“To invite the Democrat Party to join the government...”

Pheu Thai announced on 27th August that the Palang Pracharath Party will be excluded from the governing coalition when a new cabinet is finalised next month, to be replaced by the opposition Democrats. Thaksin Shinawatra’s daughter Paetongtarn became Prime Minister on 16th August, though PPRP leader Prawit Wongsuwan was absent from parliament when MPs voted her into office. Prawit also failed to attend parliament for the vote to appoint Paetongtarn’s predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, and he was rumoured to be behind the petition to the Constitutional Court that resulted in Srettha’s dismissal.

Prawit’s conflict with the Thaksin family runs deep, though more recently he has also fallen out with Thammanat Prompao, a fellow PPRP member (and convicted heroin smuggler). Thammanat was Minister of Agriculture in Srettha’s government, but Prawit nominated another MP, Santi Promphat, to replace him in the new Paetongtarn cabinet. This caused a rift within PPRP, and the party split into two rival factions led respectively by Prawit and Thammanat. At a press conference on 27th August, Thammanat made it clear that his relationship with Prawit had broken down, saying: “It’s time for me to declare my freedom.”

On the surface, it appears that Thaksin now has the upper hand: his daughter is PM, creating a Shinawatra dynasty, and his long-standing enemy, Prawit, has been marginalised. But Paetongtarn is now exposed to the same potential fate as previous Pheu Thai prime ministers: being toppled by a military coup or disqualified by the Constitutional Court. (Yingluck Shinawatra was deposed by the 2014 coup, which was allegedly organised by Prawit.) Also, PPRP’s place in the coalition was almost certainly part of a deal struck with the military, allowing Thaksin to return from self-imposed exile, and reneging on this arrangement will be viewed by the military establishment as highly provocative.

Yesterday, in an open letter, Pheu Thai wrote: “we would like to invite the Democrat Party to join the government and work together in running the country for the benefit of the people.” (In 2008, after PTP’s previous incarnation, the People Power Party, was dissolved, the Democrats formed an unelected government that oversaw the military massacre of pro-Thaksin supporters in 2010.) Pheu Thai voters who felt betrayed when the party initially welcomed PPRP into the coalition will surely feel equally let down by yesterday’s invitation to the Democrats.

Constitutional Court:“The accused is terminated as prime minister...”

The Constitutional Court has ruled, by a slim majority of 5–4, that Srettha Tavisin must resign as Prime Minister. The verdict comes after a petition to the court by a group of forty senators linked to Prawit Wongsuwan, calling for an investigation into Srettha’s appointment of Pichit Chuenban, Thaksin Shinawatra’s disgraced former lawyer, as Prime Minister’s Office Minister. In its judgement, the court said: “The accused is terminated as prime minister due to his lack of honesty”.

Pichit was jailed for six months in 2008 after blatantly attempting to bribe a judge on Thaksin’s behalf with ฿2 million in cash. Srettha was found guilty of violating article 160 of the constitution, which states that government ministers must “not have behaviour which is a serious violation of or failure to comply with ethical standards”, which would indeed seem to apply in Pichit’s case. (The court has made exceptions in the past, however: it ruled that Thammanat Prompao was qualified as a minister in the 2019 military-backed government despite his criminal record for heroin smuggling, as he was convicted outside Thailand.)

When Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, it seemed that he and the military had reached a mutually beneficial arrangement: in return for excluding Move Forward from government, Thaksin’s criminal convictions would be waived. But the military giveth and taketh away: Thaksin has been wrong-footed several times, and every act of leniency granted to him has come with strings attached. He was released on parole, yet the very next day he faced a lèse-majesté charge. His application for a royal pardon was accepted, though it only partially commuted his prison sentence. Junta-appointed senators endorsed Srettha as PM, though now Srettha has been disqualified.

Move Forward was dissolved by the Constitutional Court last week, making the military less reliant on Thaksin, hence today’s verdict. In fact, over the past two decades, the Constitutional Court and the military have wielded significantly more political power than elected governments. Srettha himself was not elected, becoming PM only after the Senate refused to vote for the election winner, Pita Limjaroenrat. Nevertheless, he is now the fourth prime minister allied with Thaksin to be disqualified by the court, after Samak Sundaravej, Somchai Wongsawat, and Yingluck Shinawatra.

People’s Party

Move Forward, the progressive party that was dissolved by the Constitutional Court this week despite winning last year’s election, has been relaunched as the People’s Party with a new leader, Nattapong Ruangpanyawut. (Former leaders Pita Limjaroenrat and Chaithawat Tulathon were barred from politics for ten years following the party’s dissolution.)

The new party logo uses a simple graphic design to make a bold ideological statement. An inverted pyramid represents a reversal of Thailand’s top-down social hierarchy. The pyramid’s three lines symbolise the French revolutionary slogan ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, perhaps an implicit counterpoint to Thailand’s traditional tripartite motto ‘nation, religion, king’.

