Santa Claus mall valet ready for a
Bangkok X’mas, December 2017
Bangkok X’mas, December 2017
Bangkok Love Letter
Dark Road Newly Painted
Monday 8 January 2018, Bangkok
Dear Foreign Friend,
People
have been sending me a videolink https://www.facebook.com/newsclearvdo/videos/389134584860358/, of a
scene straight out of my first banned movie, ‘Khon Grab Mha, My Teacher Eats
Biscuits’, except it’s non-fiction and full of giggling kids playing at
worshipping a dog, who takes it all as his due, a lot less shyly than my dear
departed Mhi Kwai who had to be gently coaxed into acting the canine divine in
the Ashram of Boundless Love. Is this a sign from God that we should resubmit
the 16 mm film from 1998 to the censors, in the coming year of the dog?
A rabid dog, according to some
Thai astrologers. The pink-headed Daily News’ squad of celebrity
fortune-tellers say everything’s mostly OK, except in May, October and
November—in fact by November “the atmosphere is brooding and dark, the
situation is dark and gloomy, the people sad and depressed”, with changes in government
in December 2018. What is it with us and May, October & November?
Statues of Ms Thongdaeng & Mr Jo Cho,
the King’s Beloved Pets guarding the Royal Pavilion
in the Royal Crematorium precinct
the King’s Beloved Pets guarding the Royal Pavilion
in the Royal Crematorium precinct
At
the end of last November I finally reached the inner sanctum by hitchhiking on
a group tour of the Royal Crematorium with some respectable arty types. We even
went in through one of the screening checkpoints that had previously ejected
me. With a pre-booked time, we didn’t have to wait too long among the uniformed
school trippers.
This was a serious art outing but
you don’t need me to critique the much-seen and photographed Disneyesque
exteriors. Inside the Royal Pavilion, however, a close inspection of the
frescoes of King Bhumibol at work revealed them to be in the psychological style
of Christian religious icons, as if composed by Cimabue, with the most
important person in the narrative rendered physically biggest with no
foreshortening despite the otherwise photo-realistic depiction, creating a somewhat
schizophrenic visual contradiction.
On every panel I was soon struck
by an extraordinary oversight by the artists: your average man, woman and child are not
represented. Only uniformed civil servants, uniformed soldiers and uniformed
politicians or academics/technocrats (shirt & tie but with a Thai ‘electioneering
parliamentarian’ bomber jacket instead of a suit) crowd around the King. Apart
from some hilltribes in ethnic costume, the only ‘ordinary people’ I could find
on these walls are 2 boys molding buffaloes from clay, 2 women weaving baskets,
and some farmers in traditional dress seated on the grass with their
agricultural products. There’s no one who looks like your average next-door
neighbour, your co-worker or remotely like Thai Saint & Hero of the Hour,
rocker turned national obsession and inspiration, Toon Bodyslam.
School girls posing in front of
a mural of King Bhumibol at work
Since most Thais, and certainly
all the artists who worked on the murals—art teachers with teams of students
from art colleges nationwide, including the ancient and venerable Poh Chang Art
College (in that lovely old jade green building with red pillars)—have more in
common with Toon than with these uniformed caricatures, I wonder if other
viewers of these murals also feel slighted and excluded, as if we had no part
to play in the life of the King, nor he in ours. If the essence of monarchy is
inclusivity, the artists have missed the brief. Even if the official brief was
to focus on royal projects, drawing from news photos with the King ever
surrounded by the underprivileged and officials, I wish they could’ve included
the rest of us somehow. We may not be poster children for Siamese exotica, but
we really are no longer the minority, you know.
Here’s a factoid left over from
the Royal Cremation: 42 people with outstanding arrest warrants were arrested
at various Screening & Filtering points, caught as they attempted to enter
the royal precinct. Some were thought to
have been wanted for lese majeste, though the police refused to confirm this.
Leo Singto Gauvain, left, with his father & brother
at an art opening less than 2 months before he died
As
befits this past blood-lusty fiery cock year, my holiday season was bracketed
by yet more funerals, with a cremation on the eve of Christmas Eve followed by
another one on the eve of New Year’s Eve, both of which deserve their own blog,
especially the callously senseless death of 23 year old Leo Singto Gauvain, the
photographer Shrimp’s eldest son, victim of the carelessness of building
contractors Sarathat Engineering of the bloodstained project
The Grove Residence on Sukhumvit soi 22 (owners represented by society ideal couple ML Khwankamol (Devakul) &
ML Kathathong Thongyai). The brand-new design graduate, with a lovely
girlfriend and a beautiful future about to bloom, was doing the stereotypical
Bangkok thing: at the end of the day he nipped out of the house for a bowl of
noodles on the street nearby. On his way home a half-tonne iron gate at the construction
site for the new apartment block fell on him, killing him instantly. This mind-numbing
tragedy has shaken the highrise-menaced village to its core.
