ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’)

The Museum of Popular History will stage an exhibition at Thammasat University on 6th October, to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre that took place there on 6th October 1976. The exhibition, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’) at Sri Burapha Auditorium, will examine the long-term causes of the massacre, particularly the anti-Communist propaganda prevalent in the media during the 1970s.

Using newspapers and posters from the period, the exhibition will highlight the language and imagery used to demonise the Thammasat students. (Many of the items will also be shown at a similar one-day exhibition, October Stories: Uprising and Strike Back, at Srinakharinwirot University on 17th October.)

Books and supplements related to the 14th October 1973 protests will also be on display, as will the contents of the กล่องฟ้าสาง (‘box of dawn’), a ‘museum in a box’ released in 2021. The poster Just Because You Can’t See It, Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Happen features outlines of the bodies of the two men hanged for protesting against Thanom Kittikachorn’s return from exile. Ladkrabang Politics, a group of students from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Ladkrabang, painted a silhouette of a hanged student — Hangman — alongside a list of the names of the victims of 6th October.

Hangman will be displayed with a folding chair propped up against it, in a reference to a much-reproduced Neal Ulevich photograph of the massacre, and a chair is also featured on the poster advertising the exhibition. As a direct result of the Ulevich photo, this single item of furniture has come to symbolise the entire Thammasat massacre. It also appears, for example, on the cover of 2444, a collection of short stories by Manot Phromsing; and on the cover of the third edition of Kwanchai Dumrongkwan’s Memoirs of October 6, 1976 (มนุษย์ 6 ตุลา).

Hope Space

Hope Space in Bangkok will commemorate the anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University with the ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’) exhibition from 2nd to 27th October. The show features photographs of the events of 1976, and of the 14th October 1973 protest. Contact sheets will be displayed on tables for examination via a loupe.

A photocopy of a complete edition of the infamous 6th October 1976 issue of Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) will also be on display. The front page is also reproduced in the current issue of the journal South East Asia Research (vol. 32, no. 2).

Patporn Phoothong and Teerawat Rujenatham’s short documentary The Two Brothers (สองพี่น้อง) will be screened on the opening day. Silenced Memories (ความทรงจ ไรเสยง), directed by Patporn and Saowanee Sangkara, will be shown on 13th October.

On show alongside the Thammasat exhibition is 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’), a photography exhibition commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tak Bai incident, including a large image of the protesters displayed on an easel. Walai Buppha’s new Tak Bai documentary 20 Years Later will be shown on 20th October, the day after its premiere at TK Park in Narathiwat.

Indelible Memory: 20 Years Tak Bai

This year is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

The government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident, though in defiance of the ban, the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD — ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’) — with its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: Thunska Pansittivorakul’s This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) and Prempapat Plittapolkranpim’s 18 Years. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

In 2023, Patani Artspace held the รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’) exhibition, the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition took place at Silpakorn and Thammasat universities, and Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Tak Bai paintings were shown at the Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก) exhibition. Heard the Unheard featured the personal possessions of seventeen people who died at Tak Bai — including a ฿100 banknote retrieved from the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, Imron — displayed alongside recollections from the victims’ relatives.

Earlier this year, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary, the seventeen artefacts were split between two exhibitions: Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่) at SEA Junction, and Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. The items on display were also photographed in Tak Bai (ลิ้มรสความทรงจำ), edited by Kusra Kamawan Mukdawijitra.

Next week, an expanded version of Indelible Memory will open at TK Park in Narathiwat, where it will be on display for the entire month of October. This exhibition has a particular sense of urgency, as prosecutions for the unlawful killings are finally under way, just weeks before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires. It will include the premiere of 20 Years Later, a documentary directed by Walai Buppha, on 19th October. The film will also be shown on the following day at Hope Space in Bangkok.

Tak Bai photographs were also shown at the Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน) exhibition in 2022. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim, and is reproduced in his book The Patani Art of Struggle (سني ڤتاني چاراو او سها). It was first installed, a few days after the massacre, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, and the grave markers were accompanied by rifles wrapped in white cloth. In 2017, it was recreated at Patani Artspace and then mounted on a plinth containing Pattani soil at the Patani Semasa (ปาตานี ร่วมสมัย) exhibition in Chiang Mai.

Two further installations — Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม) — both include lists of the Tak Bai victims’ names. Photophobia, 78, and Violence in Tak Bai were all included in the Patani Semasa exhibition. (The exhibition catalogue gives Violence in Tak Bai a milder alternative title, Remember at Tak Bai.)

