whoever is the government… some of the poor is still poor.

We have unlikely explaination of heavy rain on 21th May. At least this is what matichon related the rain to Somchai Wongsawat’s declaration that he will return to politic in the next five years. After that came a heavy storm. What is more important, though, Chalerm Yuubamrung actually put practical reasons why the government made mistakes on financial discipline, increasing taxes foreign loans and generally put Thais into greater risks.

But isn’t all governemtn will put people at risk, anytime and anyway? We have the risks of less self dependent and addiction to “populism” and self-sufficient from the past governments. It would be difficult to name them, as we will have to name all of them.

In Peua Thai meeting yesterday, Chalerm, who refused to lead the party, said he would outline what the party would do and would not hessitate to use any measures within or outside the parliament to get the Democrat led government out. Somchai was certain that the party will be the government in the future.

However, the gap or justice between the rich (like.. if you have six passports and will participate the bid of an island) and the poor, who are now lying on the footpath near Ministry of Finace, near my soi, an obviously deserve some coverage (despite the rain tomorrow..) is still enormous. They are calling for grace period for thier agricultural loans. Yet, the culture of mass mobilization might obliterate their stories.

PS. After a long disappearnce, I have learned that in the near future, i will be traveling to collect some in dformation in the refugees camps after too much time spent for back and forth emails and a lot of meeting during the past weeks. so will be back to blog regularly.

Filed under: Political Sciences

@ FCCT Medecins Sans Frontieres Media Advisory (Hmong)

Got this in the mailbox.
Medecins Sans Frontieres Media Advisory

MSF withdraws from Hmong camp in Phetchabun because of Thai Military Restrictions and Coercive Tactics.

2.00pm – Weds May 20, 2009
Medecins Sans Frontieres has been compelled to terminate its medical relief program for refugees in Huai Nam Khao camp in Petchabun province in northern Thailand as a direct result of the Thai military’s scare tactics.

These tactics include pressuring ethnic Lao Hmong refugees to accept a forced return to Laos, and intensifying restrictions on MSF’s activities, such as trying to force MSF to temporarily cutting food distributions to the refugee population and forcing patients to pass through military control to obtain medical care, have compelled

Medecins Sans Frontieres has provided humanitarian assistance to the Hmong refugees in Huai Nam Khao, since 2005. As the sole international presence in the camp, MSF is issuing a final appeal to the Thai and Laotian governments to immediately stop deporting the Hmong refugees in Huai Nam Khao and to allow an independent third party to review the refugees’ claims for protection and to monitor any repatriations.

Speakers:

- Gilles Isard – MSF’s head of mission in Thailand
- Angela MAKATA – Field coordinator
- Pierre-Alexis DEMAY – Clinical psychologist

——————
Just like por previous experiences from the other “camps,” the infrastructures are ready to be accessed, but you have to ask the military first.

Filed under: Political Sciences , Hmong, Human Rights, thailand

To boost your GDP

Here are lists of items that the price will be increased or already increased.

Since 14 May, petrol would be increased 2 THB/Liter
Domestic Cigarette: 10-13 THB/pack
Imported Cigarette: 15-17 THB/pack

Yet, the government will not collect inheritance tax but chose to collect land tax for unused land and building, housing and properties tax.

I think the red people will not like it.

Expect to hear from them soon….

Filed under: Political Sciences

Camera Angles and (Truth) and Reconciliation Mission.

This was meant to be a follow up post to the government’s website and narrative. I wish to thank Apiwat Saengpathaseema’s (Urban Media Society) footages he shared with friend in Facebook.

War Journalism: Point of views and Camera AnglesSince the occupation of Iraq, war journalism and coverage have brought recent reporting practices. One of them is journalists followed the advancing troops. It might be the first time, I reckoned that the ‘third party’ media can follow the troops and record the almost real time event at their own risk, instead relying on military clips. Coverage also shifted from air to ground or ground to ground strikes, represented by distant flash of light, aftermath of debris of buildings, to close up patrols and close quarters combats. Al Jazeera reported from the Iraqi civilians line. Fox reported behind the American soldier line. People will argue, ”What is ‘the’ truth?”

If journalists reported from behind the “friendly” troop line (A/Fox/ “pro-government”) is very possible to see a grenade fired or water bottle, sticks and stones thrown against journalists, rather than those fired from the same side they stood. Journalist are also likely to be injured from the “enemy’s/ red shirt” attack. They will be likely to see injured officers rather than effects that happened to the red shirts from riot control officer. They would obviously see burning bus running towards them, along with stones, stick and Molotov cocktails. They would be less likely to see people hit by bullets, like red shirts’ photos. Likewise, the red shirts (B) would see and affected by blank bullets, live bullets, etc. that riot control officers used against them.

The possibility that the reconciliation commission appointed by the government to take photos and footages from various positions depends on their understanding that a picture/photo may speaks a thousand words, but it could not represent the overall (I tried to avoid “whole/part”) realities. Additionally the selection of footages or photos could be heavily politically infused.
Even when they can obtain footage from “both” or “many” sides, the war journalism mentality that seek to document who started first will dampen the mission to initiate reconciliation.
Needless to mention that photos and footages from position A would be broadcasted extensively by the government. It would be promoted as the grand narrative of the even, reasons to implement emergency decree, etc.