My Singhaseni great grandfather with his descendents’
Christmas Eve dinner reflected on his glass-framed
photo
Before
the turkey on Christmas day itself, my cardiologist younger brother Dr Mong gave
the gathered cousins some hands-on training in
CPR, including the use of the defibrillator, (“now
widely available in airports & train stations,” he says, bending over his Little
Anne dummy, “Just break the glass when the need arises.”) This idea came about
after the high-profile sudden deaths of apparently very fit celebrities,
especially former ASEAN chairman, politician & keen jogger Surin Pitsuwan.
As a bonding exercise, pumping a dummy’s heart to the beat of ‘I Will
Survive’ in front of all your family is highly recommended. Petty squabbles
fall away when you’re reminded of how little time you have together. Dr Mong
rated my posture as excellent but my strength is less than half what’s needed
to start a heart. You have about a 40% chance of being saved if you had a heart
attack in my presence.
Death Meditation:
Dr Mong’s Christmas Day CPR Class
For
so-called peacetime, there can’t have been many a year as eventful as this past
one for the world, though 2018 promises not to disappoint in that department. Refugee
tides, floods and tempests, volcanoes; fiery red horizons as whole forests turn
to ashes, hill upon hill—all surely say it’s time for even the most contrary
& crooked among us to finally admit that these are not normal times. One would have thought, but in vain.
As the whole world knows except
the Thai and British governments, Yingluck has fled, 2 days before her rice scheme
sentencing, to London, that welcoming refuge of deposed rulers with all the
legal aid they may require conveniently arrayed including the best lobbyist
& PR services money can buy. Bell Pottinger, one of the biggest & most
unscrupulous, appears to have closed, however. Thai people know it well because
her brother Thaksin Shinawatra is its client, alongside the Syrian tyrant’s
British wife Asma al-Assad, the Saudi government, Belaruss dictator Lukashenko,
Margaret Thatcher, and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet as he fought extradition to
trial in Spain through a UK-based ‘NGO’ client named Chilean Reconciliation
Movement (sounds familiar? Ever heard of Yingluck’s Amnesty Bill, which started
the avalanche of Shutdown Bangkok protest?). Bell Pottinger was also known as
Bell Pottinger Sans Frontierres. (Talk of expropriation of NGO dash; you can’t get a more cynical name than
that.) Bell Pottinger Public Affairs is another of its manifestations,
reportedly with “nuclear clients”.
The British PR Association has
withdrawn its PR license when Bell Pottinger finally went one atrocity too far with
the ol’ ‘Evil Elite’ storyline, this time with more obvious racist overtones to
suit the context, in the service of South African oligarchs. This only came to
light after the SA opposition complained to the association. Thaksin’s
opposition, political party or ordinary people, do not have the knowhow or the
strings to lodge such a complaint. But no need to fret for Yingluck; other
capable hands in her brother’s service will no doubt take good care of her.
There’s always Kissinger Associates, said to specialize in “advice on dealing
with governments & entering markets.”
After a long silence, Yingluck is
resurfacing with ‘spotted shopping at…’ snaps on social media, most memorably
just outside Harrods, wearing (according to a fashionista quoted on New TV 18 evening news) “a Prada suede jacket, a Pucci
purple scarf and a magenta limited edition Hermes croc skin Birkin bag worth
7.1 to 8 million baht [USD 270,000]”. This
is some serious retail therapy, or she’s just back to her old self before her
brother demanded the impossible of her.
Yingluck outside Harrods with her “7-8 million baht”
magenta croc skin Birkin
Meanwhile
to the delight of people seriously hoping for the amendment of Article 112, the
gift that keeps on giving for the likes of Bell Pottinger, the cops at Chana-Songkram
police station (Khao San road’s precinct, more used to dealing with rowdy
tourists) have accepted a lese majeste against King Naresuan the Great
complaint made by two retired army generals against self-professed royalist
& royal critic Sulak Sivaraksa. They’re upset with a lecture he gave on 5
October 2014 which had the temerity to question the heroic deeds of the 16th
century king.
