Author: Xue Ziyao

Source: Hong Kong 01

This summer, the Thai protest movement has developed from student activities to a comprehensive political challenge against the authorities.Although the campaign claims the goal of the prime minister, the three demands of the prime minister, the other election, and the reconciliation constitution, the Sunday demonstration revealed another side of Thai young people: students have prepared to cross the red line of the monarchy.

In 1932, the absolute monarchy of Thailand was replaced by the Constitution of the monarch; since then Thailand has experienced a dozen military coup, including the 2014 coup launched by Prayus Chan-OCHA.

Since the 1970s, the protest campaign of student leaders has often reacted to the military's intervene by politics.Recent protests are no exception. Students are mainly targeted at the former generals and his government.

However, as the new crown pneumonia's epidemic disrupted the economy of Thailand's dependence on tourism, the dissatisfaction with the regime continued to accumulate, and the protesters actually prompted the protesters to criticize the spear to the rare goal: the monarchy.

Thailand's current monarch, Maha Vajiralongkorn, ascended to the throne after his 70 -year -old father died in 2016.

However, unlike his father's respect for the Thai people, Wajiralon is a very controversial leader.He has never played the role of arbiter between the people and the military like his father. On the contrary, when he intervened in Thai politics, he was just to consolidate his power.In addition, compared to his father who often appeared with farmers and workers in public, Wakaralon Gong enjoys a luxurious private life abroad for most of his time.

Historically, Thailand's criticism of the monarchy is extremely rare, and even if it happens, it is usually limited to private talks.According to Thai law's law, the crime of offensive monarchs can be sentenced to 15 years in prison in Thailand's slander.

However, the unpopular behavior of the new king coupled with the downturn in Thailand has stirred up the wave of critical critical, and even allowed Thai young people to break the previous Thai political taboos and publicly criticized the Thai king Waka Laron's abuse of authority.

The first protest leader who broke the taboos and criticized the monarchy was Anon Nampa, a human rights lawyer. In a speech published in a protest in early August, he focused on the issue of the king's concentration of financial resources and military power.Since then, Arnon was arrested for being accused of violating the National Security Law of Thailand.

However, this did not scare the student demonstrators: One week later, on August 10, student leader Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul gave a speech at the Thai State Legislative Government University, and read a list of 10 political requirements MDASH;mdash; The Declaration of this University of Law requires the monarch to be responsible for the national election agencies, not participating in politics, and not controlling the army.

This frankness caused a rebound in Thai politics.Conservative politicians, older generations, and even many people in the opposition camp opposed the attack monarchy.In Thai society, the monarchy is regarded as the history and unity of the country.As a result, after another protest at the University of France and Government University on August 13, a police spokesman said that the frank statement of the student protest was at the test limit. The authorities directly asked the protest organizers not to mention the monarchy in the speech.

In this regard, students are not slow and slow, and continue to obey.On Sunday, the speaker once again questioned the country's monarchy and will be shared on social platforms more than 1 million popular tags#Why do we need the king? (## 3617;#3637;#3585;#3625#3633;#3605;#3619;#3636;#3618;#3660;#3623;#3607;#3607;#3634;#3652;#3617;) Submitted to the white surface of democratic monument.

Students and opposition leaders emphasized that their goal is to reform rather than overthrow the constitutional monarchy.

Specifically, protesters oppose a series of political intervention of the king.: After the king ascended the throne in 2016, the court asked to amend the new constitution to give the king greater urgent power; in 2018, he took over the royal property bureau that he had up to 30 billion US dollars of property.The infantry troops moved to the direct jurisdiction of the king.

The protesters also called for the cancellation of punitive offensive monarchy, and proposed to reduce the royal budget and return it to the jurisdiction of the public agency.

At the same time, the traditional concept of the monarchy is also changing, and protesters have publicly opposed the traditional beliefs of the royal god rights.During the same protest on August 10, the student leader Panasaia claimed that in the past, some remarks were fooling us, saying that the people born in the royal family are the incarnation of God and Angel, and ask: Forgive me, please ask himself, ask himself to ask himself, ask himself to ask himself.Do you determine that angels or gods have this personality?

Will these new political words affect the future development of Thai politics?

First of all, the struggle between the traditional red shirts and the yellow shirt army of Thailand is becoming more and more unsuitable for young supporters today: students' attention is different from farmers -based red shirts, and on the other handConflict with the traditional Baojie and conservative thoughts of the Yellow Shirt.

Students have opened a new space for political competition: refusing to treat the royal agency as floating on political arguments, and dare to challenge the kingship.Amon stated in a Sunday speech that the protesters had the dream of seeing the monarchy and Thai society, rather than the monarchy that was not subject to legal constraints and isolated from Thai society.

However, due to the military support of the king, the specific reform of the monarchy is unlikely to occur in the short term.On the contrary, some people worry that the dark history of the Thai government to suppress the school movement will repeat itself.

In October 1976, the police and right -wing police fired in the inside of the Falun University University of Law.This attack was caused by the rumors of the students who had insulted the fashion as the crown prince.

However, experts point out that the current military government cannot suppress students too severe, otherwise it may cause a national rebound.The dissatisfaction of the Thai people is at a historic high. If the sound of criticism is too severe, there will be great political risks.

As the military cannot actively implement the red line against the offense of the monarchy, criticism of the King of Thailand may become more and more common, and this red line itself may also change.Therefore, even if the reform will not happen quickly, whether to reform the monarchy and how to reform the monarchy may become a political issue for Thai politics to accept discussions.

As a Thai student interviewed by the Broadcasting Corporation pointed out, the main goal of the academic movement to Thai society is to turn things that could not be talked about yesterday into a hot story tomorrow. We must work hard to talk about this issue and talk about the monarchMake into a new normal of society.