Thailand’s elemental political conflict

A Thai anti-government protester runs past burning tyres as protesters battle Thai soldiers who are preventing them from entering the main red shirt protest site during violent street battles at Din Daeng Road, Bangkok on 17 May 2010. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Chris Baker, Kyoto University

Last year, fire; this year, water.

The largest demonstrations in Thailand’s political history ended with over 90 deaths in April–May 2010, but 18 months later, with the country’s biggest floods in half a century, some believed that togetherness in suffering would revive a mythical ‘national unity’. Read more…