Bangkok: relief at the end of the protests
BANGKOK, THAILAND – It’s over. Really. And to be honest, I’m pretty glad as this might just be the real and conclusive end of it.
It’s been almost eight months of this. The shouting, the tear gas, the broken bottles and the messages beeping from friends at home asking “are you alright?”, forcing you to put your pina colada down, wipe the pool water from your hand, and actually answer your phone.
First the Yellow Shirts – they’re the ones who are happy about the current prime minister, but were furious with the two that came before him in the last 15 months.
They took over an airport, and the prime minister’s office, and streets. The police fired tear gas, it all went a little crazy a few times, and then, suddenly, the prime minister resigned and it was all over again.
Then it was glorious quiet, for about four months. The Red Shirts – loyal to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (pronounced Shina-watt, a billionaire who made his money through telecoms, who’s popular with the rural poor he lavished with benefits and has been in exile in Dubai since politically fuelled corruption charges turned into an arrest warrant) – then reared their heads again.
They wanted change, the entire political system dismantled. They see the prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, with some justification, as the unelected face of the military and elite.
They have a point when they say that they keep winning elections (largely because of the rural vote loyal to Thaksin), but keep finding the army or the apparatus manages a coup or something to overturn the vote.
They decided to stage a massive protest. Bangkok, its media in particular (well, me), breathed a weary sigh.
They gathered. Not enough people took them seriously, so then they paralysed the ASEAN summit in Pattaya on Saturday, sending world leaders scurrying for the exit. And then they moved onto the streets of Bangkok.
Many people here are furiously energised about democracy and their rights here (Thailand is badly impoverished, imbalanced and illiberal in places, like much of Asia).
But more are simply tired of this endless shouting match. It’s essentially two power groups – the oligarchy and the military-monarchy – battling each other through street protests fought by real people. Ugly street protests, in which people get hurt.
And they know how to protest here. For days. Using buses and Molotov cocktails as weapons.
Latest video report for Channel 4 News:
The balloon of revolution here can pop with the same speed at which it can be inflated. One minute it’s “the end of the state as we know it, by whatever means” the protestors feel necessary.
The next, “it’s a bit hot out here, a little crowded with all these soldiers around, and, well, it’s New Year, and maybe I should be getting back to the family…”
The reason it might be all over, is that this was Thaksin’s final stand. He took it to the brink, but nothing really moved.
He called for revolution, but didn’t show up to lead it. He didn’t get the numbers out he needed to effect any real change. And now, when the Red Shirts try to march again, they’ll have the knowledge of this palpable and stinging defeat, close to their hearts.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.