Thai Intelligent News, a quirky blog that commentates on Thai news has an interesting report by Tammy (2 November 2009: “Red Shirt ‘Super-Massive’ Social Movement”). There aren’t that many English-language reports available regarding the red shirts’ recruiting and organizing, so this report is interesting for the personal perspective it provides on one event at the [New?] Imperial Department Store. PPT thought the estimate of “about 3,400 Red Shirt clubs with members anywhere from 20-200 per club … in existence” across the country was fascinating, as was the social nature of the political organizing.
While on red shirts, this post at Absolutely Bangkok is also of interest. Chaturon Chaisaeng’s new book Thai Democracy in Crisis: 27 Truths has been getting some attention (see the link to Bangkok Pundit in the story). While there’s not a lot in this post on Chaturon, the summary makes the essentially liberal Thitinan Pongsudhirak sound positively revolutionary, talking of a hundred year crisis (1932-2032), the military-palace alliance and so on.
Then there are the reported comments of “the surprise guest of the event … Alec Bamford who showed no mercy. In a most witty discourse he disassembled Chaturon’s book, mainly criticizing the complete lack of a chapter on human rights, which is the more surprising to Bamford because Chaturon himself is a victim of the abuse of human rights, isn’t he”? Well might Chaturon be criticized for failing to examine human rights. At the same time, Alec was himself a strong supporter of the military coup in 2006, so he has a blind side too.
Both blogs are worth considering.
Update: Kind of complementing these posts, 2Bangkok.com has a series of covers from “red” publications, all attacking Prem Tinsulanonda, the octogenarian Privy Council president. Scroll down a bit for the images for 2 November 2009.