Taklee Genesis

“Make sure we’re not forgotten.”
— Taklee Genesis

Time travel, dinosaurs, kaiju monsters, zombies, cavemen, the Cold War, a dystopian future, and the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University: Chookiat Sakveerakul somehow weaves all of these elements into his science-fiction epic Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), released earlier this month. It’s a hugely ambitious project, and a million miles away from the director’s earlier films such as Love of Siam (รักแห่งสยาม) and 13 Game of Death (13 เกมสยอง).

In a prologue that takes place in May 1992 (an unspoken reference to ‘Black May’), a young girl witnesses “dead bodies falling from the sky.” These are students who died during the Thammasat tragedy, their bodies teleported by the Taklee Genesis device, a time machine that can create alternate realities. As one character says: “Taklee Genesis was used to cover up a massacre.”

When the girl, Stella, grows up, she learns that her father was a CIA agent involved in the development of the Taklee Genesis. One of the project’s test subjects, Lawan, was transformed into a forest-dwelling spirit, like the monkey ghost in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), another supernatural personification of the legacy of the Cold War.

Stella and her friend Kong use the Taklee Genesis to travel back in time to Thammasat on 6th October 1976, after Kong discovers that he is one of the massacre victims who fell from the sky. Chookiat recreates the violence of that day, showing Red Gaur militiamen gunning down students. A young boy stands alone on a balcony laughing at the carnage, in a reference to a smiling onlooker in a photograph by Neal Ulevich. (The artist Khai Maew created a model of the child, which he called Happy Boy.)

Thanks to the Taklee Genesis, Kong has the chance to fight back against the vigilantes who have stormed the campus. This fantasy scenario, in which a Thammasat victim is given the agency to tackle his potential killers, is similar to the alternate history narrative in Preecha Raksorn’s comic strip Once Upon a Time at..., in which the victim in Ulevich’s photograph escapes from his assailant.

Discussion of the Thammasat massacre was suppressed for years, not by the fictional Taklee Genesis device, but instead by successive military governments. Today, it’s primarily through photographs of the event, particularly the famous image by Ulevich, that the incident is remembered. In one of the film’s most powerful moments, Kong takes a roll of film from the camera of his Thammasat classmate and gives it to Stella, telling her: “Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

The Thammasat massacre is a notorious incident in Thailand’s modern history, though it has rarely been represented on screen. The 6th October scenes in Taklee Genesis are almost unprecedented: the only previous attempt to dramatise the brutality of the event was in the horror film Haunted Universities (มหาลัยสยองขวัญ), which was cut by the Thai film censors.

Perhaps the closest equivalent to Taklee Genesis is Sunset at Chaophraya II (คู่กรรม ภาค ๒), which ended with a similarly realistic and graphic recreation of another massacre, 14th October 1973. Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s A Useful Ghost (ผีใช้ได้ค่ะ), due for release next year, will apparently refer directly to 6th October. (Thai Cinema Uncensored includes a comprehensive analysis of the representation of Thai political history on film.)

Wilderness

“October 6th is a profound lesson,
Teaching us clearly that...
democracy can only be won by taking up arms”.

Thanaphon Accawatanyu’s new play Wilderness (รักดงดิบ) begins with a revolutionary verse, set to music. The play, divided into two parts, is set in the aftermath of two key events in Thai political history: the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, and the student protest movement that began in 2020.

In part one, a group of students join the Communist insurgency after the Thammasat massacre, and escape into the forest. Part two features another group of students, though they’re not explicitly indentified as protesters. (Although one character says that she was destined to be part of a demonstration, as she was “in my Mom’s womb during the Black May uprising”, and her father died during that 1992 protest.)

The second part is much more ambiguous than the first, with numerous scenes that appear to be dreams caused by hallucenogenic sweets eaten by the characters. (According to the recipe they follow, the sweets should “dry in the sun for 112 hours”, and the lèse-majesté law is article 112 of the criminal code.) The dreams involve worshipping gods by chanting tongue-twisters.

As in Wilderness, Pasit Promnampol’s short film Pirab (พีเจ้น) and Sunisa Manning’s novel A Good True Thai both dramatise a student’s decision to join the Communist insurgency. A Good True Thai is particularly similar to Wilderness as, like Thanaphon’s play, it focuses on the romantic relationships between the characters.

