Once Upon a Time at Sanamluang...

Preecha Raksorn’s Once Upon a Time at Sanamluang... opened yesterday at VS Gallery in Bangkok, and runs until 23rd June. The exhibition explores the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University from two opposite perspectives: revisionist history and state propaganda. Like many other artists responding to the massacre, Preecha focuses on the famous photograph by Neal Ulevich of a vigilante preparing to hit a hanged man with a folding chair.

Last year, Preecha created A Long Time Ago at..., a large, brightly coloured painting based on Ulevich’s black-and-white photo. The painting reproduces the original image meticulously, with one exception: the noose around the dead man’s neck is missing. This omission, which effectively brings the victim back to life, hints at the revisionist nature of the exhibition.

Preecha reproduced his painting as a line drawing on A4 paper, and gave copies to sixteen people representing a range of ages and occupations, asking them to colour in the drawing in their own styles. With this series, Let’s Color, the artist sought to discover people’s attitudes towards the massacre, and the extent of their knowledge about it, given that Thai school textbooks make only minimal reference to the event.

Of the the sixteen Let’s Color respondents, only five added the missing noose to their illustrations, suggesting that the state’s suppression of information about the event has been successful. One person, Kwanchai Sinpru, ignored the lines of Preecha’s template and instead overlaid his own paintings of the incendiary media coverage that led to the massacre: a จัตุรัส (‘square’) magazine interview with the monk Kittivuddho Bhikku (29th June 1976), and a Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) newspaper headline. The most creative response was by Apisit Sitsuntiea, who cut out the drawing to create a paper sculpture in the shape of a crown.

To demonstrate how the massacre is whitewashed by the national curriculum, the exhibition includes a reproduction of a passage from a history textbook that makes only fleeting references to the event. The page (History Lesson of October 6th) has been placed on a lectern, behind which are three framed paintings of massacre victims (Hang Me, Oh Hang Me). This installation resembles a traditional classroom, although in Thai classrooms the three frames would hold portraits of kings and queens instead.

The exhibition was inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, in which Tarantino rewrites the Manson Family murder of actress Sharon Tate, creating a fictional happy ending in which Tate survives and Manson’s followers are killed. Preecha uses similar dramatic licence, drawing a comic strip of twenty-six panels, Once Upon a Time at..., in which the hanged man removes the noose from his neck, fights back against the vigilante, and escapes.

Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room

Liz Truss is, by a country mile, the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister in history, in office for only forty-nine days. The Economist magazine (15th October 2022) calculated that the Truss premiership had “roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce”, and the Daily Star newspaper proved that an actual lettuce could stay fresh throughout her entire term of office. (Harry Cole and James Healey wrote an excellent Truss biography, Out of the Blue.)

Truss has written a new memoir, Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room (subtitled Leading the Revolution Against Globalism, Socialism, and the Liberal Establishment in the US). But it’s not a conventional account of her premiership: “I do not see it as simply a chance to tell the detailed inside story of my time in government and justify every decision I made while I was there.” (Similarly, Theresa May wrote that her book was “not an attempt to justify certain decisions I made in office or to provide a detailed retelling of historical events.”)

Instead, Truss expresses her grievances about everything from the trivial (why would nobody help her book a haircut?) to the critical (why did economic institutions oppose her reckless fiscal policies?). Apparently, nothing was her fault: even though she asked Jeremy Hunt to become Chancellor before informing her close friend Kwasi Kwarteng that he was being sacked, she blames a leaker for revealing Hunt’s appointment on Twitter, where a shocked Kwarteng read about his replacement.

Summarising her premiership, Truss writes: “Things did not work out as I had hoped. My time in Downing Street was brief, and I did not have the chance to deliver the policies I had planned.” That first sentence brings to mind Hirohito’s famous understatement, when his country surrendered in 1945: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

Nitade Experimental Shorts: The Other Cinema

Weerapat Sakolvaree’s short film Nostalgia will be shown at Chulalongkorn University on 10th April at a screening organised by Nitade Movie Club. The event, Nitade Experimental Shorts: The Other Cinema, features two sessions—Deconstructing Emotions and Decolonized by Time—each lasting exactly 100 minutes. Nostalgia will open the second session. It has previously been shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (twice), Bangkok University, Future Fest 2023, Wildtype 2022, and the 26th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 26).