“Nixon Resigns”

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation as US president. The second term of his presidency had been dominated by investigations into the Watergate scandal, and in his resignation speech on 8th August 1974 he conceded that he was vacating the office to avoid almost certain impeachment by both the House of Representatives and the Senate: “because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require.” (The speech was released on vinyl as Resignation of a President.)

Famously, at a press conference on 17th November 1973, Nixon had insisted: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” But after his so-called ‘White House plumbers’ broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Washington headquarters in the Watergate building, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered a criminal conspiracy that led all the way to the presidency. (Woodward and Bernstein’s work was one of the greatest examples of investigative journalism in newspaper history. Their main source, nicknamed ‘Deep Throat’, was deputy FBI director Mark Felt.)

It was the ‘smoking gun tape’ transcript, released following a Supreme Court ruling, that finally confirmed Nixon’s attempt to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the Watergate burglary. On the tape, a recording of an Oval Office meeting on 23rd June 1972, Nixon says that the CIA “should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case, period.” The transcript was published on 5th August 1974; Nixon resigned three days later. In his inauguration speech, Nixon’s successor Gerald Ford drew a line under the Watergate controversy and declared: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

In an interview with David Frost (broadcast on 19th May 1977), Nixon implied that a president has immunity from prosecution: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” At the time, this was seen as a gross misreading of the US constitution, though earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that a president does indeed have legal immunity for any official act carried out while in office. This ruling was particularly controversial as it came at a time when former president Donald Trump had been convicted of covering up a hush money payment and was under investigation for other crimes.

Move Forward Backward

The Constitutional Court has ruled that Move Forward, the progressive party that won last year’s election, poses a threat to the monarchy and must be dissolved. This is effectively the party’s second dissolution, as the same court dissolved Move Forward’s predecessor, Future Forward, in 2020. Other parties—Thai Rak Thai, People Power, and Thai Raksa Chart—have suffered the same fate and, like Move Forward and Future Forward, they were all anti-establishment and opposed to military rule.

This afternoon’s verdict was a foregone conclusion, as the court had already ruled 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.” In such circumstances, article 92 of the Organic Act on Political Parties (2017) states that the Election Commission of Thailand “shall file a petition to the Constitutional Court to dissolve such political party.” (The ECT did so in March.)

Former party leader Pita Limjaroenrat was under no illusions about the outcome, writing an online op-ed for The Economist last week discussing “Move Forward and whatever political vehicle takes our place after the ruling on August 7th.” In its defence before today’s judgement, Move Forward made the perfectly reasonable case that lèse-majesté is a law like any other, and should therefore be subject to amendment by parliamentary vote. The party has not sought to repeal the law, only to reduce its severity. Needless to say, this is absolutely nothing like the treason described in article 49.

Since winning the election, Move Forward has faced sustained opposition in an attempt to prevent it from gaining power. On the eve of the parliamentary vote for a new PM, in a decision timed to cause maximum impact, the ECT petitioned the Constitutional Court to investigate Pita for alleged ownership of media shares. Most senators appointed by the military made clear that they would never endorse a Move Forward candidate, despite the party’s mandate from the election result.

Then, on the morning of the second prime ministerial vote, the Constitutional Court suspended Pita from parliament, and once again the timing was hardly coincidental. Pita was eventually exonerated, though his suspension during the investigation prevented him from being renominated as PM. On the other hand, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has not been suspended while the court investigates his alleged violation of article 160 of the constitution.

Even Move Forward’s ostensible allies conspired to keep the party out of office. Despite repeated assurances to the contrary, Pheu Thai joined with United Thai Nation and Palang Pracharath—the political wings of the military junta—in a coalition that was explicitly designed to exclude Move Forward. (Thaksin was photographed exchanging respectful wai greetings with coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha at a cremation ceremony yesterday, in the first public meeting between Thailand’s two most influential political figures.)

The dissolution has disenfranchised Move Forward’s 14 million voters, though the party will reconstitute itself under a different name, and its popularity is likely to increase, as the 2023 election result demonstrated that a majority of the electorate are opposed to the military establishment. Many disillusioned former Pheu Thai voters are also likely to support Move Forward’s successor. But a revival of the student demonstrations that took place after Future Forward’s dissolution is less likely, as the protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté and other offences.

ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน (‘looking at the stars, feet on the ground’)

In 2013, Thaksin Shinawatra published a comic adaptation of his autobiography, ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน (‘looking at the stars, feet on the ground’). The book, published by Thaksin’s own Thaicom company, was a vanity project that reimagined his life as an inspirational rags-to-riches tale. (As Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker wrote in Thaksin, their book on the former PM, “Thaksin has mythologized his life story as a poor boy made good.”) The comic was later converted into a seven-part animated series, aimed at an even younger audience, released on YouTube in 2014.

