The evolving anatomy of PAD

15 september 2008

By Chang Noi

Head. The key strategists appear to be three old soldiers – Chamlong Srimuang, Phanlop Phinmanee, and Prasong Soonsiri, prominent veterans of the battles against communist insurgency, and part of the shadowy legacy of Thailand’s era of military rule. They are dedicated to the defence of nation and monarchy against all threats, particularly from the citizenry. Phanlop has publicly boasted of overseeing assassination of communist sympathizers in the 1980s, and unleashing the Krue Se massacre in 2004. Prasong has long been linked with projects to influence politics in curious ways. The coup generals and serving military officers like General Pathomphong Kesornsuk have given open support and protection.

Bloodstream. Prominent leaders of modern business have attended rallies. Others are passionate in support. Business associations conspicuously protested not against the violent invasion of Government House, but against the Emergency Decree that followed. Such business leaders have normally intervened in politics only when the economy is threatened (e.g., 1992), but now are supporting a movement that courts massive economic damage. They turned against Thaksin for favouring his own family, a close circle of cronies, and several financial figures heavily implicated in the malpractice which contributed to the 1997 crash. These same figures have resurfaced under Samak. This business faction believes support of PAD is a means to prevent even worse damage to the economy.

Legs. State enterprise workers have carried out selective strikes to signal the PAD’s potential for disruption. These workers have a long history of organization and political involvement. Over the long term they are committed to preserving a privileged position in the labour market. In the 1980s, they were closely allied with various military politicians, but this link was broken by the 1991 coup-makers. The workers then networked with other civil society groups to resist projects of privatization by both the Democrat and Thaksin governments. Since the 2006 coup, they have again been courted by the military.

Lungs. Some elements of the activist fringe of academics and NGOs – including some who have graduated to the senate – support PAD as a means to reform the political system which they argue is corrupt, un-representative and inefficient. In the 1990s, these groups campaigned for the 1997 constitution, decentralization, education reform, and the shift to people-centred development planning. In the early 2000s, they cheered Thaksin’s promise to harness the bureaucracy and close down the godfathers. Many supported the coup and now the PAD in the hope this will provide space for reform. The new activism among students is partly an extension of this tradition.

Mouth. Sondhi Limthongkul and his media empire have significantly extended public space and brought new groups into public politics. Sondhi has broken the state’s tight control over broadcast media with the help of new technology and (supreme irony!) the success of the old media barons in disrupting the establishment of a new legal framework of control. Sondhi has created a new political theatre which is both entertaining and involving. Like the US political conventions, the PAD rallies offer a quasi-religious experience of belonging to a cause, heightened by the self-mortification of sheltering from monsoon storms and queuing for the toilet. Sondhi has dedicated himself to “politics for the middle class,” exploiting the long-growing fear of piratical capitalism on one side and populist democracy on the other. This message appeals to a blue-blooded elite which feels its economic interests are threatened. It also appeals to the delicate combination of pride and insecurity in a new elite that has ascended to “high society” and the old “aristocratic” occupations (bureaucracy, military, professions) over the past two generations. The PAD’s most popular collectible has been a T-shirt emblazoned with “Sons of China defending the nation.” Many of these new recruits to public politics are middle-aged women, but the catchment is much wider.

Hands. Members of the Santi Asoke sect are participants and service providers. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, members of this semi-outlawed sect supported Chamlong’s crusade for cleaner politics. Subsequently they have been limited to occasional agitations on moral issues.

Spleen. The Democrat Party has effectively aligned itself with PAD. Quite extraordinarily, the party has failed to make any condemnation of the PAD’s desecration of the symbolic centre of national government (contrast the party’s stance to the Assembly of the Poor’s demonstrations a dozen years ago). Korn Chatikavanij has justified the party’s support as necessary to prevent the rehabilitation of Thaksin.

Teeth. Demonstrations always have a guard unit, but that of the PAD appears much larger and more aggressively armed than has been the norm (again, contrast the Assembly of the Poor). Some of the guards are state enterprise workers, but others are hired hands recruited from the city’s floating population of casual labour, especially “ex-policemen and ex-military” (Sondhi Limthongkul). Judging from the seizures last week, the weapon of choice is the used golf club. These exquisitely engineered implements for an expensive elite sport have metamorphosed into heavy lumps of metal with a useful handle for causing injury to a fellow citizen. What symbolism!

There is more (especially in the background). Many different groups that have woven separate ways through the kaleidoscopic politics of the last two decades have come together in the audiences for the PAD’s rallies and ASTV broadcasts. The foreign press has tended to portray the current polarization as urban against rural, and as a desperate, declining elite against the capitalist populism of Thaksin. Those formulas have a core of truth (and are utterly forgivable given the difficulty of explaining what is going on), but tend to over-simplify PAD, and over-idealize Thaksin.

Variety gives PAD its current force, but may limit its ability to move beyond demonization to constructive reforms.

The distinguishing features of the movement are its wealth, its explicit and implicit use of violence, and its magical protection against threats, including police actions, court orders, and legal process. On all these aspects, contrast the Assembly of the Poor rallies, the only prior campaign of comparable scale. These are the politics of class and privilege.


( http://www.geocities.com/changnoi2/anatomypad.htm )