High Voltage x Speech Odd

Speech Odd’s second album is out now on cassette and CD (limited to fifty copies of each format), with an LP release to follow later this year (limited to 100 copies). The album is a collaboration with High Voltage, and each band has contributed four songs.

Advertisement, the standout track from Speech Odd, is about state propaganda: “lying to gain power... you must be punished by people!” High Voltage’s lyrics are even more political: their tracks criticise an unnamed leader who falsely compares himself to a Buddhist deity. Seek the Power is written from his perspective: “i seek the power (power to rule)” [sic], and No Perfect Man accuses him of “pretending to be god”.

Speech Odd’s debut album was Oddworld, and they have also released the EP Promo 2022 and the single Control. Their merchandise includes a Die mo cracy t-shirt released earlier this year, a reference to the massacre of pro-democracy protesters in 2010.

High Voltage released their EP Watching You on CD in 2019. Its title track is a satirical cover of Every Breath You Take, with the lyrics adapted to comment on state surveillance: “Be careful of what you do / Thai junta is watching you”. The music video for Vicious Circle, another track on the EP, includes newsreel footage of the 6th October 1976 massacre.

“You don’t find it offensive that Donald Trump has been found liable for rape?”

Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, after Stephanopoulos asked Republican politician Nancy Mace why she had endorsed Trump as a presidential candidate despite Trump having been “found liable for rape.” Stephanopoulos interviewed Mace on The Week, in a segment broadcast on 10th March.

Stephanopoulos began the interview with a reference to a civil prosecution in which Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll: “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape. It’s been affirmed by a judge.”

Mace, who is herself a rape victim, stated that she found the premise of the interview “disgusting.” Stephanopoulos again asked her to justify her endorsement of Trump: “I’m asking a question about why you endorsed someone who’s been found liable for rape.” Mace accused Stephanopoulos of victim-shaming her, and Stephanopoulos attempted to clarify: “I’m questioning your political choices, because you’re supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape.”

Stephanopoulos then pressed Mace again to answer his initial question: “why are you supporting someone who’s been found liable for rape?” She replied that the question was offensive, to which Stephanopoulos responded: “You don’t find it offensive that Donald Trump has been found liable for rape?”

Mace’s answers, and Trump’s libel claim, hinge on the fact that Trump was convicted of sexually assaulting Carroll, rather than raping her. Trump’s lawsuit quotes Stephanopoulos on previous broadcasts referring to sexual assault, in an attempt to prove that Stephanopoulos was aware of the distinction and had used the word ‘rape’ in the Mace interview either recklessly or maliciously.

Trump also sued Carroll for the same reason, after she accused him of rape despite the sexual assault conviction. That lawsuit was dismissed, however, as the judge in the sexual assault case issued a written clarification: “that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Unlike the recent interview with Mace, the previous references by Stephanopoulos to sexual assault were all made prior to 19th July 2023, when the judge’s clarification was published. Stephanopoulos was thus using the term ‘rape’ “as many people commonly understand the word”, meaning that yesterday’s lawsuit against Stephanopoulos and ABC will almost certainly be dismissed.

2475Dawn of Revolution

Thailand’s Political History, by B.J. Terwiel, is an authoritative history of Thai politics that challenges Thailand’s royalist-nationalist historical narrative. Terwiel argues, for example, that Rama VII is traditionally portrayed as “the king who wanted to present his people with a true democracy but was forestalled by the coup d’état of 1932.” As he demonstrates, this is a false characterisation, though it remains persistent: it can be seen most recently in the new feature-length animation 2475 Dawn of Revolution (๒๔๗๕ รุ่งอรุณแห่งการปฏิวัติ). The film (directed by Wivat Jirotgul) dramatises the 1932 coup launched by Khana Ratsadon, which introduced nascent democracy to Thailand, though the story is told from a distorted royalist-nationalist perspective.

2475 begins by summarising Rama VII’s attitudes prior to the 1932 coup: “King Rama VII believed in the ideas of the parliament system and the constitution.” This is in direct contrast to Terwiel’s book, which points out that “the king ruled out a parliamentary form of government”. The film credits Rama VII as an instigator of democratic reform, intent on “giving the constitution to the people of Siam.” This interpretation—in which democracy is bestowed as a generous royal gift—is again at odds with Terwiel, who makes clear that Rama VII “indicated that he himself was firmly of the opinion that Siam was not ready for a representative form of government.”