This is a miracle, I thought, a
blessing from heaven, so monstrously absurd; it will bring the core problem—the
Gordian Knot (which we will have to just cut, as Alexander did, rather than
untie)—of our society out to the public forum.
From long experience of being
blacklisted as well as banned, I can attest that being banned in itself is not
enough to enlist support and sympathy from those with the power to make a
difference. The struggle for freedom of expression is not the point. For many
journalists, curators and academics the most important questions are: who is
being banned and who is doing the banning? If neither protagonist fits the
proscribed script, then it is not a story. The banning alone is not enough to highlight
the issue.
In terms of careerist benefits, being
banned by the military is of course the most desirable; if like me you’re
banned by a ‘democratic’ regime that funds academic seminars and employs
international PR firms, then you must be drowned in horseshit & barred from
the conversation.
Ajarn Sulak’s case ticks all the
right boxes. For the choruses, the absurdist victimization of such a high
profile person lends us the best possible context in which to tackle this
question once & for all: why is history private domain?
This pink house still remembers:
fresh marigolds for King Bhumibol,
Sathorn area, 1 Nov 2017
To me, there’s actually no
question. We have the right & the responsibility—the duty, even—to
constantly bear witness, to examine & reexamine our own history. No one has
the right to stop us from trying to understand ourselves. Ajarn Sulak’s lawyer
can cite the Central Administrative Court’s dismissal of our right to visually reference
October 6 in our Thai Macbeth film ‘Shakespeare Must Die’ while, to
quote from the verdict:
“[The
Court] sees that even though many Thai films have used past Thai history in
which there was conflict among the people of the nation in their films, but the
aforesaid past Thai history is history that occurred very many years ago so
that Thai people of the present day can no longer trace from the story whether
any person in the aforesaid history has any connection to or were actual
relatives of theirs or not and in what way. Therefore the aforementioned films
[evidently a reference to the ‘Suriyothai-Naresuan’ series of films cited
by the plaintiffs as being more violent yet were widely released with
‘Recommended’ rating to which whole classes of schoolchildren were sent
to learn from] do not cause hatred and vengeance to arise, unlike the two
plaintiffs’ film which brings in the violent events on 6 October 1976, which is
a contemporary event, as part of the film with the length of the aforementioned
scene extending to over two minutes, which would naturally cause resentment
among the relatives of those who lost their lives or who were part of the
aforesaid event, causing vengeful and hateful feelings to arise, which may
become the spark for disunity among the people of the nation.”
In other words, director Mom Chao
[His Serene Highness Prince] Chatrichalerm Yugala who made historical epics of
the Ayuthaya era at a time of great conflict in the nation has that cinematic
right because there are no close relatives to get upset about what happened
over 400 years ago—alas except the soldiers who have adopted King Naresuan the
Great as their ‘Royal Father’ & feel affronted by any doubt concerning the
authenticity of the ‘Legend of King Naresuan’, to use the name of the
series of films obviously referred to.
Crowds visiting the Royal Crematorium,
27 Nov 2017
Now
another Ayudhya historical epic is playing on TV, on 3 channels at once, the also
star-studded drama ‘Sri Ayodhya’ by Mom Luang [the Honourable]
Pandevanop Devakul, a friendly veteran director who once told me how much he’d
love to adapt ‘Macbeth’ himself. Elaborating on his vision for the meet
the witches scene, he said, “My drunken Macbeth would sway to the side of a
road for a piss in a tall sugarcane field, and as he unzips his pants, the 3
transvestite witches would appear, dressed to the nines…” I do hope he commits
this to film one day. But perhaps he already has, with ‘Sri Ayodhya’,
having chosen to focus on a much more interesting reign, the time of Khun
Lhuang Khee Ruen [the “Royal Leper Lord”] just before the fall of Ayuthya. His
CP-funded loosely historical costume drama is shot mostly at Ancient City theme
park and Ayudhya World Heritage Site.
An early English-speaking scene
has Laotian-Australian Thai matinee idol Ananda Everingham as a hip history
professor in denim shirt and tie taking his international students around the
haunted ruins of once glorious Ayudhya. The pacing and story-telling is much
more flamboyant than the Naresuan epics. Along with sudden Tiffany-style
song and dance interludes to enliven the historical earnestness, the director’s
take is clearly Ayudhya as an idea, a lost thing of beauty, encapsulated by a
ghostly maiden in a sabai [Thai dupatta]
who stalks the leading actor of a movie being shot in Ayudhya (leaving flowers
for him to find, etc.), who happens to be Ajarn Ananda’s best friend. A
storyline then develops concerning flashbacks to past kingly incarnations.
