Thais adopt #IceBucketChallenge to campaign for lèse majesté prisoners

 
Thai social and political activists have adopted the method of the Ice Bucket Challenge to campaign to free lèse majesté prisoners. Instead of throwing an ice bucket over one’s head, the challenge is to sing a song whose lyrics touch every free spirit. 
 
More than 20 videos of recorded live performances of “The Song of Commoners” have been posted and shared on YouTube and Facebook, along with messages giving moral support for “Bank” and “Golf,” the two theatre artists recently charged with lèse majesté, as well as 16 others who are currently in jail because the notorious Article 112. 
 
Since the coup, 15 people have been charged under Article 112 or the lèse majesté law. Of those, 12 are currently detained in prison.This adds to the number of those charged before the coup to a total number of 21 people facing lèse majesté charges, and 18 were in jail. 
 
One group of activists leads to another. They “tag” others to sing and play the song. Most of the people participating in this innovative challenge are activists, student activists, lawyers, and journalists.  
 
 
A live performance of The Song of Commoners by (from left) Putida Chai-anan aka “Gene”, an activist from the One Mai group, Yingcheep Atchanon, from iLaw, and “Jam” from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. After the performance ended, they challenged two other human rights lawyers to do the same.  
 
 
The translated lyrics: 
I want to come across someone who is still dreaming, listening to a song.
It would be good if that person really exists, please tell me that I’m still dreaming.
*The path that we are walking together might not look beautiful.
This is not the last time, and we will not give in.
**How many winds of dreams have blown into the prison cells.
It might be cold and silent, but please listen to our song
I want to listen to you, singing aloud a song of common folk.
This will awake people from the dreams of our coming days
 
 
The Song of Commoners played by the red-shirt pop band in exile Faiyen. Photos of Golf and Bank are shown in the video. 
 
The Song of Commoners was written by Chuveath Dethdittharak and Natthapong Phukaew, aka “Kaewsai”, who are friends of the two artists, Patiwat S., 23, and Pornthip M., 25, aka Bank and Golf, respectively. The two were arrested in mid-August for their alleged involvement in a political play called ‘The Wolf Bride’, centred on a fictional monarch. It was performed in October 2013 at Thammasat University, Bangkok, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 14 October Popular Uprising. The play was organized by former members of the now-defunct Prakai Fai Karn Lakorn, part of the left-leaning Iskra or Prakai Fai group. 
 
Bank, who played the role of the king’s brahmin advisor in The Wolf Bride, is a student from Khon Kaen University’s Fine Arts Faculty, and the Secretary-General of the Student Federation in the North East.
 
Golf is a graduate from the Faculty of Political Science, Ramkhamhaeng University. She led Prakai Fai Karn Lakorn with the ambition of making performance arts more accessible to grassroot people and touch on serious issues such as social inequality and censorship. The group was dissolved in 2012 due to differences between group members. 
  
 Chuveath said this song was dedicated to raise awareness of the deprivation of freedom of Bank and Golf.
 
“At first, I did not intend to write this song for a political movement, but my friends were arrested and I didn’t know what to do, so I wrote this song to express my feeling,” said  Chuveath.
 
The song unexpectedly united people who feel similar to him -- that that we are living in a dark period under the junta regime, where freedom of expression is limited, he said. 
 
“I just wanted to sing this song for friends who were arrested, to console them and those whose families were intimidated. I wanted just that at first, to encourage these people, but later, I realised that it has good meanings that could be shared among many others” said  Chuveath.
 
According to Natthapong, an activist who is a co-writer of The Song of Commoners, this song is not dedicated to Golf and Bank alone, but to everyone whose rights have been suspended and trampled upon. 
 
He hopes that this song will allow people from across the political spectrum to hear the stories of people who have suffered intimidation, arrest, and detention due to their political ideas.
 
“This song might only be shared primarily among red-shirt activists for now, but if others from the opposite end of the political spectrum to the red shirts listen to this, even if they don’t like it, the fact that they reacted actually already affects them” said Natthaphong.. 
 

A live performance of The Song of Commoners. The song's co-writer Natthapong Phukaew, aka “Kaewsai” (left) plays the guitar.

 

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