Foreigners should let Thais make the call on red shirts
Re: Red revival must be nipped in the bud”, Letters, January 27.
JC Wilcox is surely out of line when he states that the red shirts “must never be allowed to influence politics ever again”. Whatever one might think of UDD views or some of their past actions, it is surely presumptuous for anyone, and especially a foreigner, to dictate that a political group with a large following in both urban and rural areas be excluded from future political activity. That is surely the sort of decision that must be left to the Thai people.
Mr Wilcox’s observation that Thammasat University is a “red-shirt hotbed” is also questionable. It is certainly true that this prestigious university has a long tradition of radical politics and resistance to military dictatorship, for which the students paid a heavy price in the October 1976 massacre.
It is also wrong for the author to state that the red-shirt movement is latent. It is keeping a lower profile because it has to, like all political groups, due to the current ban on political activity. However, Mr Wilcox might be unaware that the two UDD TV channels continue to broadcast to large audiences. Presumably the current government considers it politically expedient to allow this, with the quid pro quo being that the red-shirt leaders tone down the rhetoric and avoid sensitive issues.
Despite this constraint, viewers can glean some interesting information not available in the mainstream media. If Mr Wilcox is really interested in Thai current affairs, he should be willing to listen to views which may not be in line with his own and is well advised to tune in!
Robin Grant
