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Published: November 29th 2013
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March in
My place is about 100m from here. Not a good view, but at least most of the noise doesn't get through Naitt and I went down to the Erawan Shrine intersection yesterday to see the protests, but like what happens to storm and tornado chasers, the protests had dissipated before we got there, leaving in their wake a couple of bored cops and the normal Thai populace going about their business. Naitt prayed at the shrine while I wandered around looking for protesters. Maybe I should have just prayed -- there wasn't anything left over from the protests.
No surprise really. Protests, demonstrations, riots, and civil unrest seem to be interchangeable in the international press, depending on which monkey is editing.
The civil unrest here in Bangkok can be defined as, "a few thousand cheerful citizens peacefully exercising their democratic rights to express their concern over the ramrodding of legislation through the lower house of parliament." Or, depending on your point of view, "Kicks arse over watching TV."
Having missed the evening walk last night, I was pleasantly reminded that they'll be walking past my place today at lunch time when, right on cue, I heard the pleasant sound of a thousand whistles marching about 200m from my house. I looked out the kitchen window and, sure enough, there
they were.
Excellent.
I grabbed my camera and rushed out to witness the riots. The girls at the massage place downstairs seemed surprised that I was interested in photographing a bunch of people on a lunch time stroll.
True enough, it wasn't that dangerous: Crossing the road through the throng, I almost had my toe stepped on. The real danger, to be honest, was me rushing around with a great big clunky camera donging the odd elbow. (My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 was out of batteries, so I was back to old school photography.)
Most people on the street seemed to support the protesters, but it was nothing compared to the fervor of the red shirts a couple of years ago. This wasn't a hire crowd here to stir up trouble amongst enemies. It was a walk down the road amongst friends.
In case you don't know, the catalyst for the protests was the current government ramming through legislation that will allow the former PM Taksin to return to Thailand. This was done in a very undemocratic way and even shocked people used to blatant abuse of power (i.e. everyone). Even though he's the only
PM in Thai history to be democratically re-elected to office and was subsequently deposed in a very undemocratic (but rather popular) coup d'état, the Bangkok protesters are strongly against this sort of corruption.
Protesting against corruption in Thailand may seem a bit like protesting against bad weather in London, but you have to admire the way they go about it: with a big Thai smile and a positive attitude.
I've been to a few protests in my time, and I have to say, this is as friendly an orderly as it gets.
In fact, it reminded me more of the host Olympic team walking into the stadium and waving at the crowd. Very happy, very friendly, and very organized. Heck, they didn't even drop any rubbish on the ground.
Anyway, the protests have moved on from anti-corruption to anti-Taksin, with the crowd chanting "get out" in Thai (with a smile of course). Moving from anti corruption to aiming to bring down the government and grab power seems to have lost quite a few of the initial supporters, which may be why this protest numbered around 5,000 (my estimate) rather than the "tens of thousands" or "hundreds
of thousands" reported last week.
Anyone coming to Bangkok over the next few weeks should try to keep up to date with the protests as they can be hard to find (this was was gone within half an hour). I'd hate to think that people would come to Bangkok and miss this awesome attraction. Seriously, Thai protests are cool.
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Rick Dysinger
non-member comment
Nice story..
Hi Peter, I will be in your neighborhood during 설날. I hope to catch up while I am there. Talk soon, Rick