How Thailand’s protests have emboldened school pupils to push back against authority
- The student-led anti-government movement has inspired teens to resist institutions of power such as the military, which holds ‘seminars’ in schools
- They are also speaking out against harassment, rules for uniforms and hairstyles, and punishment for flashing the protest three-finger salute
A video clip shared on social media went viral recently after it showed a teenage schoolboy in southern Thailand saying there was “distortion” and “dramatisation” in a seminar on history and the monarchy held by the military.
“These are the topics we can learn by ourselves, without being told or asked to attend the session so that the mindset can be installed into our heads,” he said. “This is not how to make someone love their nation.”
“I have never seen any student respond directly like this,” said Bangkok teacher Tanawat Suwannapan, 28, adding that military seminars had accelerated in the last few years.
Thamrongsak Petchlertanan, associate professor at Rangsit University’s faculty of political science, said the seminars were a long-held military tradition to “instil a set of belief and thoughts” in the youth. Recent seminars were in response to the students’ movement, “which is a shake-up to the political system that the military aims to protect”.
