Songs of Angry People

Uruphong Raksasad has directed a trilogy of documentaries about the recent student protest movement: Songs of Angry People, Paradox Democracy, and Cut of Speech. All have been shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, though Songs of Angry People was deemed so sensitive that its screening — as part of To Commune, the 69th Flaherty Film Seminar programme in 2024 — wasn’t advertised in advance. Songs of Angry People was also shown in the Wildtype Middleclass programme this year, though the screenings were equally surreptitious, and it was listed as a ‘surprise film’ in the schedule.

In Paradox Democracy, speeches by protest leaders are intercut with extracts from The Revolutionist (คือผู้อภิวัฒน์), a play about Pridi Banomyong staged by the Crescent Moon theatre group in 2020. The film also includes footage shot at the 6th October 1976 commemorative exhibition at Thammasat University in 2020.

Cut of Speech concentrates almost exclusively on the protesters’ speeches. It features clips of forty-four speakers, in reference to article 44 of the interim constitution drafted after the 2014 coup.

Songs of Angry People does include short extracts from speeches by protest leaders — it begins with a fiery speech by Parit Chirawak outside the Crown Property Bureau offices — though it focuses more on the atmosphere of the protests. These include demonstrations at Democracy Monument, Din Daeng, and Nang Loeng in Bangkok, and at the smaller Democracy Monument in Khon Kaen.

Songs of Angry People’s title comes from a comment by a protester to a phalanx of riot police: “Don’t make the people angry.” It also refers to the numerous protest songs performed at the demonstrations: Uruphong films Chaiamorn Kaewwiboonpan and the Bottom Blues performing 12345 I Love You, and The Commoner singing You Know Who (คนที่คุณก็รู้ว่าใคร) at Democracy Monument.

During the chorus of 12345 I Love You, demonstrators shout “ai hia Tu” instead of the original lyrics. (Ai hia is a strong insult, and Tu is Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname.) While Uruphong was filming Chaiamorn perform the song, his camera also caught sight of another director, Yuthlert Sippapak, who was coincidentally also filming the same performance. (Yuthlert was filming 1410, a project he announced with Chaiamorn in 2021.)

You Know Who was released as a single in 2021. Its lyrics refer to “He Who Must Not Be Named”, which is a description of Voldemort from the Harry Potter franchise. (The link between Harry Potter and the protest movement goes back to one of the first demonstrations in 2020, organised by Arnon Nampa at Democracy Monument.) The music video ends with brief footage of the student protests, though its main theme is the discovery of the bodies of dissidents in the Mekong river.

The Persistence

The Persistence, an exhibition of photographs by Napin Mandhachitara and Pichak Tanunchaibutra, opened at MunMun Srinakarin, an art gallery at Seacon Square in Bangkok, on 23rd May. The exhibition features photos of objects related to the 2020–2021 student protest movement, including including rubber bullets and tear gas canisters fired by riot police, and the inflatable yellow ducks that became symbols of the protests.

The Persistence runs until 5th July. It was shown at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre last year, and a catalogue was sold at the Bangkok Art Book Fair 2025.

Mob Type:An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography

The design studio PrachathipaType — a pun on prachathipatai, the Thai word for ‘democracy’ — specialises in pro-democracy typefaces. Working with some of the organisations leading the 2020–2021 anti-government protests, PrachathipaType effectively created the visual identity of the reform movement.

PrachathipaType’s type specimens and logos were published in 2022 as Mob Type. That Thai-language book was translated into Korean and English last year, in a dual-language edition titled Mob Type: An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography (몹타입: 태국의 타이포그래피 민주화 투쟁 아카이브).

A detailed timeline of recent Thai politics — The Lost Decade — has been added to the new edition of Mob Type, to contextualise the protest movement for readers outside Thailand. PrachathipaType previously published a 2021 calendar in collaboration with Headache Stencil, and แบบเรียนพยัญชนะไทย (‘Thai consonant textbook’) in collaboration with Rap Against Dictatorship.

PrachathipaType and Rap Against Dictatorship have also collaborated on several other projects, including the music videos Homeland (บ้านเกิดเมืองนอน) and Budget (งบประมาณ). Most recently, PrachathipaType created an animated music video for the band’s single คุณหนูประเทศไท้ย กับกกต.ทั้งเจ็ด (‘little miss Thailand and the ECT members’), released after this year’s election.

Scum of the Nation

Bangkok Execution released their debut single, Scum of the Nation, last month. The song is available in two different versions, English and Thai. The English title is perhaps inspired by the notorious propaganda song หนักแผ่นดิน, whose title roughly translates as ‘scum of the earth’. Bangkok Execution’s song aims that insult back at those who have previously deployed it against left-wing students.

