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 * Rough Draft**




 * 1st Revision**

**2nd Revision**

**Final**

Bangkok Burning: From Smiles to Ashes by Keeratika Lertnamwongwan, Global Indian International School

Bangkok. The land of sun, abundant smiles, fluorescent-colored taxi’s, night clubs and peace. The idea of there being a violent uproar in Bangkok was as absurd an idea as Thais not pronouncing their ‘r’s’ as ‘l’s’. Well, at least it was before 2008.

That was when the trouble began. That was when the safety of my childhood hometown was put at stake. Chaos, uncertainty and the threat of civil war swept over my birthplace.

According to Wikipedia, it started with a clash between two sets of political parties: The PAD (People’s Alliance for Democracy) and the PPP (The People’s Power Party), and later between the UDD (the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship) and the TRT (Thai Rak Thai).

Basically, it was between the ‘yellow shirts’ and the ‘red shirts’.

The yellows oppose the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was driven out of Bangkok following the discovery that he had, according to 2Bangkok.com, “changed all this (the hierarchical form of political and economic dependency) by feeding money directly to people at the grassroots level, which bypassed all the traditional hierarchy and upset the existing balance of power”. He also allegedly “embarked on a series of controversial legal moves openly benefiting his family’s companies”; in other words, he took money that wasn’t his. He encountered so much backlash from the citizens that he had to flee the country.

At the end of 2008, the Suvarnabhumi airport was closed due to the ongoing protest of the ‘yellow shirts’, who pledge their allegiance to their much-loved king, Bhumibhol Adulyadej. Since they were rallying for Shinawatra’s permanent removal from office, when the pro-Thaksin government was disbanded by the Thai legal system, the ‘yellow shirts’ had won.

In the early months of 2010, the red-shirts decided to protest against the disbanding of their supported party. The Thai public reaction?

“Again?”

Ankita Sodha, a columnist from ‘Masala!’, said that “I wasn’t too shocked or surprised given that a similar incident happened with the yellow shirts. In November 2008, they camped at Suvarnabhumi International Airport for 10 days.”

To the Thai public, this seemed like just another protest that would die off in no time. Little did they know that this ‘little’ protest would burgeon into a mini-civil war.

The red shirts mainly consisted of the poor and working class population. But why were they willing to lay down their life for one man? There is no answer to this question. Rumor has it that Thaksin paid each person 500 THB each day to the protestors in exchange for their demonstrations. Rumor also has it that many of the protesters, including women and children, were not allowed to leave their rallying spots. Mr Supavad Saicheua, managing director of Phatra Securities, described the red-shirts as “gullible people paid by the former PM to cause trouble.”

The conflict itself was all about propaganda. Anyone unaware of the political situation would think it was a street carnival, with thousands of red-shirts clapping, dancing and singing along to the blast of loud music. Nobody in their right minds would believe that they were protesting, inadvertently setting Bangkok on fire.

Ms. Narisa Lertnamwongwan, Curriculum Coordinator of Singapore International School of Bangkok, described life during those troubled times: “[The danger] depended on where people were. In the areas where there was no protest, life was about as normal as it could get. The only people who were actually affected were those who lived or worked in the areas of unrest.”

When questioned if she had been afraid, she replied, “Not really. It was more of an inconvenience because many roads were closed and there were curfews at 10 P.M. Network connections were also disrupted.” She added that schools were also closed because the parents were worried about the safety of their children.

Mesh Singh, a student from Thai Sikh International School Bangkok, also described his experience as “an inconvenience as my exams got cancelled because of this chaos. No one knew what was happening.”

Ms. Lertnamwongwan expressed similar sentiments, saying that “there was more uncertainty than fear. What next? No one knew and neither could anyone guess. The media was the only source of information but it was more or less speaking only on behalf of the government. No one was giving us a clear balanced picture. The picture was painted as ‘black and white’. Red-shirts were shown as the bad guys while the government was the good cop trying to save the nation.”

Ms. Sodha related her mixed feelings at the incident, saying that “I was experiencing a weird concoction of awe/fear/disbelief/anger, never feeling one or another, but a combination always.” She probably spoke for the entire Thai public; a tense and frustrated mood hung in the air during that period. The conflict sprung up in conversation everywhere, from business meetings to even the games of schoolchildren.

The protests not only affected Bangkok itself, but also local businesses. Mr. Sam, restaurant and tailor shop owner in Koh Chang, an island in the east of Thailand, said that “my businesses depend solely on the tourists that come in for a different experience. Due to this crisis in Bangkok, business fell by half and has not picked up since.”

Chadamas Chinmaneevong of The Bangkok Post reflected this sentiment, saying that “arrivals at Survarnabhumi Airport were down by up to two-thirds of normal levels.”

He added that “for tourists, the feelings they will take home is not one of fear or anger, but rather sadness for the country.”

This idea was seconded by Ms. Sodha, as she said “my fear quickly turns into sadness as we leave; the city will never be the same again, physically and emotionally.”

Many fled. Canadian Mila Brigder said that he “hated to leave the country” and that ‘Thais were very nice people and I don’t know what happened to make them fight each other.”

Is this the end? Many Thais, including myself, believe that it is not. Ms. Sodha agreed: “I don’t think this is the end. It ended too easily. The government has been trying to bring back order to the nation for months to and one fine day, the red-shirts just decide to get up and go home? A little ironic, don’t you think?”

For now, we can only hope for the best.

But the most surprising aspect to me is that life is back to normal. It seems as though Bangkok went from smiles to ashes and back to smiles again. The courage of the citizens is commendable; even after undergoing such physical, mental and emotional trauma, they still came out of the conflict smiling. Ultimately, what touched me the most were the efforts of the citizens; immediately after the ‘civil war’, various civilians and students came out onto the streets to clean up.

Whether the conflict’s truly over, I don’t know. Whether Bangkok will ever be the same again, I don’t know; they might be able to re-build the city physically, but maybe not emotionally. All I know is that Thais will always be Thais. It’s in our blood; I don’t think any other nation would have emerged from such a disaster stronger and more united than before. Bangkok is one. Apart from the political rifts which have divided the nation, the ordinary civilians still stand united. And hopefully, they always will.