Image: Sudan, Meroe Necropolis, Boys Running Toward Pyramids
Southeast Asia
Thailand
People have taken to the streets all around the world this year, in spite of a pandemic.
Image: Protesters in Bangkok use umbrellas to protect themselves from water canons
It’s interesting when an opinion of my Thai students turns into a news story, or at least, that’s how it has played out for me. Most Thai students I’ve taught would say that they were fed up with the politics in their country. Admittedly, I was surprised to hear about the ‘lèse-majesté’ law which states that anyone who "defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent" will be severely punished, facing up to 15 years in jail. The law was instated in 1908 and is ambiguous enough as to what constitutes a real threat that authorities have had leeway to enforce it however they like. Since the military coup in 2014, and under the royalist Prime Minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, more than double the number of Thai citizens have been arrested for defamation under the law and only 4% were acquitted of the crime.
I asked the students if they liked the current royal family and they unanimously said, “He lives in Germany, he doesn’t care about us, why should we care about him?” King Maha Vajiralongkorn has a reputation as a “playboy” and squanderer of his wealth. His father, King Bhumibol, is said to have been much loved and reigned for 70 years, but with the lèse-majesté law still in place even after his death, a proper consensus would be hard to gauge. I imagine Bhumibol was Thailand’s Queen Elizabeth II, a stable figurehead steering a country through modernisation. Today, young, educated, middle-class Thai people want more than cultural stability for their country, and the pandemic’s effect on the tourism-reliant economy has highlighted the inequity of a monarchy and its corrupt government.
The mostly leader-less protest movement, which started around July, is for democracy and the resignation of the Prime Minister, and reforms to the power and wealth wielded by the monarchy.
Here’s a great article focussing on a young female protester. You will notice that the motif of the recent Thai protests is the same used after the 2014 coup — a raised three finger salute, taken explicitly from The Hunger Games trilogy, but said to represent the French Revolution ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Image: anti-coup protesters in 2014, [AFP]
Image: student protesters in Bangkok, 2020, [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]
So far, the movement shows no sign of backing down and the prime minister is scrambling to find a way to curb unrest. Read more here.
An interesting account of how LGBTQ+ activists are buoyed by the protests and the intersection of democratic and feminist ideals with queer ones.
Image: Drag Race Thailand Season 2 winner, Angele Anang at the protests
South America
Bolivia
Bolivia has two national flags: the horizontal tricolour and the Wiphala, an Aymara word meaning ‘flag’, that is said to represent the indigenous peoples of the Andes (but not certain groups, like the Mapuche).
Image: the Wiphala
Indigenous activist turned president, Evo Morales, established the Wiphala during his presidency, and you may see it proudly waved again this week as his party, the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) achieves a victory against the right-wing interim government. Morales had been ousted by a military-backed campaign that superficially reasoned it was “preserving” democracy after the president claimed he would run for a fourth (and unconstitutional) term. The US-funded coup sent Morales into exile, and a racist non-Indigenous party took over, led by Jeanine Áñez, who has stated that Indigenous cultural practices are “satanic”. After a year of mismanaging the country and a poor handling of COVID-19, public opinion soured further on the new government.
Read more about the election victory here and here. And about how Twitter “dunked” on lithium lover, Elon Musk, here.
Image: The clock on the House of Congress, La Paz, Bolivia [Rogerio Camboim S A/Flickr]
One of my favourite facts about Bolivia under its 14-year-long Indigenous presidency is how Morales’ Foreign Minister had the numbers on the clock on the House of Congress reversed. The clock face’s usual clockwise direction was taken from the movement of shadow over a sundial in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, it would be the opposite below the equator. This clock was just another symbol of Indigenous sovereignty over the country. Indeed, the Aymara and Quechua positioning of time is also reversed. To indicate the past you point in front of you (what you can see) and the future lies behind you, out of sight.
Other things of interest:
Why New Zealand Rejected Populist Ideas That Other Countries Embraced
The Wait: a podcast/article on refugees stuck in Indonesia waiting to be resettled
On Voting in the US Election — ContraPoints
This week we rewatched Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Only Yesterday and this piece of music by Romanian artist Gheorghe Zamfir is sublime:
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Have a wonderful weekend. Only another week until the Blue Moon!