If I’d made either ‘Sri
Ayodhya’ or the Naresuan epics, they would at the very least be
viewed with grave suspicion and most likely be banned or even charged with lese
majeste, though hopefully not because, unlike the directors of these historical
dramas, I have no royal title.
Grand Palace wall with Royal Crematorium
in b/g on 6 Jan 2018 at 9.24 pm
How
can anyone, any state or institution claim to own our story, our identity, our
oft-cited national dignity & pride? How can you claim to own our pain &
our dreams? What kind of megalomania is this insistence on one version of the
story of this land, of this world? Are we dumb, voiceless beasts?
If you’re not merely pretending
to believe, but truly believe, that people are equally entitled to basic human
rights & dignity, you must accept the bare fact that history belongs to us
all, the history of the ordinary man as well as the history of kings. In a
speech to a roomful of school kids in advance of Children’s Day, and I hope
he’s serious, PM Prayuth said the study of Thai history and comparative history
are vital for the development of sustainable democracy. Amen. Fix the lese
majeste law & end the banning of films, so we could have our equivalent of
‘The King’s Speech’, ‘Victoria & Abdul’ or even the long-overdue
Thai version of ‘The King & I’.
Absurd cases like this one are usually
filed to muzzle the person being charged. Their meritless nature doesn’t prevent them
from becoming exploited as a sword of Damocles, to hang motionless above the
person until it’s needed to shut him or her up on something else entirely. It’s
likely then that they want to prevent Ajarn Sulak from speaking out about
something other than a battle in 1593.
Dark road newly painted, on a
chilly Christmas night in Chiangmai, 2017
Not
only lese majeste but the criminal libel law against non-royal persons, entailing
serious jail time, is also exploited in this way, most notably by Thaksin,
whose lawyers have filed libel charges against uncountable people despite being
himself a self-exiled fugitive from the law.
They
were still doing this as recently as a couple of months ago, to senior
journalist Sermsuk Kasitipradit & ex-senator & journalist Somchai
Sawaengkarn merely for saying on TV that Yingluck was in London.
Thaksin’s
lawyers have even filed such a complaint against me (sorry if I’ve already told
you this), not in the city centre where the alleged offence occurred on the
main protest stage at Patumwan intersection in February 2014, but at a police
station in Nontaburi, a so-called ‘redshirt stronghold’, whose summons arrived
at my house exactly one year to the day of the alleged offence. I duly appeared
there to be fingerprinted—all 10 fingers—in greasy black ink alongside my host,
TV anchorwoman Anchalee ‘Pong’ Paireerak, who was responsible for inviting me
to explain to Shutdown protesters Thaksin’s web of PR and lobbyist firms, why
the Western media ignore or even malign their incredible protest & always portray
him as ‘the good guy’, why Thaksin the businessman is not really anti-monarchy
and is unlikely to want to amend the lese majeste law, whose draconian
existence only serves to burnish his freedom-fighter aura while damaging rather
than protecting the monarchy.
After
questioning, the police at the army bunker-guarded station, some of whom wore
the official red ‘Truth Today’ polo shirts, have not charged us, so far.
Perhaps they agree the case is meritless or were intimidated by the way I wiped
my ink-stained fingers on their cutesy welcome sticker of a cartoon girl in
Thai dress giving a wai in front of the Ladies, in which no soap had
been provided. Nevertheless, it hangs over us, just as it’s meant to. Ajarn Sulak’s alleged lese majeste against a 16th
century king has taken 3 years to be activated.
Like
many people, I had high hopes of this absurdist case. One couldn’t design a
more promising context to force Thai society to confront the central question
of the ordinary man’s right to freely examine Thai history, as well as the
obvious need to amend the much-abused lese majeste law, so detrimental to the
monarchy itself as well as the development of authentic, organic democracy in
Thailand.
The story that emerges after checking and
cross-checking is not encouraging, however. I now know enough not to expect
from the case any such harvest of sincere debate. And so we continue to look
elsewhere for the truthful reckoning that we so long for. The case is to be
decided in military court on January 17. I could be wrong; I hope I’m wrong.
