PAD|People's Alliance for Democracy
This is the unofficial/personal blog site from one PAD member.

Vorapoap writes: “I don’t think we can find a person like Mohandas Gandhi (India) with strong political feeling anymore.”

Aung San Suu Kyi fits that description. She abhors violence and has resisted calls for a more militant stance against an unpopular regime. That’s why the Burmese democracy movement has gained such global respect and visibility. And in many other countries – Ukraine, Serbia – nonviolent protest has been successful in ousting dictators.

An interesting question is why Thailand’s current street democrats don’t take the moral high ground. A political realist would point out that Burma is still under a cruel dictatorship, so PAD is right to get tough. But a cynic might say that violence is a necessary prelude in Thailand to a coup or another form of extra-constitutional intervention (national unity government).

I’m not sure I know the answer, but it’s not correct to argue that PAD’s ’self-defense’ (which often turns to offense) is the only option. If there were hundreds of thousands of unarmed protesters outside parliament, sitting peacefully on the ground and refusing to leave, prepared to be arrested on mass for their beliefs, that would be a powerful message to the PPP – and to the world.

What do you think?

Vorapoap // Oct 16, 2008 at 4:15 pm

foreign correspondent writes: If there were hundreds of thousands of unarmed protesters outside parliament, sitting peacefully on the ground and refusing to leave, prepared to be arrested on mass for their beliefs, that would be a powerful message to the PPP – and to the world.

I completely agree with you, but it was unlikely to happen that way. The whole thing would turn upside down, if the unarmed / unshielded police walked straight into PAD, and PAD started to attack police without a reason. This PAD’s marathon protesting campaign has developed too far to behave like that.. you should also consider what happened in August 29 where police clashed into PAD and hit old men and women. You should also consider about the fear among PAD that police let the red shirt dressed up as police to attack PAD…

The line has been crossed. If people can’t step back, people will need to draw another line in front of them. It is sad but true..

PS. About Aung San Suu Kyi, I also agree with you…. probably I just forgot to put the word “in Thailand” in the statement.

Sidh S. // Oct 16, 2008 at 4:57 pm

Much of what is written here is based on a naive (or more likely feigned naivety) that Thailand, as a predominantly ‘Buddhist’ country, its people must be peaceful and passive – and so, by extension, political protests must be based on the ideal of Ahingsa (as practiced by Gandhi and Aung San Su Kyi). PAD does not fit this mold so the simplistic conclusion that they must prefer blood rather than ballots.

We must remember that the PAD wasn’t like this since day 1, they were a once bunch of TycoonSondhi’s TV fan, that when Sondhi was taken off public TV for being critical of PMThaksin, they followed his live show to Lumbhini Park. They have evolved and hardened over the years in response to multiple tactics, usually violent or threat of violence (e.g. @ World Trade), employed against them.

We must also remember that they have attempted to cultivate a nationwide network to stage rallies and protest. We must remember that when they were in Udon, a TRT/PPP territory, to hold a peaceful rally, the local powers that be colluded with the police, violently oppressed them (and I don’t recall New Mandala strongly condemning such acts then). How can a democratic “educational campaign” be carried out in that gangster-territorial atmosphere?

We also must remember the deep culture of the violence-prone “Third Hand” (whether real, fabricated or employed) – often unruly arm of the security forces.

We must also remember, with 7th Oct as a clear evidence, of the ineptitude and incompetence of the security forces in crowd control and protest dispersals. Buying Chinese gas-bombs was questionable in itself, failure to test them for its impacts and training on how to shoot them (not at the crowd! Even for American or European-made gas-bombs!) beforehand is criminal. To repeat that mistake over the course of the day is also criminal. And this is already a vast improvement on their recent history of crowd control at Udon or Takbai.

As I’ve mentioned in many posts, I don’t support all of PAD’s actions and visions. While PMThaksin is the last person I politically trust, I thought PMSomchai’s calmness and willingness to talk is a breath of fresh air in this political atmosphere. I believe (maybe naively) that talks has already begun and hoped that things might just get resolved both short (maybe televised, facilitated public forums over backroom meetings and phone calls) and long term (societal inclusive constitutional amendment). The police mistakes on Oct 7th is tragic and now people who had met and talked (PMChavalit and Chamlong), presumably in sincerity, are pointing fingers at each other and accusing each other of lying…