The song’s Thai title, ขอนิ้วกลาง, translates as ‘show the middle finger’, the band’s more contemptuous version of the three-finger salute used by recent student protest groups. Both versions of the song have music videos featuring footage of riot police confronting student protesters.

Scum of the Nation is one of several music videos to feature footage of riot police and student protesters. Others include Lookchin’s ภาษีกู (‘my taxes’), Bigboat’s This Is Thailand (ที่นี่ประเทศไทย), t_047’s ไม่มีคนบนฟ้า (‘no one in the sky’), and Milli and Youngohm’s อนาคตคือ (‘the future is...’), along with three tracks by Elevenfinger: Free My Friends (ปล่อยเพื่อนกู), Land of Compromise, and Thalugaz (ทะลุเเก๊ซ).

Thai Political Milestones, no. 5:‘Three-finger’ Protests

In the days following the 22nd May 2014 coup, demonstrations at Victory Monument in Bangkok were initially tolerated by the junta, though by June of that year, police were being stationed at likely venues to pre-empt any potential protests. Opponents of the coup turned to symbolic acts such as the three-finger salute from the Hunger Games film series, briefly disrupting a speech by coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha on 19th November 2014.

The protest movement was revived in February 2020, with ‘flash mob’ demonstrations on university campuses following the Constitutional Court’s dissolution of the Future Forward party. Future Forward’s progressive policy platform had received overwhelming support from younger Thais eager for structural change, and the party’s abolition was seen as a return to the status quo.

The first mass protests took place on 18th July and 16th August 2020, when more than 10,000 people attended rallies at Democracy Monument organised by Free Youth. Lawyer Arnon Nampa led a smaller protest there on 3rd August 2020 (the so-called Harry Potter rally). A week later, at a Thammasat University protest organised by United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, student Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul read out a ten-point manifesto calling for greater oversight of the monarchy.

The movement increased in popularity and momentum, and tens of thousands of people attended an overnight rally at Thammasat on 19th September 2020. On 14th October 2020, protesters marched from Democracy Monument to Government House, and the government declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.

Protesters regrouped at Ratchaprasong on 16th October 2020, and riot police used water cannon to disperse them. Further mass rallies were held later that week, including at Victory Monument on 18th and 19th October 2020. Water cannon was used again on 8th November 2020, when protesters marched from Democracy Monument to the Grand Palace.

Tensions increased on 17th November 2020, when riot police used water cannon laced with tear gas to prevent protesters from entering parliament. The demonstrators breached the barricades, and were met by a royalist counter-protest. Gunshots were fired, and projectiles were thrown by both sides. More violence occurred a week later when a ping-pong bomb was thrown at protesters outside the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters.

Free Youth rebranded as REDEM (Restart Democracy), and organised a march from Victory Monument to the Viphavadi Rangsit Road military barracks on 28th February 2021. Protesters threw rocks and other projectiles at the police, who deployed tear gas and water cannon against them. The police also fired rubber bullets, in a significant escalation. There were injuries on both sides, and a police officer suffered a fatal heart attack.

Rubber bullets were also used to disperse protesters at Sanam Luang on 20th March 2021, outside Bangkok’s Criminal Court on 2nd May 2021, and at Democracy Monument on 18th July 2021. In August 2021, there were almost daily clashes near Viphavadi Road between between riot police and the radical Thalufah protest group, with rubber bullets being fired on 7th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th, and 16th August (when a teenager was tragically hit by a live bullet).

The three-finger campaign is the latest in a series of protests that have epitomised Thai politics over the last fifty years. Some — in October 1973 and May 1992 — resulted in dozens of casualties, though ultimately led to democratic reforms. Others — in October 1976 and May 2010 — simply ended in tragedy. Perhaps the most successful, on their own terms, have been the yellow-shirt and ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ campaigns, both of which followed the same playbook and achieved the same result (a military coup).

Ultimately, the three-finger protests did not achieve their objectives, and their leaders are now either behind bars or living in exile. But the impact of the 2020–2021 protests can be measured by the changing attitudes of younger people towards traditional national values, and by the increasing popularity of the ‘orange movement’ in recent elections.

Thai Political Milestones:

• no. 1: ‘Black May’
• no. 2: 14th October 1973
• no. 3: 6th October 1976
• no. 4: Yellow-shirts v. Red-shirts

A Teeraphanny Joint

A series of short films by Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan (known as Teeraphanny), all titled A Teeraphanny Joint (in homage to Spike Lee), were shown online yesterday as part of this year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน). Teeraphan’s films, divided into twenty episodes, all document the recent student protest movement, and all except the final episode were filmed between August and November 2020, during the first wave of public protests.