The film’s framing device features three modern-day students, one of whom livestreams an anti-government protest, who go to the library to research a history project on the 1932 coup. The message—that today’s students should read more about Thai history—is both condescending and inaccurate, as history books by Nattapoll Chaiching, amongst others, are bestsellers. The film’s ending is particularly dismissive of the student characters: they visit Democracy Monument, and observe that democracy “dies over and over again, it gets torn apart with coup d’état so many times.” At which point, they burst into giggles, as though—despite their research and their previous political activism—they have no interest in the subject whatsoever.

2475’s credits include a list of individual donors, some of whom gave as little as ฿100 each. The bulk of the budget was provided anonymously, though Prachatai reported earlier this week that the film’s production company, Nakraphiwat, was paid almost ฿4m by the army between 2020 and 2022. While this doesn’t prove that the film was funded by the military, it does raise questions about their involvement in this production that discredits Khana Ratsadon, especially given that public commemorations of the 1932 revolution have recently been removed by the military regime.

“The Election Commission... has decided unanimously to ask the Constitutional Court to dissolve the Move Forward party.”

The Election Commission of Thailand has petitioned the Constitutional Court, calling for the dissolution of Move Forward, the progressive party that won last year’s election but was excluded from government. If, as expected, the court rules against Move Forward, the party’s fourteen million voters will be further disenfranchised, and the governing coalition will have no meaningful opposition in parliament.

The ECT’s decision was a response to a Constitutional Court ruling in January that Move Forward’s manifesto pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law violated article 49 of the constitution, according to which it is forbidden “to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State.” Citing the court’s ruling, the ECT announced yesterday: “There is evidence that Move Forward undermines the democratic system with the king as the head of state”.

Yesterday’s petition to the court was inevitable, as article 92 of the Organic Act on Political Parties (2017) states that the ECT, “when having believable evidence that any political party performed any of the following actions, shall file a petition to the Constitutional Court to dissolve such political party.” The first of those actions is: “To overthrow the democratic form of government with the King as head of state”, of which Move Forward was found guilty by the Constitutional Court in January.

In its statement released yesterday, the ECT said: “The Election Commission has considered and analysed the Constitutional Court verdict and has decided unanimously to ask the Constitutional Court to dissolve the Move Forward party.” The court will deliberate for several months, though a verdict of dissolution is highly likely, as other anti-establishment parties—Thai Rak Thai, People Power, Thai Raksa Chart, and Move Forward’s predecessor Future Forward—have all met the same fate.

Today, the ECT also announced that it would begin an investigation into Bhumjaithai, a member of the current coalition government, after a former Bhumjaithai MP was found guilty of asset concealment by the Constitutional Court. On 17th January, the court ruled that Saksayam Chidchob, while serving as transport minister in Prayut Chan-o-cha’s government, had awarded twenty-three state infrastructure contracts to Burijarearn, a construction firm he owned. (Saksayam is the brother of Newin Chidchob, known as the godfather of Buriram.)

Phatthalung Micro Cinema 2.5Four Short Films by Chaweng Chaiyawan

Four Short Films by Chaweng Chaiyawan will be shown as part of Phatthalung Micro Cinema this week. The programme includes Chaweng’s powerful and transgressive film Please... See Us (หว่างีมอละ), which ends with an extended sequence in which a pig is killed and dismembered, the helpless animal being a tragic metaphor for the plight of ethnic minorities in Thailand.

Phatthalung Micro Cinema 2.5 will be held at the Home Baking Cafe in Phatthalung on 17th March. Please... See Us had an outdoor screening in Chiang Mai last year. It has been screened twice at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok, in 2021 and 2023. It was shown in Phayao as part of Wildtype 2021, and in Salaya at the 25th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 25).

Doc Club Festival Selections 02

Doc Club and Pub will show highlights from last month’s Doc Club Festival on 10th March. Selections 02 includes Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s ชวนอ่านภาพ 6 ตุลา (‘invitation to read images of 6th Oct.’), Sumeth Suwanneth’s Lost, and Life Goes On (เลือนแต่ไม่ลืม), and Vichart Somkaew’s 112 News from Heaven.

