A-Infos (en) Russia, Avtonom: Isan protest region in Thailand and the anarcho collective "Dao Ding" (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The Isan region in northeastern Thailand is roughly the size of England 
and Wales and is home to about 20 million people. It is the most rural 
and poorest area in the country. Isan's residents are mostly from the 
Lao ethnic minority, and Lao is the most widely spoken language in Isan. 
Many Isan residents are descendants of populations forcibly resettled by 
the Thai (then Siamese) state in the 17th century. Since then, most Isan 
have developed an antagonistic relationship with Bangkok.
The whole of Thailand is in the orbit of Bangkok, whose gravity is very 
strong. The metropolis attracts labor and resources, drains the brains 
of the rest of the country, and repressive management and a reactionary 
culture of total homogeneity are exported outward. Thailand was never 
colonized by Western powers, so Bangkok and its surrounding plains 
became something of an imperial core, extending its influence to the 
remote rural regions on the outskirts, which it always ruled with an 
iron grip. Today, however, a new mass movement against Bangkok's 
hegemony is rising from these remote areas. This movement is built on 
the concepts of decentralization, self-determination, environmental 
justice and anti-hierarchy.

It all started in 2004 with the student collective Dao Ding, a radical 
environmental education and action group based on anarchist principles, 
from Khon Kaen University in the rural Isan region. "Dao Ding," which 
means "star and soil," came into being after Isan farmers struggling 
with environmental issues contacted sympathetic law students from Khon 
Kaen University and began holding meetings with them.

However, it was only after the 2015 military coup that the Tao Ding 
movement began to truly blossom. The group expanded its activities to 
protest the coup.

Over time, people from Dao Ding founded many other groups. Some of them 
were purely protest, others dealt with issues of education, and many 
included both. Local grassroots non-governmental and community 
organizations have also been founded, such as the Human Rights Law 
Center, which fights for land rights for impoverished farmers. From this 
movement grew the political "Party of the Commoners" (The Commoner 
Party). They are all based on the same principles, as  movement member 
Nice says: "We believe in a society of equals. We want to promote human 
rights, community rights, anti-hierarchy, political and economic 
equality. We believe in self-determination, people should choose their 
own policies."

Thus, a huge umbrella network known as the New Isan Movement gradually 
formed, with all groups closely intertwined with each other, fighting on 
different fronts for one common cause. This network also became one of 
the main forces behind the mass protests of the "Thai Democratic 
Movement", organized by a large number of protest groups with which Dao 
Ding is associated.

Nice says: "The rule of Bangkok is certainly imperialist, colonizing all 
other provinces. They have always tried to exploit our lands. They use 
our resources and manpower to increase their own wealth in the capital 
and the central plains. In addition, they treat us racistly, look down 
on us, and consider us stupid, uneducated peasants."

Arrested members of the Dao Ding collective on a police bus

For nearly a century, Thailand has struggled with the contradictions of 
maintaining a powerful monarchy while attempting to transition to 
parliamentary democracy. Since the first general elections in 1933, the 
kingdom has seen 13 successful coups, as well as many failed attempts. 
This is largely due to Thailand's geopolitical status as a 
Western-allied buffer state against communism in the 20th century. Back 
then, NATO supported a succession of despotic military dictators who 
were determined to build a powerful, centralized Thai ethnostate to 
combat the forces of the country's restless people.

Isan has borne the brunt of almost every protest movement and repression 
in modern Thai history. In particular, it was a stronghold of the 
communist (Maoist) insurgency that continued in the 1960s-80s. In the 
2000s, many Isan residents took to the streets of Bangkok as part of the 
Red Shirt Movement, a large network of rural democracy protesters 
supporting populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted 
from power by a military coup.

Although activists insist there are no individual leaders, many consider 
Pai (Jatupata Boonpattararaksu) to be the face of the New Isan Movement. 
A prolific organizer, Pai, a Khon Kaen native and Dao Din alumnus, rose 
to prominence during his many stints in prison. "I've been arrested too 
many times to count,"  he says  . He says the following about himself: 
"I was born in Khon Kaen and grew up in Chaiyaphum. My father was a 
rural human rights lawyer, so I often visited poor rural communities and 
saw their problems and conditions. Then I went to law school at Khon 
Kaen University, joined the Dao Din and became involved in activism."

After spending two years in prison, Pai founded the renowned anarchist 
group UNME, which organizes political education camps and protests with 
the New Isan Movement. When asked how he became interested in anarchism, 
Pai says that growing up he saw injustice in society and structural 
inequalities. When he was a student participating in the Tao Ding, he 
began reading on political topics such as Marxism, socialism, anarchism, 
etc.

"I'm not really a theory person, but I think it[anarchism]is a good fit 
for our movement," says Pai, who is greatly inspired by Subcomandante 
Marcos and the EZLN. "Moreover, I don't want to seize the power of the 
state, I believe in the power of communities."

