament. However, since 2000, Thaksin won the election and he successfully mobilized support from the rural poor, and also the urban, new emerging middle class through his so-called populist policy, is a pro-poor policy. So, after two round of overwhelming victory in the election, the middle class, or the upper middle class, and also the old establishment started to campaign against Thaksin and his political party, and they have used different kind of political and legal method in order to dissolve his party several times. However, there were still his successor and new party emerged in order to replace that, the Thai Rak Thai became the Pheu Thai and etc. About four new political party replaced the old one. So, there were countless round of battle between the supporter of Thaksin, which they organized themselves into the movement called “the red shirt” movement. On the other hand, the established middle class and also the old elite organized themselves in the anti-Thaksin camp, which is called themselves “the yellow shirt” movement. So, this kind of the long battle back and forth between the yellow shirts and red shirts have been the context and the background of these new emerging student protests. In 2014, there were the military coup d’état against the successor of Thaksin. His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, formulated a new political party to replace the older dissolved party. And the military coup d’état, coup against this government and draw up the constitution which would help them to sustain their authority in the long run. And this allowed to have the election last year in 2019, in February. But the result was contradictory to the initial intention. Instead of winning the election, the political party backed by military won only the second. At the same time, there were the new emerging political party mobilizing the support of the younger generation.

Will Brehm 14:12
Wow. I mean, it’s a really chaotic history, right. And you can imagine why students, or young people, might feel disillusioned or worried about the future as you were talking about.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 14:23
Exactly.

Will Brehm 14:24
A question I have is why, or how did this start on college campuses? Like, how did students start mobilizing to actually say, we need to now take to the street. I mean, that seems like a very major decision to make.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 14:40
That’s right. Because as the one who studied the student movement in Thailand for quite some time, the student movement in Thailand has declined recently. We have seen the rise of the student movement during the 1970s but after the collapse of the Communist Party of Thailand, in around the 1980s, the student movement declined. And we haven’t seen the role of the student in the political movement since then. But we have seen the sign of this reemerging of the student role in the political movement since the military coup d’état in 2014. However, during this time, there were several groups of the anti-military dictatorship, anti-military coup amongst a small group of the radical students. But they were not be able to mobilize the mass support. What we have seen is only after the dissolving of the Future Forward party, we have started to see the younger generation of the students in the universities start to organize themselves, but only within the university. During that time, there were a lot of problem with the Future Forward that would not allow them to promote the protests themselves. Because after dissolving the Future Forward Party, they have reorganized a new political party, and there were a lot of warnings that if they protest on the street, their new party would be dissolved again. So, there were a lot of hesitation among this party in order to promote the protests on the street. But by the time the student have already organized themselves. And this group of students were different from the radical wing of the students who organized the protest since the military coup d’état. This is what we haven’t known before. Many of them were ordinary students who were frustrated that the party that they chose had been dissolved. During that time, there were just a small group of students. But we have already seen the sign in February that there were the protests in the location that we haven’t seen before. For example, like in the Chulalongkorn University, which has been coined as one of the very conservative and very loyalist university. We have seen during in February, there were around 2,000 students in the campus, which has never happened before since the 1970s. But during this time, the thing has totally different. The rising of the high school students became something that has been unexpected. And to be honest, the issue that they raised, and their campaign, is went beyond going against the military coup d’état. It’s now lifting the issue to the anti-monarchy, anti-establishment in the bigger level, which is, for me, is something that unpredictable. We have never ever seen anything like this before.

Will Brehm 17:57
And is it dangerous? I mean, I would imagine young students going to the street and sort of talking out against the monarchy and the military rulers is potentially very dangerous.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 18:09
Yes, it was very, very dangerous. The government arrested many students at the very initial state of the protest in September. But the turning point was on the 10th of August, when the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration publicly announced their demands for the monarchy to reform. They proposed 10 demands for the monarchy to be more accountable to the society. At that time, it was shock for the Thai society, that how the protesters would be able to talk about this publicly. It was the first time. Because many people, even the Pope, talked about this in social media. Several students and people have been arrested and charged by the Lèse-majesté law, or 112 that anyone who challenge or threatening the royal family would be put on jail. And the penalty is very high. It’s 15 years. But that was the first time. And since then, since 10th of August, the Thai society has totally changed. Talking about reforming of the monarchy become something a lot more open. In different locations in the protests, this became the major issue in the protest more than discussing about the reform of the government or asking the prime minister to resign.