In Chulayarnnon’s film, Octobrists and current students respond to photographs of the 6th October 1976 massacre. Lost, and Life Goes On features interviews with relatives of the victims of the 1992 ‘Black May’ massacre. On 112 News from Heaven’s soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, which is juxtaposed with 112 captions documenting the convictions of activists charged with lèse-majesté (article 112 of the criminal code) over a 112-day period.

112 News from Heaven premiered in Phatthalung earlier this year. Lost, and Life Goes On was shown at the 26th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 26).

Tak Bai 2004: 20th Anniversary

This year is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing five people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

The security forces have never been held accountable for the deaths, and the Thaksin Shinawatra government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident. In defiance of the ban, the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD—ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’)—with its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Thunska Pansittivorakul’s documentary This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน), which led to the film being banned. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the censorship of Tak Bai video footage.)

Last year, Patani Artspace held the รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’) exhibition, and the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition took place at Silpakorn and Thammasat universities. Heard the Unheard featured the personal possessions of seventeen people who died at Tak Bai—including a ฿100 banknote retrieved from the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, Imron—displayed alongside recollections from the victims’ relatives. These items are also photographed in Tak Bai (ลิ้มรสความทรงจำ), edited by Kusra Kamawan Mukdawijitra.

To commemorate the twentieth anniversary, Heard the Unheard is being restaged. The seventeen artefacts will be split between two exhibitions: Living Memories: 20 Years of Tak Bai Incident [sic] (20 ปี ตากใบ ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่) at SEA Junction (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre) from tomorrow until 10th March, and Indelible Memory: 20 Years Tak Bai (ลบไม่เลือน 20 ปี ตากใบ) at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre in Bangkok between 4th March and 31st July.

Tak Bai photographs were also shown at the Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน) exhibition in Bangkok. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim, and his book The Patani Art of Struggle (سني ڤتاني چاراو او سها) shows three versions of the installation. It was first installed, a few days after the massacre, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, and the grave markers were accompanied by rifles wrapped in white cloth. In 2017, it was recreated at Patani Artspace and then mounted on a plinth containing Pattani soil at the Patani Semasa (ปาตานี ร่วมสมัย) exhibition in Chiang Mai.

Two further installations—Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม)—both include lists of the Tak Bai victims’ names. Photophobia, 78, and Violence in Tak Bai were all included in the Patani Semasa exhibition. (The exhibition catalogue gives Violence in Tak Bai a milder alternative title, Remember at Tak Bai.)

Phatthalung Micro Cinema 1.5

Phatthalung Micro Cinema continues its screening programme on 3rd March with an evening of short films with a political theme. The event includes two of the best recent Thai shorts—Chatchawal Thongjun’s From Forest to City (อรัญนคร) and Vichart Somkaew’s Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป)—and We Need to Talk About อานนท์ ชายผู้นำพาให้คนเท่ากัน (‘we need to talk about Arnon: the man who made everyone equal’), a new ten-minute online documentary from Thai Rath (ไทยรัฐ) on protest leader Arnon Nampa.

Phatthalung Micro Cinema held its first few screenings at the Swiftlet Book Shop in Phatthalung—and Supamok Silarak’s film Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง) was also shown there this month—though on 12th February a group of police officers warned the shop’s owners that they were forbidden from holding public events there in future. Next month’s triple bill will therefore take place at the town’s Home Baking Cafe instead.

From Forest to City is a drama in three parts, narrated by a survivor of the 1976 Thammasat University massacre. Part one begins with an epigraph by Kittivuddho Bhikku, an influential Buddhist monk: “Killing a communist is not a sin.” This infamous quote gave nationalist paramilitary groups a licence to kill, and they invaded Thammasat’s campus and lynched dozens of students. In part two, comparing 1976 to the present day, the narrator regrets that Thailand hasn’t changed: society remains irreconcilably divided, between student protesters and the conservative establishment.

Although From Forest to City is a black-and-white film, it has two flashes of colour: a red folding chair, and a yellow t-shirt. Due to an infamous photograph by Neal Ulevich, this single item of furniture has come to symbolise the entire Thammasat massacre. The yellow t-shirt in an otherwise black-and-white frame recalls Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap’s short film Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน), in which the yellow t-shirts worn by monarchists are the only objects shown in colour.