As   another member of the movement, Pang, says: "Dao Ding is more 
focused on ecology, and UNME is a broader group of political education 
and protest. The point was to have a group with a specific focus on 
theory and politics, rather than doing everything through the Tao Ding."

Of the activists' practice, Nice reports: "We developed our system step 
by step. For example, we have studied both the organizing practices and 
tactics of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Hong Kong protests, 
developing and adapting them to our local contexts. But our system is 
based on a collective model. We live collectively, cook, eat, make 
decisions collectively and democratically."

Unme members during an educational visit to Loei Province

Pai and Nice give examples of Unme in Bangkok and Dao Ding in Isan.

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Unme is dedicated to organizing and educating people. We also engage in 
mutual aid, such as during the 2019 floods. We also organized, for 
example, the closure of a biofuel plant that was harming the local 
population, and in 2020 we were very active in political protests in 
Bangkok and Khon Kaen. For example, we made a huge march from the 
countryside to Bangkok to protest because our friends were in prison. We 
teamed up with a lot of different groups and brought in a huge crowd.

Nice:

We hold people's assemblies for villagers. If there is no clean water in 
a village, we go there to tell people what rights they have, such as the 
right to clean water. We will then help organize people to work 
together, advise them on which government representatives to contact, 
which laws they should pass with caution and which they can use, and 
often support protest. Essentially, we provide our expertise, education, 
and ourselves to these communities when they need it. For example, we 
managed to stop mining in one of the villages in Lei Province, which was 
very harmful to the residents. We also achieved the cancellation of 
plans for a special economic zone in Khon Kaen.

In addition to the educational programs that are carried out in urban 
areas of Isan, it is common for groups such as UNME and Tao Ding to 
embed their members into local communities in an attempt to solve 
specific social and environmental problems. Unlike the Communist Party 
of Thailand of the past, the vast majority of the groups' members come 
from similar Isan communities, giving them a closer connection with the 
locals and making their presence much less intrusive. "A small minority 
see us as troublemakers, usually entrenched local authorities such as 
conservative village leaders. But this has been happening less and less 
recently as the national protest movement grows. Everyone else is so 
welcoming to us, they open their homes to us and we live with them, cook 
with them, eat with them, work together."

When asked if it is difficult to implement anarchist ideas due to the 
fact that there is no history of anarchism in Thailand, Pai responds: 
"We use anarchism as a tactical tool, for organizing, our job is to 
highlight other people's decisions and give them tools for fighting. We 
educate, but in a way that brings them together, gives them the 
opportunity to communicate, think and develop their potential to fight 
in solidarity to change these oppressive structures."

Nice talks about the importance of ecology to their movement: "Isan is a 
resource-rich area with a rural population, and the government has 
targeted our lands for mining, which is extremely harmful to the local 
people. We've all experienced this growing up. Everyone in Isan knows 
about these problems and how the government is oppressing the people of 
Isan."

When asked about the future of the movement, Pai says: "I think in 
Thailand we are politically underdeveloped, we need to create a 
democratic society first so that we can develop into something else. But 
you know, we are still fighting for the most basic things, we don't even 
have the freedom to criticize the monarch. That's why we, anarchists, 
Marxists and liberals, fight together for fundamental freedoms, so that 
we can then fight for a utopian future when we can go beyond these 
fundamentals."

Pai at the Khon Kaen Magistrate's Court

Isan's anarchist activists are often  criticized  for collaborating with 
more liberal groups such as the Commoners' Party, which is politically 
active and seeking to enter parliament. On this issue, Pang agrees with 
Pai: "Right now we have tactical unity, but, of course, there are things 
with which we do not agree. So we are allied for democracy, but if there 
is something that we do not agree with, we will not join it. We just 
want to have control over our own lives, Dao Ding is constantly talking 
to local people in Isan and they all say they want decentralization. 
They want to decide for themselves, decentralization and direct democracy."

Tactically, this approach seems to be working, at least in terms of 
increasing the influence and scale of the project. The New Isan Movement 
relies on the organization and political empowerment of impoverished 
rural workers, igniting them to fight local issues, which in turn brings 
them into the political fold. As a result, the movement becomes a larger 
progressive force capable of challenging the power of the national 
government.

Pye was last sentenced in October last year. At the time, the Bangkok 
North Municipal Court sentenced 16 activists to two months in prison - 
some on parole and others not - for their involvement in organizing the 
November 27, 2020 protest. The court found them guilty of violating an 
emergency decree aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19, the law on 
public gatherings, blocking public places and illegally using a public 
address system. Thirteen activists were sentenced to 2 months in prison 
with the possibility of parole and a fine of 30,200 baht (about 77,000 
rubles) each. Three activists, namely Jatupat "Pai" Boonpattararaksa, 
rapper Thanayut "Buk" Na Ayudhya and lawyer Arnon Nampa, received 2 
months in prison without parole and a fine of 14,200 baht each.

Ilyas Falkaev

https://avtonom.org/news/protestnyy-region-isan-v-tailande-i-anarho-kollektiv-dao-din
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