The director’s focus is on the protesters themselves, rather than the riot police who attempted to suppress them. He emphasises the solidarity shown by the demonstrators, and the jubilant atmosphere at some of the rallies. He also highlights incidental details — or what he described on Instagram as “micro situations” — that might otherwise be overlooked.

These are the twenty episodes:

Constitution-Monarchy

Episode 1 (กษัตริย์-รัฐธรรมนูญ) — a protest at Democracy Monument on 16th August 2020. A man who is not a member of the protest movement nevertheless voices his support, in a pragmatic manner, for the aims of the protesters.

I Know I’m No Good

Episode 2 (หนูรู้หนูมันเลว) — a protest by the Bad Student group outside the Ministry of Education on 5th September 2020.

Protester Anthem

Episode 3 (เพลงชาติผู้ประท้วง) — Act สิ Art, an art fair and concert held at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September 2020, organised by the Free Arts collective. The crowd sing Do You Hear the People Sing? at 6pm as an alternative to the national anthem. (Supong Jitmuang’s documentary Mob 2020–2021 also features Do You Hear the People Sing? as a protest anthem.)

Life Firing Zone

Episode 4 (พื้นที่การใช้กระสุนจริง) — 99 Dead, a performance on 19th September 2020 outside the Supreme Court, marking the tenth anniversary of the April and May 2010 crackdown. (The performance was directed by Teerawat Mulvilai of B-Floor Theatre, and organised by Red Comrades and Free Arts.)

Kult Was Here

Episode 5 (คัลท์เคยอยู่นี่) — a ‘กูkult’ sticker covering a portrait of the King, on 19th September 2020. (A man was later charged with lèse-majesté for affixing the sticker to the portrait.)

There was a significant protest at Thammasat University on the same day, which then migrated to nearby Sanam Luang overnight. Mob 2020–2021 includes footage of this event, though Teeraphan focuses only on the sticker.

Love Song

Episode 6 (ร้องเพลงรัก) — Chaiamorn Kaewwiboonpan performing his hit single 12345 I Love You at a protest near the parliament building on 24th September 2020. The song was popular among the protest movement, and demonstrators shouted “ai hia Tu” instead of the original lyrics — “I love you” — during the chorus. (Ai hia is a strong insult, and Tu is Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname.)

Have a Good Night

Episode 7 (ขอให้มีค่ำคืนที่ดี) — Arnon Nampa leading a crowd in chanting “ai hia” as MPs pass by in a convoy of vehicles. The politicians were leaving parliament on 24th September 2020 after voting to delay plans to amend the constitution.

Free Our Friends

Episode 8 (ปล่อยเพื่อนเรา) — a protest outside the police headquarters on 13th October 2020, demanding the release of protesters and others charged with lèse-majesté.

Marching Street Art

Episode 9 (ศิลปะบนถนน) — graffiti on the road at a protest near Nang Loeng on 14th October 2020. (On the same day, thousands of protesters marched from Democracy Monument to Government House, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency. Again, the events are included in Mob 2020–2021, though not in A Teeraphanny Joint.)

Come Together

Episode 10 (มาชุมนุมกันโดยได้นัดหมาย) — a large-scale protest at Ratchaprasong on 15th October 2020, held in defiance of the state of emergency.

Water Crisis

Episode 11 (วิกฤตการณ์น้ำ) — on 16th October 2020, riot police were deployed against the demonstrators for the first time, using water cannon laced with tear gas to dispurse a protest at Siam Square. Footage of the confrontation is included in Chatchawan Thongchan’s From Forest to City (อรัญนคร), Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear, Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s I a Pixel, We the People (ข้าพเจ้าคือพิกเซล, พวกเราคือประชาชน), and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Danse Macabre (มรณสติ).

Teeraphan doesn’t show the water cannon itself. Instead, he films volunteers as they carry bottled water to the protesters, to wash the tear gas from their eyes.

Communication Skill

Episode 12 (ทักษะการสื่อสาร) — a protest on 18th October 2020 at Victory Monument.

We Dance, We Sing

Episode 13 (เราเต้น เราร้อง) — a musician performing at a protest on 19th October 2020.

Cancellation Request

Episode 14 (คำขอยกเลิก) — a march from Victory Monument to Government House on 21st October 2020, calling for Prayut’s resignation as PM.

Love Song 2

Episode 15 (ร้องเพลงรัก 2) — another clip of Chaiamorn performing 12345 I Love You, this time outside Klongprem Central Prison on 23rd October 2020.

Cheer Up

Episode 16 (เชียร์ขึ้นไป) — a protest outside the German embassy on 26th October 2020.

Speech of Freedom

Episode 17 (การพูดในเสรีภาพ) — a rally outside Klongprem Central Prison on 3rd November 2020, to celebrate Arnon’s release on bail. He was freed at one minute after midnight, and gave a speech to the waiting crowd.

