Reconciliation is the word in Bangkok, but indulgent parties don’t ease anxiety below surface

Bangkok parties on surface, but unease hides below

BANGKOK — Tycoons and streetside vendors scrabble to recoup crushing losses. Bangkok’s pampered, golden set is again partying like there’s no tomorrow. And in the sprawling slums, among the poorest of the poor, there is an uncommon mingling of pride, hope — and fear.

Just a month after thousands of poor rural protesters ignited bloody street battles with soldiers and the night sky glowed with flames of burning buildings, the Thai capital has regained much of its around-the-clock vitality and self-indulgence. Even the charred hulk of CentralWorld, once one of Asia’s glitziest malls, has become a bizarre tourist attraction and photo opportunity.

But below the seemingly unruffled surface churns an anxiety stoked by hard political realities, individual traumas and even the predictions by some astrologers, widely trusted in Thai society, of more violence on Bangkok’s horizon.

“Right now, today, we are fine, unscathed physically, but emotionally pretty beat up. The flavor of the day is fear,” says Rev. Joseph H. Maier, an American Catholic priest who has worked for decades in Bangkok’s largest slum, where people still mourn friends and neighbors killed.

The protesters had occupied part of central Bangkok for weeks, calling for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament and call new elections, claiming he had come to power illegitimately. They said he was a symbol of the country’s elite that was oblivious to their plight and pushed for a greater voice in politics. When they refused to disperse, the military cleared the streets using live ammunition.

A month on, “prong dong,” or reconciliation, is the official phrase of the day, and among the best-selling T-shirts at special weekend markets organized to make up for business lost during the protests are those emblazoned with “Bangkok is Back,” ”It’s Over,” and “We want to see Thai people love each other.”

However, even Abhisit isn’t too hopeful that the deep economic and social rifts between Thailand’s haves and have-nots, which in part sparked the demonstrations, can be healed by his so-called road map to reconciliation, which includes new elections at an unspecified date and an impartial investigation into the killings of nearly 90 people during the two-month-long crisis.

“Even if 80 percent of the people support this plan it’s not enough. Its possible success would need upward of 95 percent,” was his recent statement, which bemoaned how so many are shunning the Buddhist “middle path,” the traditional penchant for compromise and social harmony which earned Thailand the “Land of Smiles” moniker.

Indeed, a grappling with the tainted image of their country and themselves has featured prominently in post-protest Bangkok.

“It is unfortunate, as we have long prided ourselves on being tolerant advocates of peace. We thought we lived in a tolerant, peaceful country. That is no longer the case,” the English-language daily, The Nation, said in an editorial titled, “A society at war with itself: Yes, that’s Thailand.”

To repair some of this hurt as well as economic losses — estimated at up to $2.2 billion in just the vital tourism sector — city officials, entrepreneurs and volunteers have come up with super-sales, charity events, psychiatric counseling clinics and even an exhibit by 11 leading photographers of 250 smiles of movies stars, models, singers and ordinary people, described as a “constructive activity to bring happiness back to Thai society.”

In a city not particularly known for its civic mindedness, volunteers have emerged to clean streets, plant trees and comfort some of the more than 1,400 injured in the protests.

“The street has never looked so clean and tidy when they were through. This showed a certain spirit among Thais which I’d never witnessed before,” says John Sheppard, a longtime British expatriate whose apartment is located in a downtown area that had been occupied by the so-called Red Shirt demonstrators.

An all teenage orchestra, the recently founded Siam Sinfonietta, is rehearsing daily to perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 next week to raise money for a mayor’s fund, “Together We Can,” in aid of protest victims.

“It was all their own idea. They came to me and said, ‘We want to play music for the city,’” said the symphony’s founder and conductor Somtow Sucharitkul.

But many others, especially the young, coddled and moneyed, would rather have the music play for them: Tony nightlife districts like Thonglor hardly skipped a beat through the violence and the smoldering anger by the underprivileged at Bangkok’s elite. Largely absent from the scene, however, are foreign tourists, staying away in wake of the bloodshed.

“I’m so glad that this is all over. During the protests, I just withered away. On weekends, it was drinking by myself, starting out at five in the afternoon,” recalls Poomjai Tangsanga, a host at MTV Thailand and a radio DJ.

The MTV teen set even have a new, albeit unlikely, heartthrob who emerged from the “Battle of Bangkok” — army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd whose face appears on the current cover of “Lips” magazine.

Back again are Bangkok’s legion of “me first” drivers and out-of-control motorcyclists as well as police, who barely lifted a finger to stop arsonists from torching more than 30 buildings on the final day of the protest but are with gusto again fishing for bribes, stopping likely targets for dubious offenses but turning the other way when presumably influential drivers of fancy cars careen through red lights.

In Klong Toey, there had been no burning. Maier, the American priest, says the slum banded together as never before in his 40 years there, including young boys and girls and motorcycle gangs who kept watch on strangers.

“There’s not much joy in Klong Toey these days. No one talks about the recent ‘troubles’ as you really do not know who to talk to as they might approve, or might not approve,” Maier says. Those who took part in the demonstrations, he says, are “looking over their shoulders — ‘Will anyone come to ask us questions? We have no protection. Are they going to call us to the police station for questioning? If they do, who will take care of our kids?’”

Like many communities and even families, Klong Toey is divided, with some supporting the Red Shirts whose leaders are still being hunted by the government. While some politicians may have hijacked the movement for their own ends, even the government concedes that its calls for social equality and a better economic deal are genuine, and need to be addressed.

“If you were to ask them about tomorrow,” Maier said, “they might say ‘We of Klong Toey don’t expect a lot of change, but we always hope, always have, always will. We are Klong Toey and proud of it.’”

Associated Press writer Kinan Suchaovanich contributed to this report.