Imagining revolution without violence
A new book chronicles 60 years of government suppression of revolts by poor Thai farmers and argues that the parallels to contemporary uprisings are too stark to deny
- Published: 21/08/2011 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Brunch
Thailand's revolution would not have been interrupted if local scholars had worked harder at interpreting and signifying past uprisings in every nook and cranny of the country.
Amid the dearth of analysis, US scholar Tyrell Haberkorn has tried to put under the microscope the movements of northern farmers which sprang up some 60 years ago and again nearly 40 years ago.
She has made some judgements on politically violent reactions against the peasant uprisings, which could in contemporary terms be dubbed "human rights violations" _ reactionary responses to curb the "rebellious offshoots" of traditional northern society.
In reading through the 230-page Revolution Interrupted, which was adapted from Haberkorn's 2007 Cornell University PhD thesis, one is reminded of unsung heroes such as labour activist Thanong Pho-arn and Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, who were separately "forced" to disappear, and Prachuap Khiri Khan environmentalist Charoen Wat-aksorn and, more recently, Samut Sakhon environmental activist Thongnak Sawekchinda, whose deaths are still awaiting justice.
But readers should also be encouraged; despite many fatal lessons in contemporary history, individuals as well as movements still dare to seek a different testimony and a localised imagination of their own "revolution".
Haberkorn, now a research fellow at Australian National University, takes readers back to a striking phenomenon of the 1950s _ when northern farmers asked the government to extend the application of the Central Region's land tenancy law to cover the northern part of the country as well.
The petite, softly Thai-speaking Haberkorn explains that while the Central Region had a majority of absentee landlords, the relative proximity of landlords in the North made issues of tenancy highly visible, local and intimate.
Attempts by the peasants to challenge the landlords or address them on equal terms were therefore considered the basis for reimagining "their Thai society" and triggered brutal repression.
The American scholar looks at the "letters of grievance" written by Saraphi and Doi Saket farmers to their members of parliament in 1951 requesting similar measures as the 1950 Land Rent Control Act (LRCA), which was effective only in 18 central provinces. She calls this an embodiment of unfinished revolution since 1932, when Khana Rasadorn or the People's Party replaced the absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy.
Core People's Party member Pridi Banomyong had called for the nationalisation of all land in Thailand _ equivalent to the end of the feudal lord system. Of course, this never happened and ensuing land reforms decades later have never been successful, even now.
For Haberkorn, expediting the parliamentary channel to expand LRCA law coverage without resorting to violence or armed insurgency enabled northern farmers to stand equally with the landowners in a manner she considered a "soft revolution".
The struggle which started in 1951 continued and bore fruit after the Oct 14, 1973 democratic uprising.
The emerging Farmers' Federation of Thailand (FFT) successfully pushed for standardised and lowered rent on rice land with the legislation of the new Land Rent Control Act in December 1974.
The fact that farmers, together with sympathetic student activists and lawyers, transgressed the boundaries of class and space to organise, spread information between villages and make the provisions of the LRCA a reality on the farm made those in power anxious.
Their work was later met with harassment; eventually major FFT leaders were purged. Between March 1974 and December 1979, 33 people were assassinated, eight were seriously injured and five were "disappeared".
The assassinations were mostly concentrated in Chiang Mai province. These included the northern farmers' president and FFT national vice-president Intha Sribunruang, who was slain on July 30, 1975.
The assassinations of FFT leaders created fear throughout the countryside and put an end to the FFT. As a result, the LRCA was basically nullified.
There was only one arrest and the suspected assassin was released before he was prosecuted.
The violence against the farmers and other dissidents in the following years was not a surprise to Haberkorn. What shocked and disturbed her most was the persistent and collective silence about the case.
Haberkorn describes the marginalised struggle of those peasants and the FFT movement as "an interrupted revolutionary process".
The fact that they had consistently challenged their exclusion from rule through organising, writing, appealing and protesting, even when faced with repression, violence and death make them a force rather than a loss in social history.
Haberkorn, draws parallels between northern tenant farmers being ordered by local officials to return to their remote fields and red shirt protesters who occupied the Ratchaprasong shopping area in Bangkok in April and May, 2010.
Another similarity is that the powers that be looked on these peasants condescendingly and dubbed them hillbillies or khon bannok and told them to go home.
Such a demeaning term was more than a superficial irritant. In fact, the writer considers the attitude of the middle class and officials towards these people as the root cause preventing the voiceless and marginalised from receiving equal treatment in society.
Haberkorn's Revolution Interrupted is the culmination of 10 years of researching and writing about progressive activism and state and parastate violence in Thailand.
"Harassment, the creation of chaos, and official dissimulation were typical strategies of the actors and institutions operating under the banner of the state," concludes Haberkorn, now a research fellow in the department of political science and social change at the school of international, political and strategic studies at Australian National University.
Again, no wonder the Oct 6, 1976 massacre demonstrated how some of the worst rights violations can occur under the guise of restoring peace and order. "The precise nature of law restored was one bereft of dissent," she remarks.
Equally interesting is the book's introduction by a historian at the University of Wisconsin and former 1970s student activist, Thongchai Winichakul.
It is a very relevant prelude, as his personal account helps ask the question of how revolution should be perceived and how to shape a peaceful revolution in Thai society.
Revolution Interrupted is not an obituary, he says, but a look into Thai society "to prevent the fading of life to oblivion, recounting stories that bring the forgotten back to life".
Haberkorn, says Thongchai, compiled the book "as only a good scholar can do with deftness, sophistication and insight. And with passion too."
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