Will Brehm 19:48
Wow. So, do you see this in your sort of everyday life? People talking about reforming the monarchy?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 19:54
Yes, yes. For example, day one that I interviewed a high school student in September, many of them didn’t dare to talk about the name of the king directly, or they have to use the nickname or whatever. But after 10th of August, now, if you go to the protest, no one closes their face, no one would stop talking about reforming the monarchy, which for me is something big surprise for those who have keep eyes on the Thai politics for a long time.

Will Brehm 20:29
So, it’s been a few months since people have really started talking openly about reforming the monarchy, reforming the government. So, how has the government and the monarchy responded to the student protests and this new everyday discourse that people are having?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 20:49
For the Thai state, either the bureaucratic system, military, or the royal institute, this is something very new for them. They have never ever encountered this kind of situation before. So, first of all, they use the same tactic that they used to apply with the earlier opposition, either the movement or the political party. They use the violence, they use the arrest, legal suit, or the threatening physically, mentally, they use the conservative institute like the school in order to threaten the student. But after months of using this, instead of being able to threaten and lower the voice of all these high school students, they became a lot more angry and the movement become bigger, widespreader, more unified, which during the past two months, the organization of the student protests has evolved from the scatter, fragmented, become a lot more unified. And the younger, new generation of the leaders, and public speakers, become widely accepted in the society. For example, the protests on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we have seen that there were no more a single leader. Everybody had their own microphone from home, and everybody alternately became a public speaker.

Will Brehm 22:28
That sounds like Hong Kong

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 22:31
Uh, yes and no.

Will Brehm 22:35
So, can you tell us a little bit more about what’s happening today, and particularly how the monarchy is responding to these students. Have they put out any press releases, or has the king said anything to sort of tamper the discord?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 22:51
After the failure of the first threatening measurement, the violence to the students, they have I think, during the past few days, particularly yesterday, they have changed the tactic. Because now they’re trying to open up more the space for the students to step back and they’ve tried to argue that they would step back as well. Today, this early morning, they have already lifted their emergency decree and the Prime Minister announced last night that they would open the emergency round after the debate in the house of Parliament regarding this political crisis. So, we have seen the sign that they have tried to step back, but before this, on top of the violence that the military used, they are also trying to use the old style of the Cold War, anti-communist strategy particularly using a loyalist campaign against the student movement. Our last week on 13th or 14th, I cannot remember well, but there were a kind of state setting up that they were the crown tried to storm into a car, which carried the queen and the prince on the car. And that picture was questioned by many sign was that the state is setting up by the government or the loyalist group that tried to victimize the students that turned them into anti-royalist who tried to use the violence against the monarchy. However, this was not that successful, because now that they are Twitter and the individual campaigns have tried to unfold this kind of phenomenon. And it seems like it didn’t work where it would not be able to mobilize or provoke anger among the royalists group?

Will Brehm 25:03
What do you think is going to happen in the future?

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 25:05
What are they dreaming of is there it’s very difficult, and it’s very challenging, more far more challenging than any other political movement in Thailand. Because they are talking about anti-establishment in every single level, unlike during the 1932, even though they have the so called revolution of the Thai democracy, changing Thailand from absolute monarchy to the constitutional monarchy, but that’s still reform comparing to the Western world. But now that the students are now challenging, they’re asking for not only reform, but many students have gone beyond this. So, I’m not quite sure that how this demand would be able to achieve. However, if we talk about what is going to happen in a very short-term future, we have seen that the government now have been aware that they would not be able to tackle with the students like the earlier opposition. So, I think they are now reforming that, a way to treat the student movement. But for the student movement, they have already come very far. They have successfully mobilized; I don’t know hundreds of thousand people on the street on the 19th of September -I’m not quite sure. But there were a high supporter coming from various sector now, not only among the students themselves. We have seen the start-up business group, we have seen the rural poor, we have seen the labor group are now joining the protests and organized protests themselves in parallel with the student protests and demonstrations.

Will Brehm 26:58
Well, it’s just such an inspiring and interesting phenomenon to watch from afar. Thank you so much for doing all of these interviews. I look forward to seeing some of the research that’s going to come out of this because it’s just an incredible moment. Like you said, it’s sort of historically. So, Kanokrat, thank you so much for joining FreshEd and I really had a nice time talking today.

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul 27:21
Thank you.

Want to help translate this show? Please contact info@freshedpodcast.com

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Have any useful resources related to this show? Please send them to info@freshedpodcast.com