Over the past two weeks, we have seen royalists and ultra-royalists wearing purple shirt and dress, changed their social media account’s background color to purple, which is the birth color of HRH Princess Sirindhorn, to express their love and solidarity towards the Princess whose royal motorcade was recently honked at by monarchy-reform activist Tawan Tuatulanond.
Tawan is currently facing sedition charges, detained, and on a hunger strike. Police claim she actually obstructed the royal motorcade, thus posing potential danger, a change that Tawan denied.
Those who love and revere the Princess were upset, if not outraged, and wanted the world to know that many stand behind the King’s sister. Inevitably, it became a numbers game – to get as many people as possible to publicly show their loyalty to the Princess. Only thousands have made their royalist stance known so far, however.
Among those calling for more to come out and make themselves visible and make the public see that what was done to the motorcade was unacceptable was Army Chief Gen. Charoenchai Hinthao.
These people want a definitive confirmation that most Thais find it unacceptable – something tricky in the convoluted society where showing public disapproval of the monarchy could lead to a long prison sentence under the draconian lese majeste law, which carries a maximum imprisonment term of 15 years, or a sedition charge as the 20-year-old Tawan is facing. (In a video clip posted by Tawan during the incident, she honked her car and argued with a police officer why they had to let the Princess go first.)
On the royalist side, there are genuine royalists who feel offended and donned purple to publicly express their anger. But there are also the me-too opportunists who benefit from presenting themselves as royalists, or “good people” (khon dee), while they may not be particularly attached to the institution at all.
On the side of those who are critical, if not opposing the monarchy, the situation is truly convoluted due to the risk of violating the royal defamation law. In Thailand, expressing a negative attitude towards the monarchy could also get you fired by your employer and some cases were reported over the past decade.
Unlike in the United Kingdom, there is no critical poll or survey about what the people think about the Thai monarchy. The mainstream Thai media, meanwhile, routinely censor themselves from reporting anything that is even mildly critical or negative about the institution.
Since the May 2014 military coup, some have fled the kingdom, granted political asylum, mostly in the West and particularly in France, and identified themselves as anti-monarchists while vocally using the social media to espouse their republican or federation ideology. Even then, they face threats made by royalists and some in Paris were assaulted by strangers a few years ago though the attackers were arrested.
Most recently, a threat was made by a senior retired police general, saying he could send someone or use his connection with foreign mafia to make these Thai dissidents abroad who speak ill about the monarchy hurt or even killed.
Shockingly, the officer behind the YouTube video was a retired chief of the anti-narcotic police division, Pol. Lt. Gen. Rewat Klinkesorn. It appears he could make such a threat to life with impunity.
I asked French man Yan Marchal, a critic of the Thai monarchy, who was deported from Thailand two years ago for mocking the Thai king what he thought about the threat (he posted it on Facebook a week ago) and he told me:
“If this man gets on the record like this, making threats to use illegal means to threaten or attack exiled foes in foreign countries, and does not get, at the very least, chastised by his hierarchy, then indeed what does it say about the situation in Thailand? It would be one more instance where the rule of law isn’t applied to those who are supposed to enforce it.”
Truth be told, the Move Forward Party was the only major political party which pledged to amend the lese majeste law. They received over 14 million votes, so it could be deduced that 14 million out of 52 million eligible voters want to see the law amended, or at least do not mind seeing it amended.
There are around 70 million Thais and under the current situation, it is simply impossible to know where the majority stand on the issue of monarchy reform simply because true freedom of expression on the issue of the monarchy does not exist in Thailand. An educated guess on how many Thais are true royalists is also almost impossible given the prevailing circumstances.
This is tragic as the powers that be would not allow the public to even make their true feelings known so the society could move appropriately in accordance with the wish of the majority of the people in response to their genuine will.
