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It is interesting how fashion has evolved amongst the
current anti-government movement here in Thailand. The visit of their leader, Suthep, into our
neighborhood today was fascinating. He
walked by on the street just below my window while greeting his local fans. I got to rub shoulders with some of these fans
later, and I think I’m belatedly witnessing an intriguing emergence of a new “style,”
a kind of polite quasi-guerilla chic that is getting very intense. It’s a bit like the earlier Red Shirt style,
but not as hick or thuggish, kind of an urban pose that really does have some
authentic cool.
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Some background: The
anti-government movement is primarily an anti-Thaksin one, and it only exploded
into vast numbers late last year when the present government – a puppet
government directed by the exiled convicted fugitive Thaksin and headed by his
majority-elected sister – tried to sneak through a complete amnesty bill at
4am, a bill that would have erased Thaksin’s own corruption convictions.
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This anti-government push is mainly a middle-class movement
of outrage at this – with the traditional ossified conservative elite giving it
their blessings while themselves lacking the guts to march in the streets. (Thailand’s politics is much more complicated
than can be explained here.)
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It is sweltering here now during our Hot Season. It was 100 degrees F today, without even
factoring in the unbelievably hellish humidity.
This morning I got the rumor that Suthep would be visiting EGAT, the
electric company headquarters next to us.
Out of my window I saw his fans waiting for him and trying to get into
whatever shade they could – not that it helps that much. Suthep finally arrived, greeting people just
like he is often shown on TV. There was
happy Thai music and an air of celebration.
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Important note:
Suthep’s once-huge protest crowds have been decreasing remarkably since
last year. Some of that might be because
of the heat and the lack of results, but it is more probably because his rhetoric
and policy statements have, in time, been veering toward the weird.
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Originally, he championed the Rule of Law against unlimited
majority caprice (reminding me of James Madison’s warning, in The
Federalist Papers, against any unrestrained “tyranny of the majority”). Suthep’s point that Thailand’s legal system needs
radical reform is widely accepted, and the egregious corruption of the “Thaksin
regime” has angered so many by its undisguised graft in the name of “populism.”
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But now Suthep has uttered vague suggestions of “appointed”
authorities (appointed by whom?) to reform the constitutional regime. What in the hell does he mean? Does he want to have himself appointed the
Great Lawgiver? (Many Red Shirts suspect
that.) What are his proposals? Rule of whose Law? (That’s a question.) His vision is nebulous, and his credibility has
plummeted even amongst the native Thai, Western-educated analysts here who had
once championed him.
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Back to fashion. In
the early Suthep-led protests late last year, I saw middle class folks in their
normal office work clothes: women in
skirts or suits and men in slacks and sports shirts, if not in more formal
suits with ties. In the early mass
marches throughout Bangkok, one could see this same dress code as protesters
left their jobs at noon lunch break and/or after hours – after all, these were
professional working people.
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Today I saw a difference.
For one thing, it’s hotter. For
another, as the former vast numbers of protestors has dropped, these remaining
are the Hard Core. They’ve been marching
throughout Bangkok for months, never giving up, and now it’s hotter than
blazing Hell. I had to go out in the
heat today to buy bags of ice and beverages, so I mixed with the protestors and
their “Guards” on my normally un-crowded local sidewalks.
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The “Guards” in the anti-government movement are
self-appointed security people who guard Suthep against being kidnapped by
government forces or hurt by Red Shirt thugs.
They all have a distinct aura of “cool,” dressed mostly in black,
sometimes with fashionable (and expensive!) bullet-proof vests.
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(Shit! I’m dragging my sorry ass, sweating buckets in the
heat, and these folks are often wearing black long-sleeved jackets
in the sun! I really must be an
alien.)
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The Guards sport a lot of black military-style boonie hats,
fighting harnesses, and combat boots, and often they have some kind of
walky-talky radios with big antennas clipped at their shoulder. Awesome!
They swagger around and are, without a doubt, the coolest kids on the
block.
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I must admit that the Guards were also rather polite, which
surprised me. I was an overheated farang,
blinded by sweat, stumbling along the sidewalk with bags of ice, and it was
hard going for me because it was so densely crowded with Guards. (I’m usually a solitary walker who walks fast
on empty sidewalks and avoids crowds.)
One Guard saw my plight and engineered a path for me, telling his
buddies that someone needed to get through.
Quite gentlemanly of him.
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But the height of contemporary protest-chic fashion was
witnessed later when the rally broke up and everyone was heading home in the
heat. The hard core rally folk were more
colorful, but were primarily dressed in practical clothing for the long hot
day. Blue jeans or fatigues were the
norm, even for all the ladies, and shirts were often of brilliant colors and
offbeat cut. They reminded me of latter
day hippies, but not nearly as pathetic as the Greenwich Village pseudo-freaks
in the late 60s where all the colorful plastic people posed and pranced all
about. These were serious protestors in
for the long haul and dressing for the weather (like authentic children of the
Earth).
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Sun protection was all-important. Everyone had some kind of head covering, and
this really distinguished the veteran protestor from the raw boot of yesterday.
Stylish cowboy hats were common, usually
light colored and very wide-brimmed.
Many people had towels over their heads and necks to block sun and to
soak up sweat. (This reminds me of my
first day in Vietnam, seeing Marines wearing boonie hats with towels around
their necks, struggling on under the tropical sun.) Many today looked like colorful Arabs. One guy had a baseball type hat with a
beautifully colored cannabis leaf cluster in front, and it sparkled in the
sun. (Is there a more broadly
libertarian element here within this mix that I don't know about?)
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Boonie hats, sometimes colorful but mostly brown/ olive drab,
often had colorful sweatbands tied around them.
I can definitely relate. I don’t
usually wear a hat when out and about, but if it really hits the fan and I
must, I often wear a camo sweatband under my broad-brimmed boonie
hat. I guess I’m just not as fashionable
as these hipsters. I must be getting
old.
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Many of these folks looked like gypsies. The lady protestors each had uniquely
colorful combinations making up their sun-hats, and everyone was making an
individual fashion statement. Or perhaps
they were also trying to beat the heat as best they could while they trudged on
toward their political ideal. Gotta hand
it to them. It was something to
see.
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-Zenwind.
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