Wrap Up

Episode 18 (ห่อหุ้ม) — a protest on 14th November 2020, during which white sheets were draped over Democracy Monument.

Support-Resistant

Episode 19 (แนวรับ-แนวต้าน) — a protest outside parliament on 17th November 2020, with demonstrators washing their eyes with water after riot police used tear gas to disperse them. (Teeraphan was far from the front line, though Mob 2020–2021 and Sorayos Prapapan’s Yellow Duck Against Dictatorship include footage of the incident.)

The Country Belongs to the People

Episode 20 (ประเทศนี้เป็นของราษฎร) — a commemoration on 24th June 2021 marking the eighty-ninth anniversary of the 1932 democratic revolution.

Mob 2020–2021

Supong Jitmuang’s documentary Mob 2020–2021 will be shown at Kinjai Contemporary in Bangkok today, as part of the Once Upon a Time 63 (กาลครั้งหนึ่งของฉันในปี 63) exhibition. (The film received its first public screening at the same venue in 2022.)

Mob 2020–2021 covers the first twelve months of the recent anti-government protest movement. Supong and his camera were at Thammasat University on 19th September 2020, for the overnight rally that later occupied Sanam Luang. On 14th October 2020, he filmed the march to Government House, after which a state of emergency was declared. On 17th November 2020, he was on the front line when protesters used inflatable ducks to protect themselves from water cannon fired by riot police. (Sorayos Prapapan’s short film Yellow Duck Against Dictatorship documents the same event.)

The protests were at their most intense in the summer of 2021, and Mob 2020–2021 shows the rally at Democracy Monument on 18th July 2021 marking the first anniversary of the campaign. That August, there were almost daily confrontations between riot police and protesters, but rather than filming each event, Supong summarises them in a general written caption noting the “multiple continuous clashes that lasted many weeks”.

Mob 2020–2021 was the first feature-length documentary covering the student protest movement. It’s an invaluable record of a profound social and political change in Thailand. Supong’s film also includes a written timeline of the protests, and its matter-of-fact neutrality is maintained throughout, except for a single reference to the “parasitic” government.

The film was first shown online, in the Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), as part of the 25th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 25). It has also been screened at the Hom Theatre in Uttaradit, at the 2nd Anniversary of We Volunteer (งานครบรอบ 2 ปีกลุ่ม We Volunteer) exhibition, and at the third Moving Images Screening Night (คืนฉายภาพเคลื่อนไหว).

Once Upon a Time 63, organised by the Museum of Popular History, runs from today until 25th October. Mob 2020–2021 will be screened continuously throughout the exhibition. Veerapong Soontornchattrawat’s short documentary Then and Now, profiling three people charged with lèse-majesté, will be shown as part of the exhibition on 18th October.

The exhibition features the personal belongings of protesters who joined the student demonstrations in 2020. There are also items from the Museum of Popular History’s collection, including rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, and the t-shirt worn by Payu Boonsophon when he was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet in 2022. Some of these exhibits were also on display at ความรุนแรง (ต้อง) ไม่ลอยนวล — ‘violence (must not be) unpunished’ — earlier this year.

A similar exhibition, also showcasing objects related to the student protest movement, is currently being held at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Whereas Once Upon a Time 63 features the objects themselves, the BACC exhibition The Persistence consists of photographs of protest props by Napin Mandhachitara and Pichak Tanunchaibutra. (A catalogue for The Persistence will be released later this year.)

Coincidentally, both exhibition posters feature yellow rubber ducks, which became symbols of the protest movement. The Persistence opened on 8th October, and runs until 2nd November.

1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup

The card game 1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup, from Thai game designers Vanta Studio, was released in 2022, and an expansion pack — the Choc Mint Edition — was added last year. The game is a satire of Thai politics since the 2014 coup, and the Choc Mint update features cards based on the 2023 election and its aftermath. The box art shows the military comandeering Democracy Monument and using it as a tank.

The title is a pun on the Bottom Blues song 12345 I Love You, which also inspired the student protest slogan ‘12345 ai hia Tu’. (Ai hia is a strong insult, and Tu is coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha’s nickname.) The game’s logo, 1•2•III•4•5 I♥COUP, uses Roman numerals for the number ‘3’, in a reference to the three-finger salute adopted by the protest movement.

Satirical Games

There are a few other games based on Thai politics, including the smartphone game Yingluck vs Zombies and the ThaiFight app. Yingluck vs Zombies, launched in 2014, features former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra fending off zombie versions of Suthep Thaugsuban and Abhisit Vejjajiva, in a zombified recreation of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee protests. ThaiFight, developed by Supasheep Srijumnong in 2013, is a fighting game with characters based on Thai politicians and celebrities.