Surprisingly, ตาดูดาว เท้าติดดิน was the second comic biography of Thaksin. The first was published shortly after the 2006 coup that removed him from office. ชีวิตทักษิณ บันทึกประวัติศาสตร์ นายกของไทยคนที่ 23 ที่มีทั้งคนรัก คนชัง สุดท้ายถูกยึดอำนาจ! (‘Thaksin’s life: a historical record of how the 23rd Prime Minister of Thailand, who had both lovers and haters, finally seized power!’) is similarly hagiographic, though drawn in a more realistic style for a slightly older readership.

Vichart Movie Collection

A trio of recent films by Vichart Somkaew will be screened at Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai on 4th August. The Vichart Movie Collection retrospective features three documentary shorts: Voice of Talad Phian (​เสียงแห่งตลาดเพียร), 112 News from Heaven, and his new film The Poem of the River (บทกวีแห่งสายน้ำ). (This will be the fourth screening of 112 News from Heaven, which was previously shown in January, February, and March this year.)

112 News from Heaven juxtaposes news that’s broadcast on all channels every day with news that goes unreported by mainstream outlets. On the soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, a daily staple of Thai television and radio. This is contrasted with captions documenting news of “victims of the Thai state”. Vichart’s previous film Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป) used a similar technique, with captions honouring victims of political injustice.

The Thai monarchy is often associated with the sky, symbolising the high reverence in which it is traditionally held, and lèse-majesté is article 112 of the criminal code, hence the title 112 News from Heaven. The film’s captions feature 112 headlines from a 112-day period, detailing the custodial sentences given to those convicted of lèse-majesté and the bail denied to those awaiting trial. This long litany of legal persecution is followed by a clip from an impromptu TV interview Rama X gave during a walkabout. Asked for his message to pro-democracy protesters, the King offers words of reassurance: “We love them all the same.”

It might seem an unusual comparison, but 112 News from Heaven’s structure recalls D.H. Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers. The bulk of that book describes the misery of the protagonist’s life, though it ends on an unexpectedly uplifting note: “He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.” Can a book’s final few optimistic sentences negate the oppressive narrative of its previous 500 pages? Or does the apparently hopeful ending represent a false dawn? The same questions are raised by 112 News from Heaven, in relation to the state’s attitudes towards political dissent.

Vichart’s latest film, The Poem of the River, will have its world premiere tomorrow at the Paradise Film Festival in Budapest. The film opens with a caption describing “a Royal Development Project, costing 100 million baht” to dredge the water from the Lai Phan canal in Phatthalung. The dredging was undertaken to prevent flooding, though it has caused disruptive side effects. The canal was previously a local waterway and a source of food for villagers, who caught fish in the canal and grew vegetables nearby, though the area is now barren.

The Poem of the River juxtaposes tranquil images of the canal and its verdant, fertile banks—including some beautiful drone photography—with footage of the dredging process. (The effect is similar to Koraphat Cheeradit’s short drama Yesterday Is Another Day, in which scenes set in a woodland are interrupted by shots of a JCB digging up the area.) A lingering close-up of a man’s face, as he contemplates the results of the dredging, tells us everything about the project’s impact on the local community.

From Democrazy to ‘Coupocracy’

One way that artists satirise Thai politics is by punning on the Thai word for democracy itself, ประชาธิปไตย. Parit Wacharasindhu’s book Dreamocracy (ประชาธิปไตยไม่ใช่ฝัน) is a recent example. There have been at least ten Thai puns on ‘democracy’, the most common being Democrazy, first used by the band Heavy Mod as the title of their 1995 album. (That album also includes a track titled ประชาฉิปตาย, which translates as ‘democracy dies’, similar to the “Die mo cracy” t-shirt slogan by Speech Odd.) The short film title Demockrazy (ประชาทิปตาย) includes two puns, while the documentary title Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย) is more long-winded.

The script for the film Nednary (อวสานเนตรนารี) features a pun on Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname, “ประชาธิปตู่” (‘Tu-ocracy’). Political commentators have used similar neologisms to explain the status of Thai democracy under various influential prime ministers: Prayutocracy, Thaksinocracy (ทักษิณาธิปไตย; Thaksin Shinawatra), and Premocracy (เปรมาธิปไตย; Prem Tinsulanonda). Most recently, Tyrell Haberkorn coined the term ‘coupocracy’ to describe the period covering the 2006 and 2014 coups.

Censor Must Die

It’s fair to say that director Ing K. has had her battles with the film censors. In an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored, she described the state censorship board as “a bunch of trembling morons with the power of life and death over our films.” Two of her films were banned in Thailand—My Teacher Eats Biscuits (คนกราบหมา) in 1998, and Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย) in 2012—though both bans have recently been lifted.

Ing’s documentary Censor Must Die (เซ็นเซอร์ต้องตาย) shows producer Manit Sriwanichpoom receiving the censor’s initial verdict on Shakespeare Must Die, and follows him as he appeals against the ban at the Ministry of Culture and files a case with the Office of the National Human Rights Commission. (The documentary was made in 2013, though it was another decade before the ban was finally revoked, following a judgement by the Supreme Court.)