Peace Journalism: From the Deep South and into Thin AirDuring the first two years of the deep south conflict, there were attempted to organized peace journalism workshops. Until recently, there are trips to Mindanao, lectures and more workshops I heard of until a non-journalist like me think that it might be possible to receive more intervention from trained professional. Yet, most reports we witnessed were strictly who, what, when, how, according to observation of journalists. Journalists can roamed rather freely, despite some blockade that they were not allow to cross. Some even reported from CCTV inside the Bangkok Metropolitan Police HQ or stand behind the army’s line. It was difficult to see “both” sides coverage from the same agency. I saw Thai agencies flocked together at the front line either immediately in front of no-go area or hovered around the army. Only several tried to be at C, that meant they had to arrive at the scene before a road or an area would be barricaded.
On content, the “why,” from people “who” did “what” from themselves were hardly possible. I understood that to a certain point, professional Thai journalists were even asked by red shirts to leave the protest site because of alleged ‘biased’ coverage. Many alternative media also discussed heavy government media interference.

Conclusion
Both the reconciliation commission and audience have to be mindful of physical standpoints and representation of the 13 April civil unrest. Manipulation of represented realities is highly political. In short, if you did not watch the X Men Origin: Wolverine, watched the almost end of it, where Silver Fox reappeared. (It is also applicable to “terrorism” metaphor, used by the governments.) That would be a conclusion for now.

Filed under: Political Sciences , bangkok, thailand, mainstream media, 13 April 2009, Truth and Reconciliation

Thai governemtn’s official views of April 2009

www.factreport.go.th is a website to present “news” , phots and vdo clips from April 2009.
Please note that there were very little of machine guns and soldiers firing something in the air. No attack of protesters. no.. no… well, it is too late now, people who wanted to see real things visited foreign news agency.

and sorry, the english version is not up and working yet.

Filed under: Political Sciences , april 2990, media manipulation, thailand

Wake up this morning

i.
I did not know it was real or I was on the verge of waking up from my dream. I heard monks chanting, then a recital of some sacred poem and Thai music. The sound seemed to travel from the air out of nowhere (no.where/now.here).
I got up. There has been a wedding, which I was an assistant to a florist , then party, and going out to see a friend, back on a cab with my favorite late night ride. Checkpoints. There were a lot of police already at the wedding of two journalists. A taxi driver told me that the red shirt called for a protest on the 6th . So this might be a by-product of the upcoming political space reclamation?

The chanting had just subsided. I was also reading Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto. Technology is in the air. It must have been a broadcasting of state or Bangkok’s ceremony through public PA. It did not sound like something from a television set. It eroded your barrier of not wanting to hear. Technology permeated the air in an invisible battlefield. I could feel it began, not on the 6th, but right at every moment a ceremony was performed, a semi-government day-off on the 4th, where people who “love” the country would be asked to stand waving their five stripes flags.

Creating the other.

If you can afford the luxury of not having to work to show you are a patriot, you might not be share realities of people who have to think, first, about making a living. I did not say they do not have any ideologies.

Siren. Many people have become allergic to the harsh sound of it.
For those of you who were thinking that this very society embraced differences, minorities and fragments. For those of you condoning “the” government has to do anything to prevent “evil.” I urged you to look again at blank confusion when people hear siren, see a group of police officers, feel the fractions between love and hate. The cost of capturing one man is killing this nation. We have, according to Rancier, the government that performs its task of categorizing and dividing majority from minorities or one against the other so well, it drives the wedge that spilt the nation even deeper, using an kind of tools at hand to hammer it in.

I am included in those people who do not mind at all of being the other. Some of “us” took pride to march to the peripheral, even if we were not born marginal. However, beside seminar sessions, class and what I am writing, there is other world that we seek to explain, the world we seek to put into abstraction, yet it was unyielding.

ii.
There are many red shirts with lovely puddles and board sky-train to protest, those escaped thin description of red shirts as “the rural (and/or) poor.” There were people tearing over Thaksin’s speech, while I was thinking that man is not the only path to republic or even democracy. I would not dare to ask why some people believed so. After all, we did not deserve a coup as a general punishment that some people like the man.

Additionally, less we forget that some Isarn people carried different memories and histories. There were people who went to the jungle, who were familiar with communism, who were ordered to be eliminated, who were the other and who know republic or communism are not such bad for them, but what some elders had been fought for. The histories of Thais killed Thais during this period, particularly among the ordinary people of the former red and pink areas of Isarn were not present in mainstream history. Even stories of famous people who went to the jungle are carefully narrated in public scripts. The histories of inequaities, injustice and oppression are being retold. I was wondering how many of such people are at the protest.