There are also two Thai games, designed to be downloaded and printed out, that make visual reference to specific political events: the board game Coconut Empire, created by Wipaphan Wongsawang in 2018, and the card game Bangkok’s Big Brother (เราจะทำตามสัญญา), released by iLaw in 2016. The downloadable version of Coconut Empire, for example, included symbols such as a folding chair, in reference to the Neal Ulevich photograph of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. But the later commercial release of the game was more generic in its satire.

The game that most resembles 1-2-3-4-5 I Love Coup is Thai Democracy Timeline Game, an online game released by Elect aimed at raising awareness of the democratic process prior to the 2019 election. Promotional copies of a card-game version of Thai Democracy Timeline Game were sent to various institutions, and an updated edition was released before last year’s election. Another card game, Political Mess (การเมืองจิ๋วๆ), was released in 2020 by Wise Box.

Banned Games

Ironically, the Bulgarian video game Tropico 5 — in which a fictional coup takes place — was banned in Thailand just a few months after the 2014 Thai coup. Fight of Gods, a Taiwanese video game in which players fight against characters based on religious figures including Buddha, was banned in Thailand in 2017.

More recently, promotional copies of the Thai card game Patani Colonial Territory were seized by police in Yala province on 28th November 2022, and the game’s public release was subsequently cancelled by its developer, Chachiluk. Patani Colonial Territory was designed as an educational tool, to provoke discussion about the contested history of the Patani region.

Memes of Dissent: Thai Social Media During the 2020–2021 Student Uprising

An exhibition of satirical memes and online political cartoons opens this week at All Rise (the offices of iLaw) in Bangkok. Memes of Dissent: Thai Social Media During the 2020–2021 Student Uprising (โซเชียลเน็ตเวิร์คในท่ามกลางการประท้วงของนักศึกษาไทยระหว่างปี 2020–2021) features anti-government GIFs and other digital artwork shared via social media in support of the student protest movement that began in 2020.

The exhibition was previously held at Artcade in Phayao, where it was on show for almost two months (from 3rd August to 1st October 2023), though it will only be open for three days in Bangkok, from 26th to 28th January. Organised by the University of Phayao’s School of Architecture and Fine Art in association with the Museum of Popular History, the Bangkok exhibition will also include memes created after last year’s election (when the winning party was sidelined and the military remained in government).

Copies of คนกลมคนเหลี่ยม Live in Memes of Dissent (‘round people and square people live in memes of dissent’) will be given away at the exhibition. The booklet — limited to fifty copies — reprints a dozen cartoons from the คนกลมคนเหลี่ยม (‘round people and square people’) Facebook page, in solidarity with the cartoonist, who is facing lèse-majesté charges in relation to four cartoons he posted on the page in 2022. (Another Facebook cartoonist, BackArt, has also been charged with lèse-majesté, in relation to two cartoons he posted in 2021, and an artist is facing the same charge for a painting she posted on Instagram in 2021.)

The Cost of Freedom

A new short film about student activist Panusaya Sithjirawattanakul will have its premiere in New York this weekend. The Cost of Freedom documents Panusaya’s protests calling for reform of the monarchy and the abolition of the lèse-majesté law (article 112 of the criminal code). The film’s poster shows “112” carved into Panusaya’s arm, and a similar photograph appears in Karntachat Raungratanaamporn’s photobook End in This Generation.

The Cost of Freedom, directed by Primrin Puarat and Onarisa Sapsompong, will be shown at the Chain Theatre on 6th August, as part of the Chain Film Festival. (The festival runs from 4th to 13th August.) Panusaya was also the subject of The Commoner’s single รุ้ง (‘rainbow’), and her portrait has been painted by Jirapatt Aungsumalee and Tawan Wattuya.

Zombie Citizens

Weerapat Sakolvaree’s short documentary Zombie Citizens, like his earlier film Nostalgia, links the recent student protest movement with Thailand’s violent political history. Zombie Citizens begins with captions explaining that a Free Youth march on 7th August 2021 was rerouted after roads leading to the Grand Palace were blocked with shipping containers. Weerapat also filmed at Thammasat University on 6th October 2021, the 45th anniversary of a massacre that took place on the campus in 1976.

When Free Youth were denied entry to the Grand Palace grounds, they marched instead to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s residence, and riot police fired rubber bullets to disperse them. Zombie Citizens doesn’t document the violent clashes between protesters and police; instead, the film is eerily quiet, as the shipping containers block any traffic and the roads are almost deserted. The title hints at the state’s attitude towards the protesters, as shipping containers were also used to prevent zombie attacks in World War Z.