In part three, From Forest to City switches gear with a documentary montage of dramatic episodes from modern Thai history: the Thammasat massacre, armoured personnel carriers demolishing red-shirt protest camps, and riot police firing water cannon at students in Siam Square. This montage of news footage is set ironically to รักกันไว้เถิด (‘let’s love each other’), a Cold War propaganda song whose lyrics call for national unity.

Cremation Ceremony, which resembles a video installation, begins with the faces of three politicians staring impassively at the viewer. The three men—Anutin Charnvirakul, former health minister; and former prime ministers Abhisit Vejjajiva and Prayut Chan-o-cha—are each responsible for gross injustices. Anutin oversaw the initially sluggish response to the coronavirus pandemic. Abhisit authorised the shooting of protesters in 2010. Prayut led a coup, and his junta revived lèse-majesté prosecutions.

Vichart sets fire to photographs of the men, their faces distort as the photographic paper burns, and the only sound is the crackling of the flame. This symbolic ritual is a commemoration of the deaths of coronavirus victims, red-shirt protesters, and political dissidents, though it’s also a metaphorical act of retribution, as the politicians have faced no consequences for their actions.

Cremation Ceremony ends on an optimistic note: an epilogue explains that pro-democracy parties “emerged victorious” in last year’s election. (The film was made before the progressive election winners were denied a place in the governing coalition.)

From Forest to City was shown last year at Bangkok University, and in the online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). Cremation Ceremony was shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (and in the festival’s highlights programme), at Doc Club and Pub, and at Wildtype 2023. Vichart is a co-founder of Phatthalung Micro Cinema, and his film 112 News from Heaven had its premiere at the group’s inaugural event last month.

Mokelung Rimnam

Sopon Surariddhidhamrong, co-founder of the Mokelung Rimnam activist group campaigning for human rights and equality, has been charged with defamation after he distributed flyers resembling ‘wanted’ posters calling for the arrest of numerous senators. (Sopon is currently serving a jail sentence for lèse-majesté.)

On 1st August 2023, Sopon handed out flyers at the Seri Market in Bangkok, alleging that senators including Seree Suwanpanont were acting undemocratically. (The protest came shortly after the vast majority of senators refused to endorse Pita Limjaroenrat as prime minister.) Seree sued for libel, claiming that the allegations damaged his reputation.

Shakespeare Must Die

The ban on Ing Kanjanavanit’s film Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย) has finally been lifted by the Supreme Court. The court also ruled today that the Ministry of Culture, which banned the film in 2012, must pay 500,000 baht in damages to the filmmaker after her twelve-year crusade to reverse the ban (a campaign documented in her film Censor Must Die/เซ็นเซอร์ต้องตาย). The ban was upheld by the Administrative Court in 2017, though times have since changed, and Shakespeare Must Die appears to be an early beneficiary of a liberalised censorship policy announced by the National Soft Power Strategy Committee (คณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ซอฟต์พาวเวอร์แห่งชาติ) last month.

Shakespeare Must Die is a Thai adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with Pisarn Pattanapeeradej in the lead role. The play is presented in two parallel versions: a production in period costume, and a contemporary political interpretation. The period version is faithful to Shakespeare’s original, though it also breaks the fourth wall, with cutaways to the audience and an interval outside the theatre (featuring a cameo by the director).

In the contemporary sequences, Macbeth is reimagined as Mekhdeth, a prime minister facing a crisis. Street protesters shout “ok pbai!” (‘get out!’), and the protests are infiltrated by assassins listed in the credits as ‘men in black’. Ing has downplayed any direct link to Thai politics, though “Thaksin ok pbai!” was the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s rallying cry against Thaksin Shinawatra, and ‘men in black’ were blamed for instigating violence in 2010. Another satirical line in the script—“Dear Leader brings happy-ocracy!”—predicts Prayut Chan-o-cha’s propaganda song Returning Happiness to the Thai Kingdom (คืนความสุขให้ประเทศไทย).

The parallels between Mekhdeth and Thaksin highlight the politically-motivated nature of the ban imposed on the film. Ironically, the project was initially funded by the Ministry of Culture, during Abhisit Vejjajiva’s premiership. (It received a grant from the ไทยเข้มแข็ง/‘strong Thailand’ stimulus package.) The Abhisit government was only too happy to greenlight a script criticising Thaksin, though by the time the film was finished, Thaksin’s sister Yingluck was in power, and her administration was somewhat less disposed to this anti-Thaksin satire, hence the ban.