Censor Must Die’s most revealing scene takes place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture: in the lobby, a TV plays a video demonstrating the traditional Thai method of sitting in a polite and respectful manner. The video encapsulates the Ministry’s didactic and outdated interpretation of Thai culture, and it was parodied by the mock instructional video “How to Behave Elegantly Like a Thai” in Sorayos Prapapan’s film Arnold Is a Model Student (อานนเป็นนักเรียนตัวอย่าง).

The documentary premiered at the Freedom on Film (สิทธิหนังไทย) seminar in 2013, was shown a few months later at the Thai Film Archive, and had private screenings at Silpakorn University and the Friese-Greene Club. This week, Censor Must Die returns to Cinema Oasis, the cinema Ing and Manit founded in Bangkok, screening on 25th–28th July; and 1st–4th, 8th–11th, and 15th–18th August. It was most recently shown there in May.

Journey... Blood... 2011–2013

The Thai punk/grindcore band Blood Soaked Street of Social Decay released the album Journey... Blood... 2011–2013 on CD in 2013. Like their cassette EP 2013, the CD’s cover image shows victims of Thai military violence. The compilation includes the band’s entire back catalogue, from their first release เ​ด​โ​ม ๒​๕​๕​๔ (‘demo 2011’, with an under-construction Democracy Monument on its cover) to อีพี ๒๕๕๖ (‘EP 2013’, reissued as a tenth anniversary CD last year).

Most tracks are blistering criticisms of Thai state institutions, including the monkhood, the Constitutional Court, and the government. Gun in Hand Military Fucking Shoot People (หัวควยถือปืน), for example, was recorded in 2012 in response to the 2010 massacre in downtown Bangkok, and the song’s music video features news footage of the event. The band’s other music videos are rapid-fire slideshows of political imagery: กฏระยำ, released on 6th October 2011, has photographs of the 14th October 1973 and 6th October 1976 massacres; and ตายทั้งสภา, from 2013, has satirical memes of Yingluck Shinawatra and other politicians.

Members of the band were arrested in 2018 after they burnt posters of coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha at the จะ4ปีแล้วนะ (‘4 years already’) concert. They also played at another anti-coup concert, BNK44, later that year.

“...destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia.”

A novel about a zombie apocalypse has been banned in Russia, after Roskomnadzor—the state media regulator—accused its author of attempting to “destabilize the socio-political situation in Russia.” The book, Мышь (‘mouse’) by Ivan Philippov, is a dystopian satire in which a medical facility has been created to develop a serum allowing President Vladimir Putin to prolong his death: “Хотя бы до 120 лет Владимир Владимирович дожить бы очень хотел. И денег на опыты он не пожалеет” (‘Putin would love to reach 120 years old, and will spare no expense in funding experiments to make this possible’).

A mouse infected with the serum escapes from the secret laboratory, spreading a virus that turns Russian citizens into zombies. The novel was published last year by Freedom Letters, based outside Russia, which specialises in Russian-language literature that would be banned if it were submitted to Russian censors.

Procession of Dystopia

Procession of Dystopia is the result of a collaboration by three artists from different disciplines—author Kanatorn Khaosanit, director Wattanapume Laisuwanchai, and composer Khetsin Chuchan—whose works complement and influence each other. Kanathorn’s short story Let Them See Us, Let Them Fear Us, Our Love Is a Rebellion They Cannot Crush takes place in a dystopian future in which (as in George Orwell’s 1984), love is illegal. This inspired Wattanapume’s two-channel video installation and the sound design by Khetsin that accompanies it.

In Wattanapume’s video The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ), images of a man and woman are shown on two sheets suspended on ropes, tantalisingly close and facing each other, yet separated. As the director explains in his artist’s statement, the installation was made in solidarity with the rapper Elevenfinger, who is serving a prison sentence for possession of ping-pong bombs used in anti-government protests: “Throughout the trial, I became acquainted with his girlfriend, who, like him, was an active member of the Thalugaz group, fighting for democracy... I have visited him and witnessed the despair not only affecting him and his partner but also their families and relatives. This situation mirrors the plight of other political prisoners”.

The video ends dramatically with flashing images and footage of fireworks, filmed at Thalugaz protests in 2021. Dry ice is pumped into the gallery, simulating the tear gas used by riot police to control the demonstrators. At this point, the audio created by Khetsin, Garden of Insignificant Things (สวนสิ่งไม่สำคัญ), features the sounds of fireworks exploding and rubber bullets fired by riot police. Khetsin’s ironic title is similar to that of Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s film Insects in the Backyard (อินเซคอินเดอะแบ็คยาร์ด).

Procession of Dystopia opened at Bangok Art and Culture Centre on 2nd July, and closes today. The gallery’s bland introduction to the exhibition doesn’t mention politics or protesters, referring only euphemistically to “contemporary issues and situations”.

“IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT”?

When Donald Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to conceal his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the next day’s newspaper headlines were almost unanimous: “GUILTY”. The exception was the New York Post: of all the major US newspapers, the Post was the only one to criticise the verdict, and its front page headline on 31st May was “INJUSTICE”.

The Post’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, supported Trump’s presidency, albeit through gritted teeth: he was quoted calling Trump a “fucking idiot” in Michael Wolf’s Fire and Fury. Murdoch’s Fox News acted as a Trump mouthpiece, even knowingly broadcasting false conspiracy theories about ‘rigging’ the 2020 election. Tucker Carlson, one of Fox’s highest-profile presenters, dismissed Trump in private—as revealed in emails disclosed before the Dominion Voting Systems defamation trial—yet endorsed him on the air.

After the 2022 midterms, Murdoch seemed to distance himself from Trump. The Post ridiculed him as “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” on its 10th November 2022 front page. Six days later, it denied Trump what he craves most—publicity—by relegating his declaration that he was running for re-election to a single line at the bottom of the page: “FLORIDA MAN MAKES ANNOUNCEMENT”.

Yet Trump continues to dominate the Republican party, hence the Post’s recent olive branch “INJUSTICE” headline. Murdoch is motivated by profit and political influence: the ‘Trump bump’ (the increase in clicks and subscribers caused by Trump news coverage) is hard to resist, and there’s an increasing likelihood of Trump winning this year’s US election. (Trump’s CNN debate with Joe Biden on 28th March was disastrous for Biden.)

In the UK, The Sun—also owned by Murdoch—has backed the winning party in every election since 1979, giving it a long-standing reputation for influencing public opinion. But the reality is that Murdoch knows which way the wind is blowing, and The Sun switches its allegiances accordingly, reflecting the prevailing mood rather than manipulating it.

The Sun endorsed the Conservatives in the 1979, 1983, 1987, 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019 elections, and in each case the party had a significant lead in the opinion polls. After much effort by Tony Blair, he received The Sun’s endorsement in the run-up to the 1997 election—the 18th March 1997 headline was “THE SUN BACKS BLAIR”—but by that point Labour’s victory was already a foregone conclusion. Similarly, The Sun backed Blair and Labour in 2001 and 2005 as the party was ahead in the polls.

After the 1992 election, The Sun famously took credit for the Conservative victory with the headline “IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT” (11th April 1992). Exceptionally, the paper had endorsed the Conservatives despite Labour’s lead in the opinion polls, but the self-congratulatory headline was hardly justified. Labour’s lead was very slight, and pollsters are aware that Conservative voters are generally less likely to admit their voting preference. Unlike 1997—and 2024—there wasn’t an overwhelming desire for change in 1992.

MRP polls have predicted a historic Labour landslide in today’s election. (The most damning polls for the Tories have been those commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, which predicted a “wipeout” on 15th January and 20th June.) Although the six-week election campaign was disastrous for the Conservatives, it was only on election day itself that The Sun came out in favour of Starmer. The paper’s support is fairly lukewarm, with a headline calling for a “NEW MANAGER” (a football pun) without naming either Labour leader Keir Starmer or the Labour party directly, in contrast to its enthusiastic endorsement of Blair in 1997. Like Blair, Starmer has courted The Sun during the election campaign, but although newspapers still set the news agenda, they don’t determine election outcomes.

While their influence on party politics is limited, newspapers have more impact on single-issue politics, especially when they cover an issue over an extended period of time. The News of the World’s exposés of Conservative ministers’ sex scandals contrasted with the party’s ‘back to basics’ slogan in the 1990s. The Daily Telegraph’s long-running coverage of the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009 revealed significant levels of corruption in public office. There is also a pernicious influence: Euroscepticism founded on what Tim Shipman calls “the ‘straight bananas’ school of reporting from Brussels” (invented by Boris Johnson in the 1990s), leading to regular anti-immigration headlines in the Daily Express and Daily Mail that fuel right-wing populism and xenophobia.

‘Guilty Landscapes’

The Dutch artist Armando coined the phrase ‘guilty landscapes’ to describe tranquil spaces that bore silent witness to past violence. Thai artists and directors have produced work that echoes Armando’s concept, even though they were not directly inspired by it. For his Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ) exhibition, for example, Pachara Piyasongsoot painted bucolic landscapes with traumatic histories linked to the Cold War. (Pachara was not initially aware of Armando’s concept, but when we discussed it, he immediately identified with it.)

Several Thai films also depict guilty landscapes whose violent legacies are connected to the Cold War. Taiki Sakpisit’s Seeing in the Dark, Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Santikhiri Sonata (สันติคีรี โซนาตา), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (จดหมายถงลงบญม) were filmed in Khao Kho, Santikhiri, and Nabua, respectively, all of which are locations previously associated with anti-Communist violence. (Thai Cinema Uncensored includes an analysis of guilty landscapes in Thai films.)