Shots of the Royal Hotel evoke another violent episode, the 1992 ‘Black May’ massacre, when the hotel lobby was used as a makeshift field hospital. The hotel and the university campus have become what Dutch artist Armando called ‘guilty landscapes’, bearing silent witness to past violence. Taiki Sakpisit’s short film A Ripe Volcano (ภูเขาไฟพิโรธ) and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s documentary Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล) also include sequences filmed at the Royal Hotel, again alluding to ‘Black May’.

A few minutes before it finishes, Zombie Citizens switches into reverse. The film runs backwards — a metaphor for the regressive, cyclical nature of Thai politics? — and View from the Bus Tour’s single Sun Rises When Day Breaks (ลิ่วล้อ) plays on the soundtrack. (The song was released on the forty-fifth anniversary of the Thammasat massacre.)

Nostalgia ended with a shot of the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall seen from behind iron railings, after the building was closed to the public. Similarly, Zombie Citizens shows Sanam Luang through barbed wire and the Grand Palace glimpsed from behind shipping containers. The state has battened down the hatches, and this is perhaps the calm before the storm.

No Reason

Tattoo Colour’s single No Reason (เผด็จเกิร์ล), released in 2017, was one of the first records to satirise the junta after the 2014 coup. In 2018, Rap Against Dictatorship inspired a wave of anti-government protest songs that continues to this day, though No Reason predates them all. The single was taken from Tattoo Colour’s album สัตว์จริง (‘real animal’), and the CD cover shows the group giving a three-finger salute as an anti-coup protest.

The music video for the song, directed by Nittakarn Kaewpyasawad and Tanis Pintong, includes various coded references to the military and the monarchy. A book titled “44 RULES” refers to article 44 of the interim constitution, which gave Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha absolute power. One of the book’s rules is “ADJUST YOUR ATTITUDE”, a reference to the military’s euphemistic term for its arbitrary detention policy. A wall calendar shows the date as 20th May, which was the day in 2014 when Prayut unconstitutionally declared martial law. Five men appear in the video, and martial law prohibits political gatherings of five or more people.

In the years since No Reason, there have been more than two dozen songs and albums commenting on Thai politics, including three released this month: Bigboat’s This Is Thailand (ที่นี่ประเทศไทย), Elevenfinger’s Free My Friends (ปล่อยเพื่อนกู), and Rap Against Dictatorship’s I’m the One Who Gets to Decide (คนที่ตัดสินใจคือฉันเอง). Rap Against Dictatorship’s prolific output also includes the singles My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี), Sunflower (ดอกทานตะวัน), Homeland (บ้านเกิดเมืองนอน), Burning Sky (ไฟไหม้ฟ้า), Budget (งบประมาณ), กอ เอ๋ย กอ กราบ (‘k is for krap’), Reform (ปฏิรูป), Ta Lu Fah (ทะลุฟ้า), and 16 ปีแล้วไอ้สัส (‘it’s been 16 years, ai sat’). There have also been albums from The Commoner, Pisitakun Kuantalaeng (in 2020 and 2022), Speech Odd, Elevenfinger, and t_047; and singles from The Commoner, Elevenfinger, Badmixy, View from the Bus Tour, Milli and Youngohm, Getsunover and Three Man Down, and Paeng Surachet.

Free My Friends

Of the many Thai musicians releasing songs commenting on politics, rapper Elevenfinger is definitely the most uncompromising. On his track Thalugaz (ทะลุเเก๊ซ), he leads a crowd in the same chant that resulted in charges against Chaiamorn Kaewwiboonpan. His new single Free My Friends (ปล่อยเพื่อนกู), released yesterday, is so excoriating that quoting from it would violate the lèse-majesté law. The video for the song, directed by Fook Yosthi, features murals — including a portrait by FD7 — superimposed onto Chiang Mai’s city wall using CGI, and multilayered clips of riot police clashing with student protesters. The title refers to protesters jailed for lèse-majesté.

This Is Thailand

Thai rappers Bigboat released the video to their new single This Is Thailand (ที่นี่ประเทศไทย) today. The video, directed by journalist Cod Satrusayang, begins with a TV set showing clips from the announcements of the 2014, 2006, and 1991 coups. The band perform in military uniforms, and the first line of the song addresses the coup leaders directly: “คุณรู้มั้ยว่าทำประเทศบอบช้ำไปตั้งเท่าไหร่” (‘don’t you know how much you’ve hurt the country?’). Other archive material includes footage of riot police clashing with student protesters on 16th October 2020.

