Thailand Crisis – End of the Chapter, Not the Story

Picking up the pieces after the two month rally in the center of Bangkok, the focus is largely on material destruction. People weep over the burning of a mall, while the protestors are herded onto buses and trains to return to their provincial homes. The human cost in terms of lives lost, injured, and jobs has been calculated while the trauma and impact of the event has yet to settle into our psyche. While Bangkok remains dynamic and the physical scars of the protest and resulting government attack will no doubt be glossed over within a few months, the underlying issues surrounding the protest have yet to be resolved.

As protestors climbed onto their buses to return home, the overwhelming sense is one of “we will be back, this isn’t over.” A political solution remains elusive, and the sense of anger and disappointment have grown. While a compromise may have been reached, the use of military force by the government, while celebrated by people in the city, will further alienate the government from the countryside where government buildings have been torched. The murder of red leader “Seh Daeng,” also raises questions about the government’s policy of assassinating its own citizens (although truth be told, it is inconclusive who pulled the trigger or who gave the orders). While there was certainly a hard core wing of the red shirt movement that advocated violence, the failure to address red shirt moderates or give them adequate time to shape the movement was a failure of leadership on both sides. While Bangkok is quiet this weekend due to the curfew, it is only a matter of time, before the red shirt movement reconfigures itself.

I remember after the 2006 coup in Thailand, a Vietnamese government official remarked to me along the lines of “What? You want us to be like that?!” For the region and U.S. efforts at democracy promotion, the red shirt protest is a setback. While the demonstration showed how robust Thai civil society is, it is also an example of how messy democracy and relatively free societies can become. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar can (and do) point to the Thai example as a risky way to govern. Democracy advocates in those countries will have greater difficulty in finding a strong functioning democracy in mainland Southeast Asia with which to advocate their governments. If Thailand can navigate its political crisis while pushing economic growth, then it remains an example to its neighbors. However, at this moment, the regimes of various countries in the region can continue to look and promote their own repressive governments as successful.