Political opinion was not a rationalized by reason. It was conviction and passion that someone will support “my” belief, my lifestyle and will ensure my protection and wealth. It was a measurement of “my” interests against manipulation of what politicians promise they can deliver. It is a race between politicians who would understand and address the wants and the needs of the people and political partners within and outside the parliament.

“I knew it by the amount of money left in their wallets. It is how good Thaksin ran the country. Now everything is expensive. The petrol price is rising.”

“Let people that like the party supported by the military suffered. Let them learn that the party will only make everybody poorer. The cooking oil and pork price had increased already.”

“They were selected by the amarts, to serve the interest of their bosses, but not that of the people.”

I wished they would be wrong. Yet, the defend budgets have been increasing steadily since the coup. Health budgets cut. To some media and bystander, they picked plutocracy rather than the good and the righteous. But winner defines what is true or good.

In the end, the party that promises more accessible wealth will win over “sustainable” living. Some say it is the decaying moral of the poor, but mister, People did not need re-education that they cannot eat. We also have to reexamine the “poor.”

Then some people in the government talked about RESPECT. We sure put the country and the people who agree to disagree in a very awkward situation, respect and soft preferences on political leaders and the future of this nation on one hand, chances of survival and their political preference on the other.

Welcome to the jungle.

I would not investigate why people who said they would protect the monarch from all harm carried Thaksin’s photo and they believe that the two can coexist. I would watch a perplex situation that defy the red, the yellow, capitalism, fake communism and also corny democracy…
Arguments and counter arguments flooded Pantip’s politic webboard. The underground was more extreme. In this country, you can get into trouble wearing wrong colors at the wrong places inter alia. We are helping state doing its performance to divide, aren’t we?

Nevertheless, taking a side and political participation marked by color is more fluid that ever. A person can wear an ideology. Ideology is reflected through fashion and body modification. Broad brim hats with banners. Wrist bands. Clappers. Are we also lost the meaning of actual participation? Each individual became an unofficial ballot, cast by physically be there at the protest and make up numbers for political legitimacy.

The red shirt, to me and a group of four other women at 13th April night were weary elders people and women occupying the road around the perimeter of the government’s house. Sure, they are not the same group as red shirt that cause riot. Many people were not sure if we can lump them as the same red. Anyone can wear red. The t-shirts cost only 100-150 baht.

“We should not give red shirts to military officers, they may wear red shirts and create riot,” said a women protester to her friends. Other nods in agreement. “We should let them starve. No water and food should anymore be given to them.”

Previously newspaper published photo of off-duty servicemen queue up to receive red-t shirts.

14th of April. The yellow media went to Nang Lerng to talk to people affected by the “red shirts.” The red media was banned from airing, because of the “Emergency Decree,” which was unfortunately enacted during Thaksin’s era. The general media reran footage of burned bus and red shirts people walking out of the protest site after an official self-dissolution. They were taken photographs along with their identification cards. No mainstream media questioned it. No national human right organizations protest the handling of red protesters. We were furious. We were relieved.

“I am partly glad that … was not there, otherwise they will be treated like criminals.” And we could not help feeling bad because apart from our friends, other were treated like criminals.

At Nang Lerng, a women in pink hired a motorcycle taxi to the army barricade and start verbal attack to the army, Nang Lerng people rushed out to her and cursed back. A young man beside me rushed out after an encouragement of fellow people. I held his wrist and said, “It is only one person, leave her alone, there are many people here that like the army… ”

“He lost his brother because of the red shirt attack,” a woman beside me said.

“Slap her.”

The crowd grew restless Finally some officers took the woman out of the crowd circle, she took the same motorcycle taxi and they ride away.

Land of smile abruptly disappear from my mind and I decided to go back to check coverage at another friend’s house. I was sprinkled with water along the way. Needless to say, the matter at Nang Lerng about the non-red mini-mob was not reported.

iii.
Just after the dissolution of the red protest, I got several distress calls.
“Did the ‘people’ lose?”

“The leaders lost. For people, it is the awakening. On the way to the train station yesterday, I talked to a taxi driver and he hoped for … ‘s intervention but that hope hasn’t come.

“Even he is red?”

“He told me he liked Thaksin.”

Now we look at the people, to bystanders, to people clad in colors in their hearts or their shirts and hope that in them, we can find hope.
“The people will come back. They will not lose.”
…
Mainstream media only declared self-proclaimed “victory” of the government over self- dissolution of the red protest by the rest of leaders. It was speculated that some of leaders went out of Thailand already. Every bit of destruction supposedly committed by red shirt people was aired again and again. Interviews of concerned third party, namely, hotel business association, tourism industry reps and economic analysts predicted that the damage of “this” one is even worst than “that” one.

In our realm of factual manipulation, what would a bystander swayed to? The government or the people.

Who silenced the people and disrupted the quiet Sunday air?
I woke up this morning and I heard the chanting in the air, just like the “news” of the red people in mid-April. This very technology governed perceptions, the way we think or act toward people or even they way we see people as things.

Things covered by red clothes.

You did it well.

Filed under: Political Sciences , disunity, thai politic, traditional media