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PlurkThere’s more to the unrest than a rural poor revolt. Aubrey Belford finds a complex picture in the red shirt heartland.
When observers talk about how the bloody crisis in Bangkok is a clash of two different Thailands, they have two particular places in mind.
One is the sheer glass and polished marble of downtown Bangkok, where two months of unrest involving protests by anti-government red shirts—which culminated in Wednesday’s bloody crackdown, shooting and arson—has claimed dozens of lives.
The other is the red shirt stronghold of Isaan, as the country’s impoverished, rural north-east is known. It’s here, and in the country’s north, that the crackdown was greeted with angry demonstrations and the burning of government buildings. It’s also here that fears of conflict spreading beyond Bangkok would likely be realised.
Travelling to the area just before the latest violence, it was clear the main interpretation of Thailand’s crisis—a competition between urban elites and the rural poor–is only part of the story.
In Isaan, there’s no question the red shirts are the dominant force. In the midday heat of the dusty farming town of Ban Phue, Officer Sakda Muthasin eagerly approaches me, despite me having just left his commander’s office. Like most local people, civilian and police, he’s a strong backer of the opposition red shirts, and appalled by bloodshed in Bangkok.
Asked what he would do if crackdowns spread throughout the country, he was blunt: he would disobey orders.
‘If they suppress the red shirts, as an officer, I will help them fight back,’ he says.
In recent weeks, Isaan has often felt just shy of open revolt, and there’s plenty in the region that makes Thailand’s crisis look like a class conflict. The land is a flat and dry continuum of desaturated browns and silver-greens that has long supplied the richer parts of the country with its factory workers, taxi drivers and prostitutes.
But Isaan isn’t a place of quiet desperation. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s popularity stems from populist reforms including cheap healthcare and low-interest rural credit. Everywhere, villages show signs of recent prosperity: newly painted farmhouse extensions, satellite dishes and pickup trucks bought on credit. In south and central Thailand the picture is very much the same, but that hasn’t translated into red shirt support as it has in the north and northeast, where many speak a dialect more closely related to Lao.
Lamoon Woranam, a rice farmer, says everyone here thanks Thaksin for the wealth.
A rural loans scheme brought in under Thaksin has helped him buy fertiliser and pay for labourers, he says, while a one-dollar healthcare scheme also has made his life easier. Now, he says he feels ignored by the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
‘Abhisit has never come here since becoming Prime Minister. Thaksin used to come here three times a year,’ he says.
Lamoon was perhaps being a little unfair. Abhisit did try to visit the nearby town of Nong Khai back in March, but hundreds of red shirt protesters sent him scurrying away by helicopter. Crowds in several north-eastern provinces have in the past months blocked roads and rail lines to prevent reinforcements to Bangkok.
To many middle class, urban Thais, Isaan is a place of rustics and bumpkins and many have shown a stunning lack of sympathy for the deaths in Bangkok, dismissing protesters as ‘buffalos’—slow, stupid and in the thrall of Thaksin. For the protesters, this perhaps rankles more than anything else. On the streets of Bangkok, many protesters have proudly worn the label of ‘prai,’ an antiquated term roughly meaning commoner. In Isaan, red shirt supporters are fully aware that subsequent governments have continued many of Thaksin’s pro-poor policies. But this isn’t the point.
Jaba
Thanks! much better work than the Bangkok Post and the Nation combined.
Ellen Harper
A really great article, nice to see some more insightful stuff about the reasons behind the unrest instead of just coverage of the clashes, well done diplomat.
Luke Whitington
This is the best article I’ve read on Thailand so far, well done.
I hope to see many more in the future, your research and local contacts give the story the context and explanation that has been missing in the body counts and sensationalism we get elsewhere.
I’m considering renewing my subscription to The Diplomat.
Thanks
Luke Whitington
Sydney
T_bone
I would like to say that Isaan are what the real “Thai” preffered to called them. It sounded better then callign them Laos, as they would be devistating, political-wise; thus the dialect you is basically Lao with alittle Thai mixed in.