Although the film was made twelve years ago, its message is arguably more timely than ever, as Thaksin’s influence over Thai politics continues. He returned to Thailand last year, and his Pheu Thai party is now leading a coalition with the political wing of the military junta. Not uncoincidentally, his prison sentence for corruption was commuted, and he was released on parole last weekend.

The film’s climax, a recreation of the 6th October 1976 massacre, is its most controversial sequence. A photograph by Neal Ulevich, taken during the massacre, shows a vigilante preparing to hit a corpse with a chair, and Shakespeare Must Die restages the incident. A hanging body (symbolising Shakespeare himself) is repeatedly hit with a chair, though rather than dwelling on the violence, Ing cuts to reaction shots of the crowd, which (as in 1976) resembles a baying mob.

The director was interviewed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, and the book details the full story behind the ban. (It also includes an insider’s account from a member of the appeals committee, who was obliged to vote to uphold the ban.) Ing doesn’t mince her words in the interview, describing the censors as “a bunch of trembling morons with the power of life and death over our films.”

“He looked critically ill...”

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released on parole early yesterday morning, and today he appeared at the Office of the Attorney General to answer charges of lèse-majesté that were first filed in 2016. He was released on 500,000 baht bail, and the Attorney General will announce on 10th April whether he will be indicted.

The lèse-majesté case stems from an interview Thaksin gave on 21st May 2015 to The Chosun Daily (조선일보), a South Korean newspaper, during which he accused members of the Privy Council of orchestrating the 2006 and 2014 coups. (He had made similar claims in earlier interviews: on 20th April 2009, he told the Financial Times newspaper that the Privy Council “started the whole process” of the 2006 coup, a comment he repeated in Tom Plate’s book Conversations with Thaksin.)

The Chosun Daily video was not the first newspaper interview that led to lèse-majesté charges against Thaksin. In a 9th November 2009 interview with The Times, when King Rama IX was still on the throne, he agreed with the interviewer that the reign of Rama IX’s successor “will be a “shining” age”. As a result, lèse-majesté charges were filed against both Thaksin and Times journalist Richard Lloyd Parry.

When Thaksin was driven home from the police hospital after his parole, he was photographed wearing a neck brace, and with his right arm in a sling. After meeting him at the OAG this morning, Preecha Sudsanguan described the former PM’s health condition: “He came to see us in a wheelchair,” the director general of the criminal litigation department said. “His voice was barely audible when I talked to him and he looked critically ill to me.”

Suspicions were raised about Thaksin’s health when he was transferred to a police hospital on the very first night of his prison sentence, despite being well enough to fly back to Thailand that same morning. He remained in hospital for the entire duration of his sentence, yet after being paroled, he was sent home, apparently no longer needing to be hospitalised. Yet according to the OAG, his condition now appears even worse, despite his six-month hospital stay.

The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown has been sentenced in absentia to two years in jail by a Malaysian court. She was sued for defamation by Nur Zahirah, Sultanah of the Malaysian state of Terengganu, on 21st November 2018, a few months after the publication of her book The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé.

Rewcastle Brown’s investigative reporting exposed the 1MDB scandal that led to the imprisonment of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak on corruption charges. Less than a week before Rewcastle Brown’s conviction on 7th February, Razak’s twelve-year sentence was reduced by half.

The Sultanah—wife of Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin—had originally sought 100m ringgit in libel damages, though the High Court ruled in Rewcastle Brown’s favour, dismissing the case. The Court of Appeal overturned that decision on 12th December last year, and awarded damages of 300,000 ringgit.

The case stems from a single sentence in The Sarawak Report implying that the Sultanah was instrumental in the establishment of 1MDB, referring to “the wife of the sultan, whose acquiescence was needed to set up the fund” (p. 3). After the initial lawsuit, Rewcastle Brown clarified that she should have named the Sultan’s sister rather than his wife, and the text was changed in later editions. She also explained that the ambiguous pronoun “whose” referred to Sultan Mizan himself.

Office of the Attorney General:“The police notified Thaksin about the allegation...”

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is expected to be paroled later this month, though in another twist to his legal drama, he also faces lèse-majesté charges that could extend his custodial sentence. Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile in August last year, and the Supreme Court sentenced him to an eight-year prison term for corruption and abuse of power.