And now
China considers instituting lese majeste legislation to protect “national
heroes & martyrs”.
Talking
of national taboos, this past October 6 the National Film Archive invited me to
join a panel headlined ‘Oct 6 in Thai cinema: the memory they want us to
forget’, as part of their day-long commemoration
of the October 6 Massacre, with some fascinating clips of past October films,
new short films including ‘The Two Brothers’, a moving documentary on
the 2 electricians lynched & hung on a red gate to nowhere 2 days before
October 6; the reenactment of their hanging
on the protest stage at Thammasart was a pretext for the storming of the
university by anti-communist fanatics & the ensuing massacre. A screening of this year’s Supanahongse [Thai Oscars] Best Picture, ‘Dao Khanong’,
ended the programme. The film’s director Anocha Suvichakornpong was also on the
panel, along with Archive curator Putthapong Cheamrattonyu and curator &
co-moderator Sudarat Musikawong of Mahidol University.
Tosagan or Ravana in a suit in ‘Gao Yod’ [‘9-Headed’,
1977),
at National Film Archive on 6 Oct 2017
There were amazing images of or
inspired by October 14 & October 6. The 10-headed demon king, Tosagan
(’10-necked’ meaning “10 Headed One”, the name of Thai Ramayana’s Ravana),
dressed in a business suit, dances his way through the thronging chaos of our
painful October histories in ‘Gao Yod’ [‘9-Headed’-direct
unofficial translation] from 1977. The use of the marching song, ‘Su Mai
Thoy’ (“Fight with No Retreat” composed by October 14 student leader
Seksan Prasertkul) during street protest scenes in the documentary about the
heroism of the women workers at the Hara factory astonished quite a few people,
especially young people who only know of this song as the Shutdown Bangkok
anthem. They didn’t know the song was already encrusted with history. Frankly
the whole programme by the state enterprise, lovingly curated by Putthapong Cheamrattonyu
& Sudarat Musikawong, could form the basis for ‘Shakespeare Must Die’s
appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court. Look how many films have been made
about October 14 & 6! Why are we alone disallowed?
At the start of the talk Anocha
shared the news that the military had banned her film from screening at the
independent cinema Warehouse 30 that very evening; an odd development considering the same film was being screened
by the National Film Archive simultaneously right after our discussion, and
that ‘Dao Khanong’ [official English title: ‘By The Time It Gets Dark’]
has also been playing on TV many times as part of the Thai movie channel’s
October programme, alongside ‘Horror University’, which is how I saw
both films. ‘Dao Khanong’ also had another screening earlier the same
day at Thammasart as part of the university’s October 6 commemorative events
without any problems whatsoever. Though
Anocha said the military had banned the film from screening for the whole month
of October, Bangkok Post film critic Kong Rithdee who has twice written about
this says the local police had ordered the ban. But by whose authority? Since
2008 police are no longer in charge of censorship or empowered to ban film.
MV director Chardchakaj Waikawee
surrounded by soldiers on his Facebook page
Other
unofficial mystery banning much hyped by the media includes fake banning as a
self-promotional tool. Exhibit A: the Fake Banning of the Music Video. An MV
director with the name of Chardchagaj Waikawee [“Brilliant-Nature
Quick-witted Poet”] who proclaimed the “banning” of his music video
by posting a photo of himself bravely flashing V for Victory despite being
surrounded by soldiers in uniform, who had apparently summoned him for the
much-desired ‘badge of honour’ “attitude adjustment”. A friend of his then says
that the photo’s from his dad’s funeral—the guy was never in detention; he was
merely sitting at a military funeral. Turns out the MV had been withdrawn
because, instead of setting up his own neon sign, the director had shown the
real live location’s actual sign, and proceeds to reveal the doorway as the
entrance to a brothel full of pole-dancing lingerie models, so the owner
threatened to sue because he said his place is a bar, not a brothel.
Earlier, 2 galleries, Ver and
Cartel, took down their exhibitions some days before the official end, after
being told to remove some photos by some soldiers. One of the photographers involved, Harit
Srikhao, has few details to tell of the incident. “I wasn’t there. I just got a
phone call from the gallerist at Ver informing me that soldiers came in to take
down some of the photos. The reason given was they could be interpreted as a
violation of 112 [lese majeste].”
But the photos had been showing
for a month already, right?
