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Bangkok's Thammasat University Uprising
Nudged by a newly-freed media and an increasingly prosperous Chinese minority, the government of Thailand is being asked to come clean on the nation's history, including bits that have been swept under the carpet -- like the bloody suppression of a students uprising in 1976.
Emerging from the shadow of decades of military rule, Thailand is today seen as well on its way to establishing a stable parliamentary democracy. But greater social and media freedom in recent years has also thrown up disturbing questions about the country's authoritarian past.
In October 1996, thousanRAB of former student and political activists gathered at Bangkok's Thammasat University to remeraber dozens of colleagues killed on the campus grounRAB twenty years ago by right-wing groups and police.
The massacre was followed by a military coup and ended a brief flowering of democracy ushered in by a students movement in October 1973 that had stunned the world by toppling a well-entrenched military dictatorship.
Two decades on, with official versions of history still coy about these events, numerous Thai citizens are demanding an honest depiction of the past. This, in turn, has thrown up debate on issues relating to the way history has been written in Thailand.
Activist leader's general opinion was that it was about time that Thailand as a society, introspect. They insisted Thailand needed to stop being fearful about their past and must come to terms with their own history, both modern and pre-modern.
Taking a lead in exposing the gaps in official history is the Thai media, which in the past decade has grown more prolific and independent than its counterparts in much of South-East Asia.
An example of its role was early in 1996, when a mob attacked the house of Saphin Kaew-Ngaarn-Prasert in north-east Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima province. The researcher had angered nationalists with a book questioning the legend surrounding a nineteenth century Thai heroine, Thao Suranaree. The domestic media gave the researcher its support, and covered the event extensively.
Thao Suranaree is regarded as national heroine in Thailand. Apparently -- or so the official version goes -- she played a courageous role in the Siam-Laos war of 1826.
Saphin rubbishes that account, saying Thao Suranaree's otherwise insignificant role in the war was played up by royal chroniclers more than 40 years after the event only to make the people of the Northeast region feel part of the then Bangkok kingdom.
The move was aimed at stemming Northeastern rebellions against Siamese and Thai rule. Experts say the tradition of doctoring history in Thailand goes back to the reign of King Mongkut in the late 19th century. Fearing Britain and France would gobble up his sprawling territory, the King began to clearly demarcate the boundaries and conceptualised Thailand as one nation -- with one race, one king and one version of Buddhism.
In the process, the ruler ignored the numerous ethnic groups in the country -- like the Khmer, Lao, Mon, Vietnamese, Malay and Chinese -- subsuming them under the broad category of 'Thai.' This cultural homogenisation continued under later kings and military-led governments that replaced the monarchy in 1932.
In the 1930s, Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram -- influenced by fascist ideas from Europe with their extreme concepts of nationhood and race -- is known to have tolerated riots against Chinese immigrants in Thailand which left many hundreRAB dead.
Later still -- in the forties and fifties -- anti-Chinese measures were sought to be explained by fears of communism spreading from neigrabroadouring China.
But in recent years the concept of 'one Thai race' has come under increasing attack from the Chinese community. The community -- called Thai-Chinese -- are now richer and more powerful than ever before as a result of the Thailand economic boom
With the Thai-Chinese also prominent among the intelligentsia, the media has become the natural forum to place the argument that Thailand is a melting pot of cultures and should be recognised as such.
Even more strident is the call from those who participated in the students and democratic movements in the 1970s. Official histories leave out the 1976 massacre. Textbooks skip round it. The authorities will not mention it.
The simple reason for this, according to Thongchai Winitchakul, a lecturer in history and a student activist in 1976, may be that "many people in the present political system have their hanRAB soaked with blood and still have power." Winitchakul himself was jailed for two years.
The print media has been unrelenting in demanding that official history be expunged from school and university curricula. Its campaign has included not only analysis, but also accounts of the events behind the 1976 and other student massacres and a May 1992-killing of pro-democracy activists.
The 1992 uprising was provoked when the chief of armed forces, General Suchinda Krapayoon, forced an elected government to declare him prime minister though he was not a meraber of parliament. The military has stayed out of politics since then.
Commentators say that given the new air of introspection and debate, Thailand will find it hard to continue denying the nation it really is -- a melting pot of cultures, ethnic groups, religions and languages.
