Bangkok Airport

[MarxSchmarx]

As you've probably heard by now, Bangkok Airport, which is a major international hub, has been taken over by protesters:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1201/p06s01-wogn.html

Of course their demands are relatively mild and unrelated to socialism. The crackdown's just getting started.

The book isn't closed on this, but there are a few questions leftists around the world can ask ourselves:

1. What made the take-over possible? How did the organizers pull this off? Thailand is quite authoritarian, underdeveloped, plagued with poverty, and the King has widespread legitimacy. This is in stark contrast to many western governments, yet something like this is unthinkable in, for example, Heathrow.
2. How did the take-over become justifiable to such a large portion of the population that the government hesitated?
3. What does this event say about the role of international commerce in raising a movement's domestic profile?

[scarletghoul]

How many protesters are there? If there are a lot, then this answers questions 1 and 2. If not then hmmm

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is a good example of why we don't just support any protest or uprising. You have to look at the class nature of everything.

In this case, a bunch of privileged members of the bourgeoisie and especially the petit-bourgeoisie want to eliminate any pretenses of democracy that exist in Thailand. They're angry that the toiling majority in the rural area has selected two candidates in a row which they oppose (along with others from the ruling social-democratic People's Power Party), and so they want to replace voting with a system in which middle class "specialists" and "social groups" select politicians.

They are rightists.

Sondhi Limthongkul, who is a rich owner of several media outlets and leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy (the group that started this) says "Representative democracy is not suitable for Thailand."

They dress up in yellow clothes and claim to be "defending the honor of the king" against "traitors" like the PPP.

This may look like a mass outpouring, but the fact is that the current President still has majority support in the country.

[Rascolnikova]

It's still a very appealing tactic. . . I don't see why they're the only people who can use it.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You mean the barricade tactic in which people set themselves and wait for the onslaught of the forces of repression (and which communists for the most part abandoned long ago)?

Look how well it worked in Oaxaca.

Again, this is why its important to understand what's going on before taking a position or trying to take away lessons.

The protesters have been able to take over government buildings and the airport without facing any retaliation. The president has declared a state of emergency but the military high command has refused to move on the protesters. Likewise, the police refuse to do anything. The protesters actually broke through a police blockade and kidnapped one of the officers. The riot police responded by leaving.

These aren't groups of workers fighting against capitalist rule. We wouldn't be given the same treatment.

[kollontai]

I am increasingly frustrated at the way the PAD and the PPP are being portrayed. No matter how many times people echo the BBC and other international media outlets' claim that the PAD is the urban elites and petit-bourgeoisie and the PPP is the poor rural farmers does not make it the truth. Imagine someone trying to pigeon-hole the US Democratic and Republican parties into neat little demographic & economic packages. Political parties nearly always include nasty bedfellows, ideological opposites, exploited leader-worshipers, opportunists, etc.

I am not sure what you mean by "no retaliation." Two students who were marching with the PAD to the government building were shot near my old school months ago. There has been continuous violence since around August. There have been bombings of open markets, bombs thrown into groups of protesters, numerous clashes with hand weapons, gallons of pepper spray from the police and recently at the Parliament House, a couple PAD protesters got "blown away by a couple hand grenades," according to my friend who works for the military. Today a bomb at Don Mueng left one anti-gov't protester dead and at least 20 injured, many critically.

Thais are not very violent--the 2006 coup, which had widespread support of the people, the King and the military, occurred without a shot. For Thailand, this is an extremely violent siltation. (Of course the poor in Southern Thailand, numbered among with PAD supporters, are no strangers to violence, as their government has failed in protecting them against the insurgency and has made matters worse by their incompetency, killing innocent Muslim civilians along with the terrorists, adding fuel to the fire.) The PAD has become willing to use violence, (and it is disturbing how quickly they've acclimated themselves to it after being committed to non-violence for so long) but only after the paid Pro-Government protesters provoked them. It is unfortunate that the poorest of the country are being bought and sold by the TRT/PPP to fight their battles.

The military is deciding now whether it will work to clear the airports, and they are acting as security forces for the Courts today, as the judges make their decision on whether or not the PPP should be disbanded due to electoral fraud, as happened to the TRT. (The PPP has already decided to call themselves the Puea Thai party & has started organizing themselves as such for after they are disbanded. So soon I will have to refer to them as the TRT/PPP/PT party--the same folks, the same extortion, the same corruption, the same bribes, the same crimes. Ex-PM and many top TRT/PPP leaders have been convicted.)

As for as the King, the PAD is delusional. The people know that the King has never wanted to rule the country, nor did he ever expect to be King. If he threw his hat in the ring today, there would be overwhelming support for him. He is loved by the people and by some standards worshiped. He sees his role as trying to protect the people & many invoke his name, as the PAD does, though there will never be a situation where he would accept political leadership. The PAD has always claimed the the TRT/PPP was disloyal to the King, which they would be the first to deny. If you do not have the King's support, you do not have the people's support. The King could snap his fingers right now and end the protests and bloodshed. Likely the judges will do that for him when they find the PPP guilty of gross corruption and election fraud. Anyway, anyone calling out the PAD as a "monarchist" party should know that it is meaningless.

Again, I must say that I do not support the PAD. But many of the massive numbers of Anti-Government protesters do not follow the PAD creed line-by-line, and since the PAD is strong enough to stand up to the corrupt and invalid government, people follow them. I disagree with the policies of the PAD, but it would be naive to think that the PAD's stance against Thaksin's program of privatization and the TRT/PPP free trade policies favorable to multi-nat'l corporations don't influence US & UK media representation of the PAD.

I agree that people should not ever make snap judgments about these situations, especially along the lines of protesters = good & gov't = bad. In this case, the government is the responsible party, so the burden is upon them to uphold the law and support the people. In every election in which the TRT/PPP and soon to be PT has been involved, there is widespread and rampant vote buying (hovering above 60%) and election fraud, for which the is always gets indicted. The TRT was forced to dissolve. The PPP may be on its way today. How can anyone keep calling this government legitimate?

The grievances are real and many, and the PAD is making it their duty to stand up against a pseudo-Democracy, which has become in many ways a de facto one-party system. Perhaps if the PAD is successful in their protests of the current government and PM (again, I must reiterate that the current PM, Thaksin's brother-in-law, was appointed by the government after the most recent PM was ousted a couple months ago in a scandal involving his part-ownership of a TV network, a serious conflict of interests--the international media dumbed this down to his hosting a cooking show on said network), and the PT isn't able to sink roots quickly enough, a true populist & progressive party would have the room to grow.

Sorry for such a long post, but this matter is important to me. In short, I support the Anti-Government protesters, and not the PAD.