“No. This happened 3-4 weeks
after the opening. The gallery said they didn’t want problems. Since they didn’t
want problems, I went along with that. I didn’t release any news and didn’t
give any interview,” he said, adding, “I know some artists use controversy as a
career path, but I don’t claim to be a political artist. I prefer ambiguity, so
I didn’t expect trouble. The gallery’s PR made it seem more political, and then
Prachatai news website made it seem even more political, so the soldiers came
to see.”
So without an official order and
no identifying who they were, at whose behest and what agency they came from,
in whose name, under what law, these ostensibly ‘political’ galleries obeyed
the verbal order without a fight. I would not have obeyed an order
unsubstantiated by signed official documentation, and perhaps not even then. Unlike
with cinema, there is no legally-sanctioned Art Censorship Board, so how can
you censor art? Hell, how can you censor art anyway?
Harit could now parley ‘being
banned by the military’ into a glittering international art career, but despite
such gains he says he feels damaged by it. “It’s easy to label people and
misunderstand them. Now I’m seen as being on the opposite side of the military.
I have good friends who are military cadets, and even they now view me with
doubt. I feel like a pawn in someone else’s game.”
One of the apparently “objectionable” photographs
of army cadets from Harit Srikhao’s ‘White Wash’ series
.
Closer
to home my producer & partner Manit Sriwanichpoom was banned twice in
December. First by the Bangkok Post, which refused to publish our right to
reply after printing a story that said our film was a “political allegory”
banned for “inappropriateness”. Given that we’re involved in a lawsuit with the
censors on behalf of all Thai filmmakers & need to be meticulous with the facts,
I have to print the correction here since Postbag has banned our letter:
27 November 2017
To: Postbag
Dear Sir,
Please permit me to respond to
certain inaccuracies in ‘Redefining what’s “appropriate”’ (27 Nov
2017, Life section, by Melalin Mahavongtrakul), your feature on Tanwarin
Sukkhapisit’s ‘Insects in the Backyard’ and the history of film
censorship, which mentioned that our film ‘Shakespeare Must Die’, “a
political allegory based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, was banned…the censors cited
“public order” and “inappropriateness”, referring to the film’s allusion to the
period of the Oct 6, 1976, massacre.”
‘Shakespeare Must Die’ was not
banned for “inappropriateness”, but as “a threat to national security”
and “offensive to national dignity”. It is also not a “political allegory”
based on ‘Macbeth’, but a literal, word for word adaptation of ‘Macbeth’,
so literal that the film’s English subtitles are by William Shakespeare. As
such it is, like ‘Macbeth’, a study of megalomania, not a political
satire on Thaksin Shinawatra or Hun Sen or any one specific dictator. (A scene
inspired by an iconic photograph of the October 6 massacre is indeed cited as a
possible cause of national disunity, despite the fact that many Thai films on
both October 14 & October 6, including this year’s Supannahongse awards
Best Picture ‘Dao Khanong’, have not been banned, which clearly shows
that October 6 is not the real reason.)
Like Khun Tanwarin, we sued
the censors in Administrative Court and, like Tanwarin, we lost. Unlike her
however, we have appealed the verdict. Ironically on October 6 we received
official notification that our appeal has been accepted for consideration by
the Supreme Administrative Court on 22 Sept 2017.
Thank you sir for allowing us
to clarify these facts.
Yours
Sincerely.
Manit
Sriwanichpoom
‘Shakespeare
Must Die’ producer
Then his December 4th
submission, for his regular ‘Art & Culture’ column in Siam Rath Weekly
Review, which he’s been writing for almost 20 years, was deemed too scary by
the magazine. The verboten topic is hairstyle. It was
inspired by a viral video of a 3 year old crying her eyes out over Daddy’s new
haircut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
If we can’t object to a haircut and a 3 year old child can feel
the oppressiveness and injustice of it all, you know we have far bigger
problems than elections. The echo chambers know it even as they continue to
shout down the real story, some out of greed, some out of spite and some out of
cowardice. We should ask these people: why do the rest of us have to suffer the
consequences of your evil? A plain question with sane answers, but we’re just
too tired to ask.
‘Our Next Step’ moral & morale campaign
on the skytrain platform:
“Love [Royal] Dad with action, not with words”
All
this is inspiring me to see the much-hyped apocalypse with new eyes. For
deceivers or, in Biblical lingo, those in service to the Great Deceiver,
Revelations are certainly the end of their world. Apocalyse—the Unveiling—is
the shattering of mirrors. Their psyche cannot handle it; this is death to
them. In this death is liberation, but they can’t see it. They unravel and lose
their minds, manifesting their chaotic inner state in scary harmful ways.
