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POLITICS-THAILAND: Women Power Anti-Gov’t Protests

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 30 2008 (IPS) - At 64 years, women may prefer going to bed early, relax with grandchildren or spend time pursuing a new hobby. But not Somchit Suwanasay, who sacrifices such pleasures to join anti-government protests in the Thai capital.

Somchit, who runs a small travel business, spent two nights in the compound of the prime minister’s office, which has been overrun by thousands of supporters of the anti-government movement, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), since Tuesday, Aug. 26. The siege on Government House has crippled the elected coalition government led by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

‘’I am here because I am a good citizen and we have to do the right thing for our country,’’ Somchit said as dawn broke on Wednesday. ‘’If the PAD’s voice is heard, we will finally get a good government; not one that supports corruption.’’

Yet the presence of this grey-haired, ageing native of Nakhon Sawan, a province in central Thailand, at a protest movement on a collision course with the Samak administration is not out of character. A survey of the nearly 30,000 PAD supporters who have taken over Government House and its surrounding streets in a brazen act of civil disobedience this week reveal that at times half the crowd consists of women like Somchit.

In fact this army of middle-aged women, who come dressed in yellow as a mark of loyalty to the colour identified with the country’s monarch, whom the PAD claims it is defending, are not recent participants. They have been the mainstay of the PAD’s street protests that began in late May, when it took over a street near a United Nations building here, and have run non-stop, round-the-clock rallies, infused with rants against the government and music.

The women strongly identified with what has come to be seen as a moral crusade by the PAD, which has former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as its main target. The PAD has accused the Samak government, which won at a late December general election, of being manipulated by Thaksin, who has fled to exile in London to avoid a slew of corruption cases in the Thai courts.


The PAD’s campaign has been sustained by ASTV, a private broadcaster owned by Sondhi Limthongkul, a media firebrand who is one of the PAD’s five leaders. This television station and its affiliated radio and streams of anti-government attacks from the PAD’s stage to the Thai public.

And these broadcasts have struck a chord with legions of middle-aged women. ‘’We older women have more time to watch the news on ASTV and know what is wrong about corruption. That is why we are here,’’ says Nitayaporn Suwannachin, 62, as she headed for the PAD’s rally at Government House on Friday afternoon.

The large turnout of women hardly surprised this resident from Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai, where she runs a business.

‘’Women are more determined than men in this country. We are stronger and people of action,’’ added Nitayaporn, who has spent two weeks at the PAD rally, sometimes with her two daughters.

Other women IPS spoke with at the protests agree, saying this was also the case in early 2006, when the PAD led protests against the government that the twice-elected prime minister Thaksin led, accusing it of corruption, nepotism and the abuse of power. The PAD’s protests paved the way for Thailand’s 18th military coup in September that year. Thaksin’s government was replaced by a junta that ran this South-east Asian country for the next 15 months.

The PAD’s appeal to such an older constituency reveals the stark manner in which they view the country’s political problems, says Naruemon Thabchumpon, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. ‘’This conflict between the government and the PAD is not about democracy; it is about morality.’’

‘’The women who follow the PAD are from an older generation that are frustrated and cannot cope with some problems in the country, like corruption. They feel they have a moral obligation to change it,’’ she explained in an interview. ‘’They think they are the moral warriors of the country.’’

But that is coming at a price, since they have no faith in liberal democracy,’’ she added. ‘’They do not believe in elections and think that majority rule is unjust, because all Thais do not accept this view. They want moral and good people to be appointed to run the country.’’

It is a trend that has also revealed a generational divide, since the country’s younger generation, such as university students, have not thrown their weight behind the PAD’s crusade as they did in the thousands during previous popular uprisings. In 1973 and 1992 university students were in the vanguard of bringing down authoritarian military dictators who had grabbed power through coups.

Such lack of engagement by university students, as the country’s political temperature rose on Friday, was evident at Chulalongkorn University, the country’s premier campus. The few who stepped out of line, like Pecharat Promnart, a third-year history major, found themselves at the end of derisive laughter by undergraduates dressed in their black and white uniforms.

‘’The students are not happy with people protesting. They don’t believe they have the power to change anything and it is something for grownups,’’ said Suluck Lamubol, a third-year English major. ‘’The students don’t feel oppressed and have nothing to struggle for unlike in the past, when we had dictators. They are spending more time studying or going to shopping malls.’’

 
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