Slept well last night. Pretty much bound to, as I’d worked with my quartet late the night before, gotten to bed late and up with the sun, no rest that day. Today, again up early.
Of course, these days, the TV goes on first thing. I saw that the government was finally getting serious about taking the city back. I admire Aphisit’s efforts and his seemingly endless patience with all the factions, most of them calling for his head on a platter. He didn’t want to take this last step, but in the end, it had to be done. I’ve got to hand it to him, I don’t think anyone could have done better leading this fractured government.
Then the channel ran a pastiche of scenes from the battle-scarred streets, and over it, John Lennon’s “Imagine.” I thought about what John was saying in that song, and was suddenly overcome by some deep feeling, couldn’t keep the tears back. This beautiful country, beautiful culture and people, that I’ve known and loved for 45 years now . . . fires and smoke everywhere, soldiers running through the streets, tanks and armored personnel carriers, trash strewn about, and on and on . . . .
Anyhow, it was a bizarre feeling of relief to see the APC’s demolishing those ugly, ugly barricades, the stinking tires soaked in kerosene, the punji stick pikes, the razor wire strung all through. Finally, they’re gone. some kind of finish to this, although I’m sure things will continue in one form or another. I’ll give my thoughts on that after a few others . . . .
First, the best evidence that the redshits were never serious about negotiation is the fact that this confrontation happened at all. They'd had victory in their grasp, Aphisit’s peace offer gave them all they had asked for, just deferred by a few months. All they had to do to get it was disband the protest, let Bangkok go back to normal life, and themselves go home to campaign for Thaksin’s proxy party.
This they at first accepted, saying they might pack up in a few days, but actually that’s when they started to add demands. Demands that the government admit to “murdering the people” on April 10, that Aphisit and Suthep turn themselves in to the police. “Justice must be seen through,” was their call, or the Thai equivalent.
They must have known that this was unacceptable, and making this demand doing this would result in more deaths. Name one government in the world that would let this go on indefinitely, or even nearly this long.
In fact, when the government turned them down, they said it outright: “we will fight you to the death,” a threat which rings rather hollow in the light of today’s events, when some meekly surrendered and a few ran off into hiding, but rings out loud and clear saying they knew where this was all going.
OK, I know I left you hanging last night. And I’m doing this late tonight, it might be the early hours before it’s done. I’ve had to answer over 30 e-mails, some of them pretty exhaustively. But back to my adventure inside the reddie camp last Friday.
Remember, I was on my way to deliver a take-home test at Chula U, the SkyTrain was down, I had to walk about a mile to the border of the mile-square protest zone, which—according to government proclamation—was supposed to have been closed. They were going to let people out, but no one in. I was just going to give it the old college try, literally, and get through to Chula, which was inside there, on the other side.
I’d actually heard on the TV that Chula itself was closed. That seemed logical. But I think the real reason I went anyway was that I was curious. I wanted to see if the government, after so much hesitation and so many false starts, was actually going to get serious about closing these guys down. Honestly, I thought there would be a bunch of stern-looking commandos lined up for miles, telling me to back off.
Interestingly, when I finally, in the sweltering heat, had finally tramped up to the barricade at Wireless Road and Phloenchit, not a soldier was in sight. Oh, forgot, back about a block there were some laid-back guys in helmets and camo playing cards and smoking. Maybe about 6 or 7. But none around here.
Looking at the barricade, I saw it was pretty solid, and festooned in razor wire. But on the right side there were some Thai people trickling in and out. They were ducking through a place on the very right side where the razor wire was looped wide enough to let a small person, or a big person scrunched over, pass. I saw a Farang (Westerner) walk by, take a snapshot, and move on. Another tall farang, sandy-haired, about 45, was looking at it the same way I was, wondering if it was a good idea to try to go in. There were no guards there, it seemed that if you wanted to go in you could.
I struck up a conversation with the guy. He spoke English well, but with an accent I couldn’t place. “South Africa,” he explained. Ahh!
“I was thinking about going in,” I said, “but wasn’t sure whether I wanted to or not. What were you thinking?”
“That’s the only reason I came down.”
“OK, let’s give it a go.” And I walked over to a young Thai woman who was going in, and asked “ขอโทษนะครับ เข้าได้ไหม?” She gave a big grin and said, sure, come in, we were welcome. The redshirts don’t have anything against foreigners particularly. They see us as a window to the outside world, which they want badly to impress. So we scrunched over and—though my pack caught briefly on the razor wire—passed into the forbidden zone. It was good to have a buddy along, especially as this guy looked like he could take care of himself.
What struck me first was how empty it was. Where before there had been people camped out, even cars, and food stalls and booths selling things, in this block there was absolutely nothing. No . . . the awning/tents, the kind used to shelter vendors and such from the rain, were still there, and in the middle of the block were two giant blue generators, humming away. And there were a couple of their loudspeaker trucks, parked and idle. There was no sound coming from the fixed speakers, either, the ones that normally would be pumping out political talk. I guess they figured that with no one there, they could save energy.