If lies make us tired to hear
them, what must their effect be on those who breed and repeat them? This leads
to the next inevitable question and possible conclusion: it must be exhausting
to be a fraud. The lies you live and then the constant terror of being found
hollow.
What is their coping mechanism? The
fake newsman & the fraud have to demolish everything and everyone who might
remind the world, by their existence, what truth and authenticity look like.
There must be no dangerous comparisons; the real thing must not be permitted to
exist. Next comes the need to justify their obliteration of truth and would-be
truth-tellers with the liberal use of tar and feathers, in their own minds as
well as in the world that they control. Thus, to the soundtrack of wolves
howling at the blood moon, is the selfie demonic possession complete.
Here’s to howling alongside you, my dear.
With Love from Bangkok,
Ing Kanjanavanit
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A pioneer of environmental investigative reporting, Ing Kanjanavanit is a filmmaker, painter & bilingual writer, best known in Thai for the cult classic travelogue/handbook for environmental activism, ‘Khang Lhang Postcard’ (‘Behind the Postcard’) under the nom de guerre Lharn Seri Thai (136)—‘Free Thai Descendent/Force 136’, to evoke the Free Thai Movement against fascist forces during World War 2, which fought for the Allies then after the war was betrayed by the Allies. Sadly, she no longer attends Free Thai merit-making rites, not since Thaksin’s redshirts appropriated the name & equated Thaksin with Free Thai leader Pridi Banomyong, which is a travesty & a sacrilege.
A pioneer of environmental investigative reporting, Ing Kanjanavanit is a filmmaker, painter & bilingual writer, best known in Thai for the cult classic travelogue/handbook for environmental activism, ‘Khang Lhang Postcard’ (‘Behind the Postcard’) under the nom de guerre Lharn Seri Thai (136)—‘Free Thai Descendent/Force 136’, to evoke the Free Thai Movement against fascist forces during World War 2, which fought for the Allies then after the war was betrayed by the Allies. Sadly, she no longer attends Free Thai merit-making rites, not since Thaksin’s redshirts appropriated the name & equated Thaksin with Free Thai leader Pridi Banomyong, which is a travesty & a sacrilege.
Below is the Art & Culture
column slated for 4 Dec 2017 edition of Siam Rath Weekly Review, but deemed too
scary:
‘Neo-Mahadthai
Style’
by Manit Sriwanichpoom
Out
of the blue recently around mid-November, Police General Chakthip Chaijinda
issued a lightning order for all patrolling police officers to wear their hair
cut short and orderly, especially while in uniform, to reflect a strict
adherence to discipline; all unit leaders are told to lead by example.
The
result was rapid. Police officers in every precinct have all shorn their hair,
leaving their heads with smooth white sides like an airport runway. Anyone
watching the news on TV has surely noted this bizarre change. Since they’ve
been unable to reform the police, the hairstyle change will have to suffice; at
least the people can see some real results here.
It’s
not just the Thai police that are displaying this sudden tightening of
discipline. Brave military commanders of all the armed forces have also ordered
the rank and file under their command to adopt this hairstyle. It appears that
no one dares to disobey this order. The only protest came from a police
officer’s little daughter, who wouldn’t stop crying at the sight of her daddy’s
new hairstyle. Her mother probably thought it was cute that her 3 year old was
throwing such a bitter tantrum over Daddy’s new hair, so she filmed it and
posted the video on Facebook, gaining an overwhelming number of likes.
Some
media outlets have attempted to investigate the source of it, but no one seems
to have found the definitive answer. All that’s certain is that the new
hairstyle first came to public notice during the recent Royal Cremation
ceremonies for King Rama IX, when the people first saw it sported by all Royal
Pages, the Royal Guards and members of the Royal Household Bureau, marking a
clear change from before.
Actually,
the new ‘White Sides’ hair dubbed by some the ‘Phra-Raja-Niyom’
[“royally-favoured”] style, is not an entirely new thing. Anyone who revisits
the book of photographs from the time of King Rama IV [King Mongkut], ‘Siam
through the lens of John Thompson, 2408-09’, published last year [2016], can
see on page 65 a photo of King Chomklao [Mongkut]’s merit-making procession to
[Wat Bho] monastery, an on page 70, the hair-knot cutting [coming of age]
ritual for Prince Chulalongkorn [the future Rama V], that the bearers of the
royal sedan chairs all wore their hair in the ‘Mahadthai’ style, the
short-back-and-sides well-known to us, with the top worn long and parted into
bird wings. The big strong oarsman on page 61 also clearly sports this
hairstyle.
