Learning the Hard Way in Thailand
ABRAMS, ARNOLD
STUDENTS AND POLITICS Learning the Hard Way in Thailand By arnold abrams Bangkok Slim, casually-clad, bespectacled Kanok Wongtrangan sat sipping soda in a comer of the cafeteria at Bangkok's...
...We were too adventurous...
...She is leaving Thailand to continue her studies abroad...
...We spoke to government leaders, they spoke to us, and nothing happened...
...Some of the best-known leaders, like Seksan, have graduated from student ranks to become full-time political party workers or to serve with labor organizations...
...They are students like Vijit Srishung, an economics major who recently completed a term as president of Thammasat's student government, and Sawai Udomchaichareonkit, deputy president of that body...
...Interim Premier Sanya Dharma-sakti had not been in office six months when it became very clear that he would change very little...
...His regime's major achievement, in fact, was the much-delayed creation of a new Constitution, the nation's ninth in this century...
...We had a chance to change the whole rotten system, and we lost it because we compromised...
...Kanok was talking about the student movement that 18 months ago suddenly toppled Thailand's much-despised military government...
...He had been in the forefront of the action then...
...He spoke softly, but his words were highly charged...
...So, for all its problems, the student movement remains a potentially significant force for reform in Thailand...
...Out of this mess there has finally emerged the shaky coalition headed by 64-year-old Kukrit Pramoj, a conservative politician who is widely viewed as a front man for business and military elements...
...I think it's time for me to step aside and let new people take over...
...Anyone with problems could come to see us, and we would take care of them...
...We still can influence public opinion, but we are willing to follow the public mood...
...Leaving the country, too, is another one-time leading activist, Sudathip Inthorn, a 26-year-old psychology instructor at Thammasat...
...We thought the country needed quiet, not more confrontation-that was our mistake...
...Viewed only a short while earlier as saviors of the nation for turning the country toward democracy, Thailand's students came to be seen, at best, as social irritants...
...It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the Sanya regime had not yet departed when the students resumed their activism...
...The nation was shocked at his surprise move and Premier Sanya's Cabinet went, typically, into a series of seemingly inconclusive conferences...
...The most important effect of the strikes and demonstrations, indeed, was the revulsion of a substantial segment of Bangkok's 4 million inhabitants-who set great store in law and order-to the violence and un-ruliness that accompanied them...
...We are part of a people's movement, not necessarily its leaders...
...As long as foreign interests retain a hold in Thailand, and as long as the people remain basically uneducated, I expect a succession of governments that will be representing the elite minority...
...The students, Vijit believes, will have to be satisfied with a different role: that of lobbyists who pursue questions of national interest and inform the general public about their findings...
...Seksan feels it was a mistake as well for students to assume the role of "patrons of the people...
...Says Sawai: "We see ourselves differently now...
...We never thought twice before taking action...
...We could have done more than throw three men out of office...
...The result was that our activities could not generate political consciousness or leadership or organization among the people-because we did it all for them...
...And he looks back in anger at the unfulfilled promise of that "Bloody Sunday" of October 14, 1973, when Premier Thanom Kittikachorn, his ambitious son Narong and broad-beamed Deputy Premier Praphas Charusathien-collectively dubbed by critics as "The Father, The Son and the Wholly Gross"-were forced to flee the country...
...now, like most students here, this 23-year-old is more a spectator than a participant in his country's politics...
...They were widely denounced as disrupters of public order and accused of manipulating workers and farmers to further their own ends-and some of the more objective student activists now concede that such accusations were not unfounded...
...Our revolution changed some faces at the top, but it didn't accomplish much else," observed Satid Sirisawat, 24, a student government representative at Thammasat...
...He explained: "We were Big Men after October 14...
...Unlike their predecessors, they tend to be short on charisma yet not on substance...
...I have no illusions," says the 25-year-old Vijit...
...and provided that one of the two houses of Parliament be appointed...
...For the corrupt bureaucracy, dominated by an old-guard elite, has remained firmly in control...
...The main purpose of our movement now must be to disclose the problems and injustices created by our country's corrupt system," he says, "and to go to the people, then, to take proper action...
...Where wage increases were won, they hardly offset the inflationary spiral...
...In the past year we made many blunders," admits Seksan Prasertkul, a former student leader regarded by outside observers as one of the brightest and most forceful young Thais...
...This time their target was not the political leadership, but Thailand's economic inequities-a major issue throughout the past year of wrenching inflation and unprecedented worker unrest...
...We were so eager to do things that we never stopped to analyze the situation...
...A wave of student-inspired, and often led, labor strikes and farmers' demonstrations in Bangkok, and a series of political consciousness-raising sessions in the countryside, produced minimal gains...
...No more satisfactory was Thailand's national election last January, which ended with 22 parties sharing 269 National Assembly seats...
...The best of the new people, significantly, seem to have a new approach if not new goals...
...As for the farmers' grievances, most were too snarled in legal and bureaucratic red tape to be resolved...
...STUDENTS AND POLITICS Learning the Hard Way in Thailand By arnold abrams Bangkok Slim, casually-clad, bespectacled Kanok Wongtrangan sat sipping soda in a comer of the cafeteria at Bangkok's prestigeous Thammasat University...
...We were seeking solutions for our country's economic and social problems...
...She says there has been pressure on her to resign from within her department, but she adds: "I also am tired-tired of the constant criticism and hassle...
...That may be understating the case, however, to judge from the events last December when Thanom suddenly emerged from exile in the United States and sought readmittance to his native land...
...Saowanee, a 23-year-old coed who earned national acclaim in 1973 by appearing repeatedly before thousands of demonstrators to harangue, instruct and encourage, now says: "I don't want to discuss politics, I don't want any more publicity, I just want to be left alone...
...The document pleased few reformers, since it failed to set up the machinery for restructuring economic opportunities...
...I don't think the student movement by itself can change the entire system...
...To be sure, it takes the equivalent of national crisis to unite the youths now, but such crises are not expected to be in short supply here in the foreseeable future...
...The lessons Thai students have learned may have made them wiser in the ways of political reform, but their errors-combined with the Establishment's successful frustration of their hopes following October 1973 and the subsequent public censure-have left them in disarray...
...A crisis seemed imminent until student groups, setting aside ideological differences, reunited to form a vociferous "anti-diotatorship front" that this time served as a catalyst for public sentiment and forced the government to hustle Thanom out of the country...
...retained 20 as the minimum voting age and 25 as the minimum age for political candidates, thus effectively barring most students from the electoral process...
...Moreover, it was difficult for the man-in-the-street to distinguish between the generally restrained university youths and their more volatile vocational school counterparts, in large measure street toughs, who took advantage of the worker pro-tests to indulge their proclivity for lawless outbursts and gang fighting...
...Today they not only lack strong leadership, they are split along ideological lines into more than a dozen factions...
...We missed our chance," he said...
...Arnold Abrams frequently reports in these pages from Southeast Asia...
...Others, like Saowanee Limmanonta, have simply dropped out...
Vol. 58 • April 1975 • No. 8
