Photo of the Day: Thai protesters take to the streets with blood

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo, below, from The Globe and Mail: "Supporters of deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra hold up cannisters filled with human blood as they gather outside Government House in Bangkok, Thailand. Protesters donated blood with the intention of collecting one million cubic centimeters to be used in demonstrations outside Government House, as the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva continues to reject calls for a dissolution of the House and a fresh election."

Thaksin's supporters are known as "reds" or "red-shirts," while Thaksin's opponents are known as "yellows" or "yellow-shirts." If the former take the streets with blood, I can only assume that the latter take to the streets with urine. Which begs the question: Are there any brown-shirts in Thailand? If so, I can only assume that...

Well, you get the picture. I make light of the political situation in Thailand, but, of course, it is deadly serious. (But can you imagine, say, Bush's supporters in 2000 carrying around cannisters of blood? Yeah, so can I.) Now, I don't know a great deal about Thai politics, but a lot of what I know comes from the BBC -- and I recommend checking out its profile of the Reds and Yellows, its profile of Thaksin, its profile of Abhisit, and it's Q&A on the current protests. It also has the latest developments with a protest timeline stretching back to 2006, as well as more photos. I'm sure there's a lot at Wikipedia, too.

I certainly don't know enough to come down on one side or the other, though it seems to me that Thailand would benefit from somehow splitting the difference between Thaksin, a telecommunications billionaire who has the support of the rural poor and urban students and activists, and Abhisit, an Oxford-educated academic who has the support of the "educated middle-classes," as the BBC puts it.

The pieces linked above contain loads of background that explain how Thailand got to where it is today, but suffice it here to say that this all goes back to Thaksin being overthrown in a military coup in September 2006. (I'm sure it goes back much further than that, but let's not go there.) Since then, there has been persistent unrest and insecurity, with the military continuing to exert influence.

Thaksin himself is in London or Dubai, or somewhere, in self-imposed exile making business deals. He faces jail time if he returns home, and presumably he is content to let his supporters, the red-shirted United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) fight his battles for him. Meanwhile, while Abhisit has "advocated free healthcare, a higher minimum wage, and free education, textbooks and milk for nursery-school children" and is "a consistent campaigner against corruption," his Democrat Party has been "closely associated" with the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which is "a loose grouping of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class" (yellow = Thai monarchy). Indeed, his foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, is "an open supporter of the PAD movement."

A pro-Thaksin government was actually won the first post-coup elections, held in December 2007, but was removed from power by the Constitutional Court a year later. After a few Thaksin supporters switched sides, Abhisit was able to "form a new government and become the next prime minister without calling elections." Like Thaksin, Abhisit seems to be a populist, if more of an establishmentarian one, but the reds claim that his government is illegitimate and that he is "a puppet of the military." They want Abhisit to resign and for new elections to be held.

Hence the current protests in Bangkok. It's all quite fascinating, actually.

Anyway, as for the blood, according to the BBC: "Government cleaners quickly went into action to mop up the blood on Tuesday, amid fears of infection and some criticism that the blood spilling was wasting a resource which could have been used to help the sick."

Yes, perhaps it's best to keep bodily fluids out of it.