Other films by Thai directors have evoked sites of more recent state violence. Taiki’s A Ripe Volcano, Thunska’s Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล), Panya Zhu’s White Bird (นกตัวนั้นยังสบายดีไหม), and Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Zombie Citizens all include shots of the Royal Hotel in Bangkok, which was used as a field hospital during the ‘Black May’ massacre in 1992. Taiki’s Dark Was the Night and Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Planking were filmed at Thammasat University, where a massacre took place in 1976. Weerapat’s Nostalgia, and Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap’s Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน), refer to multiple guilty landscapes.

The artists and directors discussed so far have all used the concept of guilty landscapes to draw attention to state violence against pro-democracy protesters or suspected Communists. Charit Pusiri, on the other hand, is an artist from the opposite end of the political spectrum: his work promotes a royalist-nationalist ideology. For his Remembrance (รฦก) exhibition in 2013, he created composite photographs that show carefree present-day scenes juxtaposed with historical images of warfare and fallen soldiers. These split-screen compositions are the most direct illustrations of the guilty landscape concept in Thai art.

รวมผลงานคัดสรรจากเพจ อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป พ.ศ. 2557–2554(‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop’)

Prakit Kobkijwattana used to work in advertising, but now he uses commercial techniques in his art, to satirise Thailand’s militarism and materialism. Like many Thai artists, Prakit experienced a political awakening—known in Thai as ta sawang—after the 2010 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok. Prakit was profiled in the Bangkok Post in 2021: “Ever since the Ratchaprasong intersection incident in 2010, the 57-year-old has radically changed his point of view toward art and society”. Sayan Daenklom coined the term “Post-Ratchaprasong art” to describe works produced in response to the massacre, in the journal Read (อ่าน; vol. 3, no. 2).

Prakit created a Facebook page, อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป (‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop’), in 2011, posting memes and graphic art commenting on the Ratchaprasong massacre and the following four years of Thai politics, culminating with the 2014 coup. In 2015, these were collected in the book รวมผลงานคัดสรรจากเพจ อยู่เมืองดัดจริต ชีวิตต้องป๊อป พ.ศ. 2557–2554 (‘living in a pretentious city, life must be pop: a collection of selected works, 2014–2011’), edited by Kasada Satayahurak. (Note that the date range in the title is in reverse, to show the country’s political regression during that period.)

A Sleepless Entity(or The Thai’s Prometheus)

Naphat Khunlam’s short film A Sleepless Entity (or The Thai’s Prometheus) is a dystopian fantasy about a student filmmaker who dreams of expressing her creative freedom but is oppressed by the conformist education system. The film is notable for its references to photographs of war and political conflict, in both Thailand and Vietnam: the gunman who hid his weapon in a Kolk popcorn bag, army snipers shooting people sheltering at Wat Pathum Wanaram, and the famous Eddie Adams photograph of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing the Viet Cong soldier Nguyễn Văn Lém.

A Sleepless Entity is the latest of several films, videos, and artworks to recreate Kraipit Phanvut’s photograph from 6th October 1976 of police colonel Watcharin Niamvanichkul aiming his pistol while nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. Manit Sriwanichpoom inserted his Pink Man character into the image for Horror in Pink (ปีศาจสีชมพู), a technique parodied by Anuwat Apimukmongkon. Spanky Studio superimposed a clown’s head over Watcharin’s face. In Déjà vu (เดจาวู), Headache Stencil replaced the pistol with a futuristic ray gun. For his Selfie Series (เซลฟี่ ซีรีย์), Chumpol Kamwanna depicted himself taking a selfie while adopting the same pose as Watcharin. The pose was also restaged in Anocha Suwichakornpong’s film By the Time It Gets Dark (ดาวคะนอง) and View from the Bus Tour’s music video Sun Rises When Day Breaks (ลิ่วล้อ). Pornpimon Pokha’s Hidden Agenda No. 5 (วาระซ่อนเร้น หมายเลข 5) recreated the image in watercolour.

Yesterday Is Another Day

Koraphat Cheeradit’s short film Yesterday Is Another Day will be shown at this year’s Isan Creative Festival (เทศกาลอีสานสร้างสรรค์), being held at Khon Kaen between 29th June and 7th July. The festival’s theme is Proud of Isan (สะออนเด้).

Yesterday Is Another Day is part of the Short Film Short Cut programme, taking place from 24th to 30th June as a prelude to the main festival. The films will be shown on a bus travelling around the city, and Yesterday Is Another Day is being screened on 27th June.

In Yesterday Is Another Day, a high school student plays hooky and meets his girlfriend in a woodland. They take a walk, and joke about their future together, seemingly without a care in the world. But there are ominous signs of impending threats: they find a discarded handgun, and Koraphat inserts shots of a JCB digging up the forest.