This Is Thailand is partly a state-of-the-nation song, with lyrics such as “ที่นี่คือประเทศไทยมีอำนาศไว้ใช้กดขี่แต่ผู้คน” (‘this is Thailand, where power is used to oppress people’). It’s also a call-to-arms: “ใครเห็นด้วยจงยืนขึ้น ต่อสู้เพื่อเสรีท่าวันนี้เพื่อลูกหลาน” (‘whoever agrees, stand up today and fight for freedom for your children’). Ultimately, the message is: smash the system, as the video ends with a sledgehammer smashing the TV screen. Just as Rap Against Dictatorship’s 250 Bootlickers (250 สอพลอ) was released two days before the 2019 election, This Is Thailand has dropped a week before the 14th May election, when coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha is again on the ballot. (Rap Against Dictatorship will release another single later this week.)

Break Your Silence

Last night, the Unidentified Theatre troupe held a durational performance art event at Cartel Artspace in Bangkok. The crowdfunded project, Break Your Silence, explored various sensitive social and political issues, and challenged the widespread self-censorship practised by mainstream Thai artists.

The performance culminated with the spray-painting of “112” and an anarchist symbol, in solidarity with a graffiti artist who was arrested on 28th March after he spray-painted the same content onto the outer wall of Bangkok’s Temple of the Emerald Buddha. (‘112’ refers to the lèse-majesté law, which is article 112 of the Thai criminal code.)

In an artist’s statement, Tassakorn Theratapdhewan (founder of Unidentified Theatre) highlights the undemocratic, violent nature of Thai politics: “we have a government that came to power through the barrel of a gun... This is the reason why the authoritarian government doesn’t serve the people, but rather does everything to silence them and oppress them. The people who protest on the streets are met with violence, tear gas, rubber bullets, and even worse”.

Break Your Silence is part of the PTSD exhibition being held at Cartel Artspace from 25th March to 10th April. (PTSD, in this context, stands for “Parliament / Treacherous / Sedition / Dictators”.) There will be another, more extensive, Break Your Silence performance at the same venue on 8th April, pending a further round of crowdfunding.

End in This Generation

Karntachat Raungratanaamporn’s photobook End in This Generation was published this week, in a limited edition of 500 copies. Karntachat has photographed the recent wave of anti-military student protesters, and the book documents the protests from 10th August 2020, when Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul called for reform of the monarchy, until 12th December 2021, when demonstrators confirmed that they had collected more than 200,000 signatures on a petition to abolish article 112 of the criminal code (the lèse-majesté law). One of the book’s most powerful photographs shows “112” carved into Panusaya’s arm on the day that the petition signatories were announced.

End in This Generation is the latest of a handful of photobooks devoted to the protest movement, the others being There’s Always Spring (เมื่อถึงเวลาดอกไม้จะบาน), EBB, #WhatsHappeningInThailand, and No God No King Only Human. Like No God No King Only Human, it’s a larger, coffee-table book, and — in another similarity between the two publications — its title is one of the protesters’ slogans (ให้มันจบที่รุ่นเรา), aligning the book with the aims of the protest movement.

No God No King Only Human and End in This Generation both have their fair share of stunning images, though the glossy colour photographs in End in This Generation are even more striking. Unlike in No God No King Only Human, the photographs in End in This Generation are presented in chronological order. Both books provide dates and locations for each image, though End in This Generation also features a timeline of the protest movement.

Karava, no. 1

No God No King Only Human, edited and published by Korn Karava, was launched at the 2022 Bangkok Art Book Fair last week. Limited to 500 numbered copies (mine being no. 340), it features photographs of anti-government, pro-reform protests taken over the past two years.

Visually speaking, the protests are inherently photogenic, with swirling tear gas deployed by riot police and glittering fireworks used as projectiles by demonstrators. (Nontawat Numbenchapol’s Thalugaz documentary Rarely Make History includes equally spectacular imagery.) But, as the book reminds us, this is the aesthetics of violence, and other photographs document the impact of rubber bullets fired by the police.

There have been other books with photographs of the protests, such as There’s Always Spring (เมื่อถึงเวลาดอกไม้จะบาน), EBB, and #WhatsHappeningInThailand, all of which are small, slim paperbacks. No God No King Only Human, on the other hand, is a lavish coffee-table book. (It’s the first in a potential series of volumes on Thai art and politics.)

The title is a slogan adapted from the video game BioShock. (Appropriating popular culture is a notable aspect of the demonstrations, from the three-finger salute taken from The Hunger Games to the Bottom Blues song 12345 I Love You.) The title of Elevenfinger’s CD No God No King Only Humans is based on the same slogan.

APEC 2022

The regional APEC summit is currently taking place in Bangkok, and anti-government protesters yesterday held a demonstration near Democracy Monument. They also beheaded Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in effigy with a cardboard guillotine attached to the Giant Swing. (The stunt was photographed by Prachatai.)

Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, one of whom was blinded in one eye after being hit by a rubber bullet at close range. (Similarly, Tanat Thanakitamnuay was also blinded after being hit by a rubber bullet at a protest last year.) This was the first use of rubber bullets by riot police since June.