Dripping with sweat, we walked down to the next intersection, Soi Langsuan, where my old Cal buddy Sher Singh had lived and worked for awhile. Here was another barricade, more massive than the last, this one manned by several reddie guards. They looked like street toughs, but also had no problem letting us in. Inside here was more the way it had been the weeks before, people in tents, sprawled around on mats, some with electric fans turned on them. And the speakers were working! Once again we were treated to the ardent political speech of the leaders. We walked on down to the end of the block (Rajadamri/Rajaprasong), where the center of the protest was, the famous Rajaprasong stage. You remember, the one with the sign above that had no Thai lettering, only writ large in English, PEACEFUL PROTESTERS! NOT TERRORISTS! In the middle of what had been a bustling street, now with ghost monster buildings on either side.
Arriving at the stage area, we were eyed suspiciously by the guards at the rear, but when we made for the front, where the bulk of the people were watching the speakers, people seemed welcoming again. Looking around, I saw a big gathering, perhaps two or three thousand, of people, mostly middle-aged to old, a lot of them women, a lot seeming to be peasant-types. Many were smiling. Generally they appearing to be paying attention to the guy who was speaking on the stage.
Knowing Thai, I started translating for Lionel, my new friend from South Africa. The speech was like many I’d heard booming out on all the days I’d been there before. This was the day after the government had said the negotiations were over, so they were not making nice in the least.
“This government . . . thinks it can do anything! Brothers and sisters, they are telling you to follow the law . . .but they themselves follow no law! They think they can frighten you. But these people are lawless killers,they are not to be trusted! We will never give in to them! Never! Never!” and with each “never,” most of them clapped and shouted, almost as if on cue.
“All we are asking for is democracy. Is that too much to ask? I ask you, brothers and sisters, have we not waited long enough?” Cheers, applause. Fan waving. Noisemakers. And it went on. I was thinking, how do they do this? They have been sitting here morning to late night with this same stuff, and worse, every day for two months! And clapping hands like trained monkeys, that was it. A friend of mine had told me he’d watched a telecast of an English speaker talking on this stage, and that even though there was no way many of them could have been educated enough to understand much of what he said, every time he’d raised his voice and paused, they’d clapped and shouted.
Wanta know the image that popped into my mind? Guyana. Jim Jones. This felt like a cult revival meeting.
Quickly tiring of this, we moved on. I was translating signs for Lionel. “Here, they have signs for the different places these people come from. Here’s Kumpawapi. Here’s Baan Huai Sai. Here’s Pattaya.”
“What’s this one say?” it was not one of the professionally printed ones, it was scrawled out.
“Massage. Hundred and fifty baht an hour.” And the old woman there stood up and beckoned us in. It didn’t seem the right time and place, though.
We weren’t that far from Brown Sugar, the funky old jazz club I’d been playing at until six weeks ago. I suggested we stop by and see what shape it was in. We followed the party (for here, it seemed to be one, though a little sparse in attendance) past a tent of chattering saffron-robed monks, down to the next corner, where Lumpini Park started.
Here the atmosphere changed. We weren’t surrounded by smiling oldsters any more. Suddenly it was all young guys. Greasy hair, dirty clothes, mostly black. Some looked pretty stoned. “Yaa baa,” which means “crazy medicine,” or meth, is a big problem in Thailand, though I hadn’t ever been close to it. Anyhow, they were leaving us alone, that was good.
We turned the corner and walked the few doors down to Brown Sugar. Sad. Door chained, tables stacked up in front of the windows. Talked to one of the guys sitting around there, he was reasonably friendly. Then—I’d given up on my Chula mission—we decided to head back.
Lionel said the atmosphere reminded him of South Africa when he’d been in the army there during a border war with Namibia in ‘85 and ’86. “Makes me feel right at home,” he said.
We walked down Sarasin towards Wireless Road. In front of us was a gang of about 8 or 10 black-shirted toughs, the wild greasy hair again, walking the same direction, holding fat bamboo cudgels, which some of them pounded against their legs as they walked. A couple of them, one of them pretty big, turned around and gave us a baleful glance. They looked to be looking for a fight, but pretty sure we weren’t the ones they were after.
Turning left on Langsuan, we were heading back to where we’d come in at the second barricade. The rest of the walk out was uneventful, but I was surprised to see how empty everything was. Absolutely no one on the street but us. Trash all over. All these great restaurants just closed, closed. The silence of towering luxury condos. Back to Phloenchit, through the scrunchy razor wire, and out. A couple of blocks later, we’re in a world that looks the same as it did before, no sign of unrest or discontent.
Folks, I must have too much to say. I want to keep writing, but this is enough, if you aren’t worn out, you soon will be. So we’ll save further observations for tomorrow. The latest update from here is that our “peaceful protesters” weren’t so peaceful after all, surprise! After their leaders surrendered, they went on a looting, bombing, and burning spree for miles around. The supermarket three minutes walk from my place was bombed this afternoon and had to close early.
So you see, Rajaprasong may be cleared, even though Central World, the biggest department store in Thailand, has burned down, but the story hasn’t ended. Our dear multibillionaire friend, Mr. Thaksin, said from his luxury hotel in Paris today that “a military crackdown can spread resentment and these resentful people will become guerrillas.” Hmmm. I wonder how he knew that.
I have a lot more to say. Stay tuned, if you are interested. Tomorrow.
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