Wilderness opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September, and the final performance will be today. The script for one of Thanaphon’s previous plays, The Disappearance of the Boy on a Sunday Afternoon (การหายตัวไปของเด็กชายในบ่ายวันอาทิตย์), appears in Micro Politics alongside Pradit Prasartthong’s A Nowhere Place (ที่ ไม่มีที่), another play that refers to the 6th October massacre.

Once a Month Film

Bangkok’s GalileOasis will be screening some classic horror movies on the first weekend in October, as part of its Once a Month Film programme. The event includes two of the greatest horror films ever made: Nosferatu on 5th October, and Night of the Living Dead on 6th October.

There was a gala screening of Nosferatu at the Scala cinema in 2016, and it was also shown at Cinema Winehouse in 2018. Coincidentally, Night of the Living Dead was also screened at Cinema Winehouse, a few days before Nosferatu.

Prawit Wongsuwon:“Give me a chance to be the number one...”

Prawit Wongsuwon, leader of the Palang Pracharath Party, has pressed criminal charges against a TV presenter in relation to leaked audio clips that were broadcast on Channel 9 last week. The charges were filed at Huamak police station yesterday on Prawit’s behalf by Palang Pracharath secretary-general Paiboon Nititawan.

Danai Ekmahasawat played four clips, all featuring a man who sounded like Prawit, on his Inside Thailand (เจาะลึกทั่วไทย) show on 11th September, and a fifth clip two days later. In the first recording, the man says: “I’ve been a deputy and worked for the Prime Minister for a long time. I’ve made many accomplishments, and now I want the people to give me a chance to be the number one.” (Prawit was deputy PM under Prayut Chan-o-cha for nine years; his party was excluded from the governing coalition last month.)

When the clips were broadcast, Palang Pracharath initially dismissed them as AI deepfakes, though the charges filed yesterday seem to be a tacit admission that they are genuine. Prawit is suing for defamation and illegal distribution of a wiretapped recording, though only the “give me a chance to be the number one” conversation is cited in the police complaint.

Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs

Internal Security Operations Command has called for sales of a new book to be halted. The book in question is ในนามของความมั่นคงภายใน การแทรกซึมสังคมของกองทัพไทย, a Thai translation of Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs by the distinguished academic Puangthong Pawakapan. Infiltrating Society was published in English in 2021, and the Thai translation will be released on 25th September by Same Sky Books.

ISOC posted a written statement on its Facebook page on 14th September, questioning Puangthong’s academic credentials and research methods, and challenging her findings. It also requested that the book was removed from sale (“ขอเรียนว่าการนำหนังสือและบทความทางวิชาการที่มีข้อมูลในลักษณะที่เป็นเท็จ”), and threatened legal action against the author.

God and the Devil:The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman

Peter Cowie is a leading authority on director Ingmar Bergman, and God and the Devil: The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman, published last year, is his comprehensive account of Bergman’s entire career. Beginning in the late 1950s, Cowie was in regular contact with Bergman for more than thirty years, and in his critical biography he also quotes from letters and journals from the Bergman archive.

The book’s stark cover shows the personification of Death from Bergman’s masterpiece The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet). God and the Devil examines not just Bergman’s acclaimed filmography, but also his often overlooked theatrical productions and his complicated private life. Cowie’s ultimate assessment of Bergman is as follows: “Forever obsessed with God and his demons, reckless in love, and relentless in his commitment to film and theatre.”

Cowie has written and published dozens of books on cinema, specialising in works on the pantheon of great directors, including an early monograph on Orson Welles (A Ribbon of Dreams). He wrote a lavish guide to the films of Akira Kurosawa, and his books on the making of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now are indispensable. His second Godfather book was published fifteen years after the first, and he also wrote a book on another 1970s classic, Annie Hall.

10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112 (‘10 things you don’t know about 112’)

Suchart Sawadsi, one of Thailand’s most respected writers, has been charged with sedition (article 116 of the criminal code) for posting a social media link to a video by iLaw, a non-governmental organisation promoting human rights. iLaw uploaded the video, 10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112 (‘10 things you don’t know about 112’), to TikTok on 29th October 2022 as part of its No More 112 campaign, and Suchart shared it on Facebook along with a comment calling for the abolition of article 112 (the lèse-majesté law).

The King Protection Group, an ultra-royalist pressure group, filed charges against Suchart the next day. Suchart was described by David Smyth in the first issue of the journal Asiatic (2007) as “without doubt, the single most influential figure in the contemporary Thai literary world.” The King Protection Group has previously filed similar charges against other public figures, ranging from the rapper P9D to the former Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat.