"Red shirts are not stupid", their leaders and sympathisers love to say. We saw tell-tale evidence that they are right on D station on Monday night, when one of the "three buddies" asked them to boo Abhisit Vejjajiva after making them listen to that doctored audio clip in which the prime minister virtually plotted a violent crackdown on protesters. "Let the murderer hear your voice," the man on the stage yelled.
A subsequent camera close-up on a few red-shirt faces was brief, but it was enough. The faces did not convey anger or shock that a prime minister would say such a thing. They did not even express doubt. Theirs were almost blank faces, and if there was any message to be read in them, it was: "I don't know what to do."
The boos for Abhisit were relatively soft, and the "clappers" were used reluctantly, unlike when the protesters responded to other calls from the speakers on the stage. The boos should have been the loudest, considering how "serious" this issue sounded, and the protesters should have "clapped" Abhisit to hell.
What were the red-shirt leaders thinking? Were they plotting an October 6 in reverse? To top it all, Thaksin Shinawatra had minutes earlier endorsed the "authenticity" of the audio clip during his phone-in. Please listen to what you are going to hear, he said. "It's real."
Look at who is insulting the intelligence of the red shirts. Look at who is putting their lives in possible danger by making them listen to lies and distortion that could make them run riot. No, the red shirts are not stupid; they are just unfortunate to be following someone who is heartless and selfish, someone who can look them in the eye and claim he can't stop loving them but doesn't hesitate to feed them poisonous propaganda.
The blood collection campaign is not wise, but it's not half as bad as the audio clip stunt. Selfish and authoritarian? Maybe. But at least giving away 10cc of blood won't fill the red shirts' hearts with unfounded hatred. The villagers giving away their blood think they are helping Thaksin, which is fair enough, as they have the right to. Thaksin, on the other hand, has no right to make people who are helping him think that the state is planning to harm or even kill them.
Thaksin owes the red shirts an apology. That he himself may have fallen victim to some propaganda doesn't give him a licence to try to deceive his own followers. And that his own followers may be perceived with prejudice by others doesn't justify trying to pit them further against the other side. Thaksin often bemoans the politics of hatred and the politics of instilling groundless fear into people, but look who's trying to throw stones in his own glass house. Look at who's distorting what. Look at who is also exploiting and manipulating. And look where he's doing that from.
The red shirts will go home soon. It's clear that the current campaign can't go much further. Perhaps Thailand rode her luck again this time since the crowds were not big and were not fired up enough to be susceptible to the sort of lies the red leaders tried to feed to their own people. The protesters will go home feeling worse about the state, but at least they were saved from betrayal by those whom they trusted or even loved.
If distortion is a way to teach people about democracy, this country can't go anywhere. Distortion only serves one thing: Those who distort. It's fine to tell the red shirts about the income gap and how Thaksin's policies "benefited" them, but telling them that the state hates them so much that a violent conspiracy is being mooted against them by the prime minister and the military is treachery on a grand scale.
The red shirts have pure hearts, their leaders and sympathisers like to say. They are right, again. If real injustice will dent those pure hearts, let it be. But what's the point of saving them from lies and propaganda from one side by serving them yet more lies and propaganda from their own side? What's the point of subjecting the red shirts to the very same tactics that the red leaders claim have been so unjustly applied against them?
"Nobody can make me stop loving you," Thaksin told the red shirts at the beginning of his phone-in on Monday night. What kind of love seeks to amplify hatred, and in such a deceitful way?