However, on his first day in jail, Thaksin was transferred to a police hospital for unspecified medical reasons, and has remained there ever since. After he applied for a royal pardon, his eight-year sentence was reduced to one year, and the Department of Corrections confirmed last month that, given his age (seventy-four), he was eligible for parole. (These events were presumably not unrelated to Pheu Thai’s cooperation with the military’s political wing.)

This apparent leniency may have reached its limit, as the Office of the Attorney General announced today that an investigation will be opened into lèse-majesté charges first filed against Thaksin in 2016. Prayuth Pecharakun, spokesman for the OAG, said that “senior officials from the Office of the Attorney General and the police notified Thaksin about the allegation” on 17th January, and the charges relate to an interview he gave to South Korean media in 2015, when he accused members of the Privy Council of orchestrating the 2006 and 2014 coups.

Red Poetryยังมีจิตใจจะใฝ่ฝัน(‘still having a mind that will dream’)

Supamok Silarak’s film Red Poetry (ความกวีสีแดง) will be shown in Phatthalung this weekend. The feature-length documentary is a profile of performance artist Vitthaya Klangnil, who co-founded the group Artn’t. A shorter version of the film—Red Poetry: Verse 1 (เราไป ไหน ได้)—was screened at Wildtype 2022.

The documentary shows the intense endurance and commitment Vitthaya invests in his protest art. A durational performance—sitting in front of Chiang Mai’s Tha Pae Gate for nine full days—led to his collapse from exhaustion. In another action, he climbed onto Chiang Mai University’s main entrance, repeatedly slapped himself in the face, and fell into a pond. When he reported to the police to answer charges of sedition, he vomited blue paint outside the police station.

The film ends with Vitthaya’s most extreme action: carving “112” into his chest, in protest at the lèse-majesté (article 112) charges he faced after he exhibited a modified version of the Thai flag in 2021. He was convicted of lèse-majesté last year, and received a suspended sentence.

Red Poetry will be shown at the Swiftlet Book Shop on 10th February, at an event titled Red Poetry ยังมีจิตใจจะใฝ่ฝัน (‘Red Poetry: still having a mind that will dream’). Swiftlet was also the venue for the inaugural Phatthalung Micro Cinema screening last month.)

Supamok’s film was screened three times as part of the 27th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27): in the online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), at the main festival itself, and in the Short 27 Awarded Film Screening programme. It has previously been shown in Chiang Mai and Salaya.

2475นักเขียนผีแห่งสยาม (‘1932: the ghost writer of Siam’)

In the years following the 2014 coup, the military government set about removing public reminders of the 1932 revolution, when Thailand transitioned from absolute monarchy to parliamentary democracy. In the catalogue for his exhibition The L/Royal Monument (นิ/ราษฎร์), Wittawat Tongkeaw describes the disappearance of “physical components—names, plaques, monuments” commemorating the revolution. Similarly, in his chapter in Rama X (edited by Pavin Chachavalpongpun), Chatri Prakitnonthakan discusses “the destruction of significant buildings and monuments related to the memory of the People’s Party”.

Most notoriously, a plaque in Bangkok’s Royal Plaza was covertly replaced in 2017 with a new plaque honouring the monarchy. Leaders of the recent student protest movement created a new plaque with a democratic inscription, and installed it at Sanam Luang on 20th September 2020, though it was removed by the authorities almost immediately. Reproductions of the new plaque have been shown at various exhibitions, including Wittawat’s 841.594, and it appears prominently in Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s film 100 Times Reproduction of Democracy (การผลิตซ้ำประชาธิปไตยให้กลายเป็นของแท้).

The new plaque is an indication of a political awakening among young Thais—known as ta sawang—and a renewed interest in the 1932 revolution specifically. One of the groups organising the recent protests is called Khana Ratsadon, in tribute to the political party of the same name that led the 1932 revolution. A new library of pro-democracy books is called 1932 People Space Library, its name referring to the year the revolution took place. Souvenir items from 1932 were displayed at the Revolutionary Things (ของ [คณะ] ราษฎร) exhibition in 2018. Charinthorn Rachuratchata’s exhibition Museum 2032 (พิพิธภัณฑ์ ๒๕๗๕) looked forward to the revolution’s centenary.

