Yellow Shirts and Plastic Hands
The People’s Alliance for Democracy (I don’t care what they say, their name is still a misnomer… actually the whole concept of democracy in Thailand is a misnomer, but that’s a story for another time) came out onto a busy Bangkok street on Monday to hand out leaflets and VCDs on the police brutality that happened on October 7th. They claimed that the government had ordered the police to use bombs against the people. The police denied it and framed the PAD for bringing their own bombs. Two people died: an ex-police (who’s on the PAD side) and a 26 year old woman.
I took my camera and went out to take some pictures. My new friend, Vasan Sitthiket called and told me about it the night before. “Ok, how do I spot you?” I asked not really knowing how the demonstration works here. “I’ll be on the car with the sound system”
Sure enough, he was in the smack middle, on top of it all.
One of the PAD’s signature is the ‘hand clap’ gadget: a plastic hand on a stick that you shake and make noise instead of clapping—because there’s been way too much clapping (since May) and it hurt after a while. The other signature symbol is the yellow shirt, which originally was introduced to Thai people for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the King’s reign. Before the PAD, everybody wore the yellow shirt. Now if you wear the yellow shirt, you’re the PAD supporter.
*If this browser doesn’t work, here’s the full set on Flickr*
Did you turn ‘yellow’?
Dimpy on 26 October 2008hee hee. nah, they’re a little too gungho for my taste. i like being a skeptic.
ann on 27 October 2008