Thai reconciliation needs critical look at history

The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

The commemoration of the historic month of October this year will be marked by the launch of two histories and a school textbook, the premiere of a movie and the opening of a historical monument. First, two separate books will be available on Saturday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Oct. 6, 1976 violence against students at Thammasat University.

The first book, entitled State Crime in an Era of Change, is an analytical review which puts forward the names of those said to be responsible for the attacks against the students. The second book focuses on the personal accounts of about a dozen women who were arrested for their participation in the Thammasat protests.

On Monday, the movie, The Moonhunter -- billed by its director as the first "truthful" cinematic account of the events of Oct. 14, 1973 -- is scheduled to make its gala premiere. The censorship board will today decide the film's fate while the director has expressed his concern over possible cuts. Later, on Oct. 14, an official opening ceremony of the monument to commemorate those who died in the events of 28 years ago will take place at its site at the Kok Wua intersection.

University Affairs Minister Sutham Saengprathum will preside over the ceremony. Sutham is a former student leader, who was arrested in the aftermath of the Oct. 6 upheaval. Not to be forgotten is a textbook for primary school students which the SeaWrite poet Navarat Pongpaiboon has been assigned to write by the Education Ministry.

All are an attempt by different groups who had a vital role in the October events to recount the history of the 1970s, to address some of the remaining questions, to find some meaning to what happened and a resolution to the deaths of their comrades and friends.

These attempts to come to terms with the past and to delve into the background of the social and political struggle of the October generation should be welcomed and given a response of openmindedness from the general public and state authorities alike.

For many years, the personal and the national versions of the historic October upheavals have not been intertwined -- and even clashed. Many members of the October generation of the 1970s have remarked that their stories were left unfinished. The commemoration of the events, they now say, is one attempt to find a conclusion to these stories.

For many, the haunting death of their fallen comrades was what drove their work and their lives. Others felt they owed responsibility to the families of deceased friends who might not even know why they died.

What the committee of the October generation is trying to do is to ask Thai society to frankly confront the past. However, any attempt at reconciliation should be done honestly by the two main historical characters: the students and the authorities involved.

There is no need to generalize the students -- who were much confused and trapped between different ideologies in the 1970s -- as democracy fighters. They should be known as what they were, socialist or communist, and this is not to suggest that they were wrong. Certainly, the state authorities also need the maturity to understand and get over their unnecessary fear of communism.

Portraying students who died as martyrs and celebrating them as such provides people with little to help them really understand and make sense of what happened. Without thorough research and discussion about the two events of October, we will never be able to understand why the students -- heroes in the widely accepted, moderate and antidictatorship popular uprising of Oct. 14, 1973 -- had become the villains in the more radical and communist tainted Oct. 6, 1976 massacre.

A broadminded, frank and honest investigation into our historical past is what our society needs to make the commemoration of the October upheavals not just another yearly ritual, but a true lesson.