Mob 2020–2021

The third Moving Images Screening Night (คืนฉายภาพเคลื่อนไหว) took place at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 30th June. (The first Moving Images Screening Night, on 28th April, featured Jittarin Wuthiphan’s powerful short film Still on My Mind, his record of a mob in Phuket attacking a man they accused of disrespecting King Rama IX. The second event, on 25th May, included Suwaporn Worrasit’s Ratchadamnoen Route View 2482+.) Each screening is divided into two themed programmes, which for the third event were Eclipse and Lucid Memory.

The highlight of the evening was Supong Jitmuang’s Mob 2020–2021, a chronicle of the current student protest movement. Supong told me that the film is “handmade”, emphasising the intricate nature of this two-hour documentary. Audience members received a Moving Images Screening Night brochure (Phase 01: Program Book), which the organisers also describe as “handmade”: a zine-style publication with a limited print run. Mob 2020–2021 postcards were also available.

Mob 2020–2021 covers the first twelve months of the anti-government protest movement. Supong and his camera were at Thammasat University on 19th September 2020, for the overnight rally that later occupied Sanam Luang. On 14th October 2020, he filmed the march to Government House, after which a state of emergency was declared. On 17th November 2020, he was on the front line when protesters used inflatable ducks to protect themselves from water cannon fired by riot police. (Sorayos Prapapan’s short film Yellow Duck Against Dictatorship documents the same event.)

The protests intensified last summer, and Mob 2020–2021 shows the rally at Democracy Monument on 18th July 2021 marking the first anniversary of the anti-government campaign. Last August, there were almost daily confrontations between riot police and protesters, but rather than filming each event, Supong summarises them in a general written caption noting the “multiple continuous clashes that lasted many weeks” (Hopefully, the ongoing Sound of ‘Din’ Daeng documentary series will cover this period, and the violent tactics employed by the riot police, in more detail.)

The closest equivalent to Mob 2020–2021 is probably Ing K.’s Bangkok Joyride (บางกอกจอยไรด์) though, of course, the two directors are from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Two renditions of Do You Hear the People Sing? in Mob 2020–2021, for example, serve as a counterpoint to Bangkok Joyride’s fetishisation of the national anthem. Bangkok Joyride and Mob 2020–2021 both provide an exhaustive record of street politics, though Mob 2020–2021 is a more objective account.

Mob 2020–2021 is the first feature-length documentary covering the recent protest movement. (The only other example, The Evil of Time’s Growth, focuses solely on the Thalufah group.) It’s an invaluable record of a profound social and political change in Thailand. Supong’s film also includes a written timeline of the protests, and its matter-of-fact neutrality is maintained throughout, except for a single reference to the “parasitic” government.

ลุกไหม้สิ! ซิการ์(‘burning cigar!’)

ลุกไหม้สิ! ซิการ์ (‘burning cigar!’), a short collection of poems written anonymously by ‘Chatchon’ in 2010 and 2020, offers a literary commentary on Thailand’s political protests. The bulk of the poems are reflections on the red-shirt rallies that culminated in the May 2010 military massacre. Uneducated People! highlights the condescension aimed at the pro-democracy movement by the rival yellow-shirts. ความสงสัย (‘doubtfulness’) addresses the killing of protesters on 10th April 2010 (an event also memorialised by Tawan Wattuya’s Amnesia and Parinot Kunakornwong’s 10th April). เด็กหนุ่มในบทกวี (‘the boy in the poem’) is a remembrance of the final week of the 2010 massacre (as was Pisitakun Kuantalaeng’s installation Ten Year).

Similarly, the poems written in 2020 address the student-led protest groups that have formed over the last two years. One poem is dedicated to Arnon Nampa, one of the protest leaders, who is himself a poet. Another is titled เก่งมาก กล้ามาก ขอบใจ (‘very good, very brave, thank you’), which is also the title of a song by Paeng Surachet. This poem also quotes the protest chant “1 2 3 4 5 I Hear Too”, a pun on the Bottom Blues single 12345 I Love You. (“I Hear Too” is a homophone for ‘ai hia Tu’, an insult directed at Prayut Chan-o-cha.)

Other recent poetry collections have also been inspired by the student protest movement. บทกวีแนวร่วมประชาชนปลดแอก (‘people’s liberation movement’) is a booklet of poems written in solidarity with Arnon and other protesters. (Its cover features the three-finger salute.) บัลลังก์ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ (‘the holy throne’), a book of poems by Chayaarat Chayarat, even claims to be aimed at “ผู้ไม่สวามิภักดิ์ต่ออำนาจราชศักดิ์” (‘people who are not loyal to royal power’).