Eventually, we learn that the student is being charged with lèse-majesté, merely for sharing Facebook posts. His court hearing is the following day, and he is likely to be jailed. (The film doesn’t state directly that he’s facing royal defamation charges, though it’s clear from the couple’s conversation: he explains that the sentence is three years per offence, which is the minimum jail term for lèse-majesté.)

The prospect of criminal charges for posting on social media is a reality for hundreds of people in Thailand today, many of whom are students. As the boy in Koraphat’s film says to his girlfriend, he has to face changing from “being a teenager to being a prisoner.” The film is a powerful and moving reminder of the severe consequences of lèse-majesté, and what it must feel like to be criminalised at a young age for expressing opinions online.

Yesterday Is Another Day was previously shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (twice), at Wildtype 2023, and in the Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). It was first screened in Silpakorn University’s programme The Political Wanderer.

Photography Never Lies

Photography Never Lies (ภาพถ่ายไม่โกหก) opened on 30th May at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and runs until 8th September. The exhibition explores the impact of technology on the authenticity of images.

Photography Never Lies features a selection of works from one of the biggest names in AI photography, Boris Eldagsen. Eldagsen coined the term ‘promptography’ to describe the results produced by generative AI software based on prompts typed by the artist.

The Macht (‘power’) series, by Patrik Budenz and Birte Zellentin, is another highlight. Photographs of each country’s heads of state are superimposed over each other, with the longest-serving leaders dominating each composite portrait.

A set of postcards is available, featuring some of the key photographs from the exhibition. The set’s stylish packaging reproduces the camera aperture motif of the exhibition logo.

Breaking the Cycle

Over the past twenty years, every major event in Thai politics was defined by its connection—either in support or opposition—to Thaksin Shinawatra. For millions of pro-democracy voters who rejected the military establishment, Thaksin was the only alternative. But Thaksin is a populist, not a liberal democrat, and since his return from self-exile he has become part of the establishment himself.

In 2018, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit launched a new political party, Future Forward, as a genuinely progressive, democratic challenger to military dictatorship and Thaksin-style populism. Only a year later, Future Forward came third in the 2019 election, after a wave of support for its charismatic leader. But soon afterwards, Thanathorn was disqualified as an MP by the Constitutional Court, due to his ownership of shares in a media company. In 2020, the court dissolved Future Forward, ruling that it had violated party funding rules by accepting a ฿191 million loan from Thanathorn.

Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s new film Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) follows Thanathorn throughout all of these events, though it begins in 2014 with his determination to end the vicious cycle of military coups that has characterised Thailand’s modern political history. This mission gives the film its title, and Future Forward co-founder Piyabutr Saengkanokkul asks: “Why is Thailand stuck in this cycle of coups?” Like Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล), Breaking the Cycle features stunning drone shots of Democracy Monument to symbolise the country’s fragile democratic status.

The documentary benefits from its extensive access to every senior figure within Future Forward, with intimate fly-on-the-wall coverage of the 2019 election campaign. The directors were even able to film Thanathorn as he reacted to the guilty verdicts being delivered by the Constitutional Court. They also interview him, but he doesn’t clarify his media shares or his party loan. Future Forward MP Pannika Wanich admits that Future Forward was politically naive, a description that arguably applies even more to its successor, Move Forward.

The film ends with the caption “THE CYCLE CONTINUES”, which is sadly accurate. In a carbon copy of the Thanathorn case, Move Forward’s leader Pita Limjaroenrat was also investigated for ownership of media shares. Although Pita was exonerated, history looks likely to repeat itself this year, as Move Forward is facing almost certain dissolution. The Constitutional Court has already ruled that the party’s manifesto pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law constituted an attempt to overthrow the monarchy.

Breaking the Cycle is a complete record of the rise and fall of the Future Forward movement, and the even greater election result achieved by Move Forward last year. The subsequent sustained opposition to Move Forward and its idealistic leader—from Pheu Thai, the military, the Senate, the Election Commission, and the Constitutional Court—is even more consequential than the fate of Future Forward, and the story of Move Forward is still unfolding.

As one of the documentary’s interviewees says: “This is the beginning of the next chapter.” If Breaking the Cycle is a prologue to the story of Move Forward, hopefully its eventual sequel will feature a new iteration of the party gaining power after the 2027 election. That’s something Thanathorn half-jokingly predicts in the film: “In three elections we’ll be the government.”

Breaking the Cycle is one of very few feature-length political documentaries to go on general theatrical release in Thailand. Like Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย), Breaking the Cycle has been a box-office hit with politically engaged young people, which is hardly surprising given the unprecedented support that Future Forward (and Move Forward) received from Millennials and Gen Z. (There will be a Q&A with Aekaphong and Thanakrit at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 30th June.)

Yesterday, Mongkolkit Suksintharanon filed a complaint at the Central Investigation Bureau in Bangkok, calling for a police investigation into Breaking the Cycle on charges of sedition (article 116 of the Thai criminal code). Mongkolkit, former leader of the Thai Civilized Party (a right-wing microparty), accused the film of presenting a one-sided account of Future Forward. (This is true, but of course it isn’t a crime.)