This revival of interest in the events of 1932 is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 2010, vox pop interviews for Abichon Rattanabhayon’s short film The Six Principles (สัญญาของผู้มาก่อนกาล) demonstrated the public’s apathy towards the revolution. But a few years later, in 2013, the change in attitudes was apparent when Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s documentary Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย) achieved unexpected box-office success. (Paradoxocracy features an extended discussion of the revolution, and begins by reproducing the text of a 1932 manifesto railing against King Prajadhipok.)

The 1932 revolution is central to the plot of a new book, 2475 นักเขียนผีแห่งสยาม (‘1932: the ghost writer of Siam’), by Tanis Werasakwong (known as Sa-ard) and Podcharakrit To-im. The book tells the full story of the revolution in the form of a graphic novel, featuring prominent politicians of the period—and even King Prajadhipok—among its main characters. The project’s website describes the revolution as “an event in Thai history that has been erased from collective memory”, a point also made in Prabda Yoon’s short film Transmissions of Unwanted Pasts (วงโคจรของความทรงจำ).

‘Jack the giant slayer’

Two petitions have been filed with the Election Commission of Thailand today, calling for the dissolution of the Move Forward Party, following the Constitutional Court’s unanimous verdict yesterday that Move Forward’s proposal to amend the lèse-majesté law was tantamount to treason. (The court ruled that the party violated article 49 of the constitution, according to which it is forbidden “to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State.”)

Article 92 of the Organic Act on Political Parties (2017) states that the ECT, “when having believable evidence that any political party performed any of the following actions, shall file a petition to the Constitutional Court to dissolve such political party.” The first of those actions is: “To overthrow the democratic form of government with the King as head of state”, of which Move Forward was found guilty yesterday.

Political activist Ruangkrai Leekitwattana petitioned the ECT this morning, citing article 92 of the Organic Act. Ruangkrai is known as ‘Jack the giant slayer’, as his complaint against Samak Sundaravej resulted in the former prime minister being dismissed from office. (He had accused Samak of receiving private income from a TV cookery show, ชิมไปบ่นไป/‘tasting while grumbling’.) Theerayut Suwankesorn, who filed the petition that led to yesterday’s court verdict, has also petitioned the ECT this morning, citing the same article as Ruangkrai.

The ECT is now obliged to refer the case to the Constitutional Court, which will rule on whether Move Forward should be dissolved. If the court’s previous judgements are any guide, dissolution seems inevitable, as other anti-establishment parties—Thai Rak Thai, People Power, Thai Raksa Chart, and Move Forward’s predecessor Future Forward—have all met the same fate.

Despite winning last year’s election, Move Forward’s prime ministerial nominee was blocked by the Senate. With the junta-appointed senators’ terms of office expiring in May, thus increasing Move Forward’s chances of gaining power at the next election, today’s petitions can be seen as a preemptive measure: an alternative mechanism to prevent the party from exercising its mandate.

“The law is not a fax paper sent from God...”

The Constitutional Court has ruled that the Move Forward Party’s pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law violated article 49 of the constitution, according to which it is forbidden “to overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State.” The court has ordered Move Forward and its former leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, to cease all activities and campaigns related to lèse-majesté reform.

The court’s investigation into Move Forward began in July last year, when a petition was filed by Theerayut Suwankesorn, lawyer for the disgraced former monk Suwit Thongprasert. (Last week, in an unrelated case, the court ruled that Pita’s ownership of shares in a defunct media company was not unconstitutional.)

Theerayut’s petition did not call for Move Forward’s dissolution, though now that the court has deemed the party’s agenda tantamount to treason, others may take the opportunity to do so. Since the election, there has been a concerted effort to muzzle Move Forward, and the Constitutional Court has a long history of dissolving anti-establishment parties, namely Thai Rak Thai, People Power, Thai Raksa Chart, and Move Forward’s predecessor Future Forward.

Move Forward is not a republican party, and had not sought to abolish the lèse-majesté law, only to reduce the fifteen-year maximum sentence for offenders, and to restrict those who can press charges. This was a key policy in Move Forward’s election-winning manifesto, though today’s verdict will significantly restrict the party’s progressive agenda.

At a press conference today, before the verdict was announced, former Future Forward leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit said: “The law is not a fax paper sent from God. It’s written by human hands, therefore people can amend it”. (Thanathorn was disqualified as an MP by the Constitutional Court in 2019.)