The
difference between Rama IV era Mahadthai style as seen in the British
photographer John Thompson’s pictures and the white-sides style of today is
that the new style’s top is shorter, 2-3 cm short, in fact, rendering it
impossible to comb into the traditional elegant bird wings. Accordingly, the
new hairstyle should be called ‘New Mahadthai’ or ‘Neo-Mahadthai’, symbolizing
a return to the traditional mores of Siam even before the days of absolute
monarchy [official absolute monarchy began with King Mongkut’s son, Rama V,
Anna’s star pupil]. This nostalgic phenomenon is intensely interesting.
This
past November as news of the new Mahadthai hair began to spread, various media
made comparisons with North Korean hairstyles. Why North Korea? Because they
have Kim Jong Un, the young Dear Leader with the world-renowned Mahadthai-like
hairstyle, namely white sides with a mop top, a unique trademark of the Red
Ginseng dictator. Kim Jong Un has furthermore issued instructions on how the
citizens, male and female, should wear their hair, with fifteen styles to
choose from. Such satirical references by the [Thai] media seems directed at
the policy to force all military and police officers to sport New Mahadthai
hair nationwide, reminiscent of the ‘Rath-Niyom Mhai’ [“new fascist state
nationalism”] policies announced by Field Marshall P. [Pibulsongkram, WW II
Thai fascist dictator], consisting of “12 state-sanctioned rules” [for citizens
of the new type of state] in 1938.
In
that period, H.E. Field Marshall P. specified the required dress code. “..Those
who would be known as one of good culture, on his head must be a hat. The
stricture making the hat a compulsory part of dress began to cause complication
from unfamiliarity, frequently resulting in comical incidents. Ordinary folk
attempting to deal with government agencies found that the hatless were denied
service. Ordinary people had to resort to anything to put on their heads in
place of a hat. Some folk’s hats were accordingly water-bowls or paper folded
in the shape of a hat. People suffered because some had no money to buy a hat.
Meanwhile royalty also suffered because they felt oppressed by nonsensical
orders. When someone advised her to wear a hat, one said testily:
“…These
days I hardly feel like myself, and now they want to mess with my head and my
ears…No, I won’t wear it… If you want me to wear one, cut off my head, set it
down somewhere and put one on it yourself.”
These
are the words of Her Majesty Queen Srisavarintira Barom Rajadevi Phra Panvassa
Ayigajao, royal daughter of King Chomklao [Mongkut], one of the royal consorts
of King Chulalongkorn, in response to the person who advised her to wear a
hat.” (From Silpa-Wattanatharm magazine, August 2003)
Rocker turned national inspiration Toon
Bodyslam
[photo from Drama Gazip website]
Neo Mahadthai hair on an aide of
Privy Counselor Chairman Gen. Prem
Such
commands claiming the preservation of order and discipline are in reality
merely the abuse of power by those above upon those under their command. When
commanders are not so smart and lack real ability, they resort to “order and
discipline” to tame their underlings into obedience, wasting time on petty
issues like hairstyles and facial hair, dress, shoes, more than on their
essential tasks.
A
clear and obvious example, the polar opposite of the New Mahadthai hairstyle,
is [Thai rocker] Toon Bodyslam, Thai national hero of the hour, who’s giving
his all to run from Betong in the south to Mae Sai in furthest north to raise
funding for hospitals. Toon wears his hair and moustache long like a hippie; he
is thin like a junkie. If he were judged from appearances according to military
and police standards, they’d say he lacks discipline because he’s let his hair
and moustache grow long against regulations, and his figure is not muscular
like a good macho soldier. This would be a very superficial assessment of Toon.
In fact, Toon is extremely disciplined. If he were not, he wouldn’t be able to
run such a distance. I reckon he has
more discipline than several military and police men put together. Running
thousands of kilometers requires a body and mind with the highest level of
endurance, discipline and threshold for pain.
Thus
I’d like to tell our leaders in the military and the police that order and
discipline are not measured by hairstyle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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All Photographs by Ing K unless otherwise stated.
All Photographs by Ing K unless otherwise stated.
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