Mongkolkit also complained that the film discussed the 2014 coup without explaining the reasons why the junta seized power, as if any explanation could justify the military’s power grab. It’s deeply ironic that film directors are facing potential charges for discussing the coup, while the generals who orchestrated the coup have avoided prosecution.

Gallery Movie Night: A Night of Cinematic Exploration

A retrospective of short films by Taiki Sakpisit took place this evening at SAC Gallery in Bangkok, followed by a Q&A with the artist. Gallery Movie Night: A Night of Cinematic Exploration featured four of Taiki’s previous films—Shadow and Act, A Ripe Volcano, Seeing in the Dark, and The Age of Anxiety—and one new production, The Spirit Level. Like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Minor History (ประวัติศาสตร์กระจ้อยร่อย), The Spirit Level tackles the tragic discoveries of the bodies of murdered political dissidents in the Mekong river.

Shadow and Act

Shadow and Act—like Sorayos Prapapan’s Prelude of the Moving Zoo and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Come Here (ใจจำลอง)—features sequences shot at Dusit Zoo, which was closed by royal decree in 2018. Shadow and Act also includes shots filmed at another prestigious institution from a bygone age, the Chaya Jitrakorn photography studio, panning slowly around the studio’s fixtures and fittings, settling upon dusty portraits of Cold War dictator Phibun Songkhram and other kharatchakan (‘civil servants’).

A Ripe Volcano

Similarly, in A Ripe Volcano (ภูเขาไฟพิโรธ), the camera prowls elegiacally through the empty corridors of the Royal Hotel, another example of Bangkok’s faded glory. The hotel became a makeshift field hospital in 1992 during ‘Black May’, and its lobby was stormed by the military. A Ripe Volcano evokes the violence of the event through indirect signifiers, such as a fire engine (several of which were set ablaze in 1992), creating an uncanny sense of foreboding. Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Zombie Citizens and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล) also evoke Black May with shots of the hotel.

Seeing in the Dark

Seeing in the Dark opens with contemplative, static images of Khao Kho, a mountainous region in northern Thailand with a potent political legacy: Phibun hid the country’s gold reserve—and the Emerald Buddha statue—from the Japanese there during World War II, and the area was a base for Communist insurgents throughout the 1970s. There are shots of the Sacrificial Monument compound, which memorialises the ‘sacrifices’ of the soldiers who fought the Communists, rather than the thousands of insurgents who were killed.

Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism website notes that Khao Kho was once “a red area smoldering in the smoke of war from different political ideologies. Khao Kho was considered a forbidden land that ordinary people should not get too close to because it was considered extremely dangerous. But as time passed, the conflict ended and Khao Kho transformed into one of Phetchabun’s most striking and beautiful tourist areas.”

A similar reputational whitewashing took place at other sites of anti-Communist violence, such as Santikhiri and Nabua, a process examined in Thunska’s Santikhiri Sonata (สันติคีรี โซนาตา), Apichatpong’s A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (จดหมายถงลงบญม), and Pachara Piyasongsoot’s exhibition Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ). Khao Kho, Santikhiri, and Nabua are, to use Dutch artist Armando’s term, ‘guilty landscapes’: tranquil spaces that bear silent witness to historical violence.

In Seeing in the Dark, an ominous rumble on the soundtrack hints at the continued presence of this past menace. The film ends with footage of anti-government protests from October 2020, a reminder—to quote the Ministry of Tourism again—that Thailand is still “smoldering in the smoke of war from different political ideologies.”

The Age of Anxiety

The retrospective concluded with The Age of Anxiety which, with its rapid-fire editing and screeching soundtrack, captured the anxious atmosphere during the twilight of King Rama IX’s reign. The film’s English title reflects the national mood while Rama IX was hospitalised, though its Thai title (รอ ๑๐) has an additional resonance, with a reference to his successor. The film is also streaming on the Kortfilm website, which links it to Thai politics: “Made in response to the government’s merciless obliteration of the Red Shirt protesters in the 2010s, the music and flashing images are a reflection of a traumatized and anxious mental state.”

Dark Was the Night

Yesterday’s event was part of Taiki’s Dark Was the Night (ผีพุ่งไต้) exhibition, which opened on 9th May and runs until 6th July. The exhibition features a two-channel video installation, also titled Dark Was the Night, projected at opposite ends of the gallery. On one side are shots of the Thammasat University campus, which initially seem to contrast with the theme of the exhibition. But these images are metaphorically rather than literally dark, reminders of the 6th October 1976 massacre that took place at Thammasat, making the campus another ‘guilty landscape’. The exhibition also features three photographs from Taiki’s Thammasat University series, including an image of the notorious red lift in which sheltering students were shot during the massacre. The lift was also featured in the horror film Haunted Universities (มหาลัยสยองขวัญ).