Yellow-green-multicolor-no color-white masks

While some of the media seems to want to maintain the facade that the small group of people who have taken to wearing Guy Fawkes masks are some kind of new ginger group on the royalist side of politics, the fact is that each report on them shows they little more than a new political gimmick being tried by the same people who were the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the multicolors/no colors and so on.

The Bangkok Post reports on the white masks as “faceless men and women” who “are making a bold showing on social media and trying to rally support on the streets.” Some political pundits – almost all of them from the royalist/anti-Thaksin Shinawatra coalition, reckon this is a “new style of political activism.”

For example, veteran People’s Alliance for Democracy activist Suriyasai Katasila, now coordinator of the Green Politics group “predicted it [the white mask group] would be a more powerful social movement than the multi-coloured group formed in 2010 to counter the red shirt supporters of Thaksin.” That isn’t too difficult as the multicolors were a fringe group of ultra-royalists. Suriyasai is then reported to have had this tautological “insight”: “if the movement gained popularity the government would not be able to remain in power.”

The claims for white masks being “new” or using “new” political technologies are simply wrong and mostly intent on propagandizing for the anti-Thaksin cause. In fact, both red shirts and yellow shirts have used social media for some time, and various political events have been organized via social media. Even the use of the white masks isn’t new. Think of flash mobs, the facelessness masks of some months ago in support of free expression or the flash dancing of February:

The more that is published about the “new” group, the more they appear to be recycled yellow shirts and support, in the words of the Post, “has been modest.” Those who speak as members of the group sound very PAD-like. For example, one says they aim to ”encourage the silent majority to rise up and be aware how evil the Thaksin system is.” That core member acknowledged the membership “came from previous and current incarnations of anti-Thaksin groups such as the multi-coloured shirt group, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and supporters of the Democrat Party.” Another member “said he was also a member of the multi-coloured shirt group that opposed Thaksin in 2010.”

And the reason for trying a new political gimmick is crustily old: “We love our nation and we love our royal institution.”