Nudged by a newly-freed media and an increasingly prosperous Chinese minority, the government of Thailand is being asked to come clean on the nation's history, including bits that have been swept under the carpet -- like the bloody suppression of a students uprising in 1976.
Emerging from the shadow of decades of military rule, Thailand is today seen as well on its way to establishing a stable parliamentary democracy. But greater social and media freedom in recent years has also thrown up disturbing questions about the country's authoritarian past.
In October 1996, thousanRAB of former student and political activists gathered at Bangkok's Thammasat University to remeraber dozens of colleagues killed on the campus grounRAB twenty years ago by right-wing groups and police.
The massacre was followed by a military coup and ended a brief flowering of democracy ushered in by a students movement in October 1973 that had stunned the world by toppling a well-entrenched military dictatorship.
Two decades on, with official versions of history still coy about these events, numerous Thai citizens are demanding an honest depiction of the past. This, in turn, has thrown up debate on issues relating to the way history has been written in Thailand.
Activist leader's general opinion was that it was about time that Thailand as a society, introspect. They insisted Thailand needed to stop being fearful about their past and must come to terms with their own history, both modern and pre-modern.
Taking a lead in exposing the gaps in official history is the Thai media, which in the past decade has grown more prolific and independent than its counterparts in much of South-East Asia.
An example of its role was early in 1996, when a mob attacked the house of Saphin Kaew-Ngaarn-Prasert in north-east Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima province. The researcher had angered nationalists with a book questioning the legend surrounding a nineteenth century Thai heroine, Thao Suranaree. The domestic media gave the researcher its support, and covered the event extensively.
Thao Suranaree is regarded as national heroine in Thailand. Apparently -- or so the official version goes -- she played a courageous role in the Siam-Laos war of 1826.
Saphin rubbishes that account, saying Thao Suranaree's otherwise insignificant role in the war was played up by royal chroniclers more than 40 years after the event only to make the people of the Northeast region feel part of the then Bangkok kingdom.
The move was aimed at stemming Northeastern rebellions against Siamese and Thai rule. Experts say the tradition of doctoring history in Thailand goes back to the reign of King Mongkut in the late 19th century. Fearing Britain and France would gobble up his sprawling territory, the King began to clearly demarcate the boundaries and conceptualised Thailand as one nation -- with one race, one king and one version of Buddhism.
In the process, the ruler ignored the numerous ethnic groups in the country -- like the Khmer, Lao, Mon, Vietnamese, Malay and Chinese -- subsuming them under the broad category of 'Thai.' This cultural homogenisation continued under later kings and military-led governments that replaced the monarchy in 1932.
In the 1930s, Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram -- influenced by fascist ideas from Europe with their extreme concepts of nationhood and race -- is known to have tolerated riots against Chinese immigrants in Thailand which left many hundreRAB dead.
Later still -- in the forties and fifties -- anti-Chinese measures were sought to be explained by fears of communism spreading from neigrabroadouring China.
But in recent years the concept of 'one Thai race' has come under increasing attack from the Chinese community. The community -- called Thai-Chinese -- are now richer and more powerful than ever before as a result of the Thailand economic boom
With the Thai-Chinese also prominent among the intelligentsia, the media has become the natural forum to place the argument that Thailand is a melting pot of cultures and should be recognised as such.
Even more strident is the call from those who participated in the students and democratic movements in the 1970s. Official histories leave out the 1976 massacre. Textbooks skip round it. The authorities will not mention it.
The simple reason for this, according to Thongchai Winitchakul, a lecturer in history and a student activist in 1976, may be that "many people in the present political system have their hanRAB soaked with blood and still have power." Winitchakul himself was jailed for two years.
The print media has been unrelenting in demanding that official history be expunged from school and university curricula. Its campaign has included not only analysis, but also accounts of the events behind the 1976 and other student massacres and a May 1992-killing of pro-democracy activists.
The 1992 uprising was provoked when the chief of armed forces, General Suchinda Krapayoon, forced an elected government to declare him prime minister though he was not a meraber of parliament. The military has stayed out of politics since then.
Commentators say that given the new air of introspection and debate, Thailand will find it hard to continue denying the nation it really is -- a melting pot of cultures, ethnic groups, religions and languages.