no new solutions

ANOTHER MONTH: one more campaign, one new anxiety, and no new solutions

By Chang Noi

Published on July 27, 2009

THE FIRST COUNTRIES using mass propaganda techniques were the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. They wanted to create new men and women with new thinking, and they believed one way to achieve this was by bombarding people with messages in public space.

Often this thought-changing objective was muddled up with another aim - to unite people behind the leadership. Often this was done by playing on people's fears of enemies, real or imagined, without or within. Campaigns raged against external imperialists, and internal counter-revolutionaries. Sowing anxiety is a powerful propaganda technique.

Other countries took up the same techniques during wartime - for similar reasons. They wanted to unite people against the enemy, and mobilise people's efforts for the cause. Again the emotion that was key to the technique was anxiety. You are in danger. Do something.

As the media has become more sophisticated and intrusive, so has the usage of such campaigns become more common. But people have become more sophisticated too. They know the techniques. They filter out the messages they don't need. Nowadays, few countries attempt such mass propaganda techniques in the old style.

Recently in Thailand, a new campaign seems to have been appearing on almost a monthly basis.

In April-May, billboards began dotting highways across the country with the message, "Protect the Institution. Calm. Peace. Unity". The "institution" was not specified, but the billboard carried a collage on the Royal Family. Along the base were the names of the Interior Ministry and the local government of that area. Although the ministry orchestrated the campaign, it "requested" each local administration throughout the country to pay for these signs. Although the heading of the billboards is phrased in the imperative, there is no indication what people are supposed to do in order to comply with its call. This campaign seemed to be limited to these billboards, so the mystery remains. And some anxiety.

In June the moso campaign surfaced with blanket coverage on TV and the Skytrain. Young people were informed by the posters that they loved moso, though it took some effort to find out what moso was and why they should love it. More anxiety. A helpful website revealed that this campaign was created by the Army's Internal Security Operations Command. The site also told the bewildered that moso meant "moderation society" and that basically it would solve most of Thailand's problems, including the economic crisis.

This month, buses have appeared around Bangkok with the anxiety-enhancing question, "What can you do to show your love for your country?" Unlike the other two campaigns, the author of this campaign is more secretive. Neither the buses nor the related website reveal where the campaign comes from. However, since the prime minister fronted the launch on July 3, it seems clear this is an official government effort. But the secretiveness is telling.

The website, www.ilovethailand.org, is modelled on a social networking site. There are blogs and forums and places to post photos and videos. The campaign's slogan is, "Unite the power of 63 million hearts to build confidence in Thailand". At the launch, the prime minister seemed to say the aim of the campaign was to build external confidence, but the contents of the site are more about internal unity.

The page explaining the rationale of the campaign starts out by lamenting the divisions of recent years, employing one of the long-lasting images of nationalistic discourse, the simile of a human body.

"If we compare our Thailand to a human body then that person is mentally and physically battered and bruised. When the legs, arms and various organs of the body do not work in concert but each in a selfish manner, then there is no unity and our country is unable to move ahead with security."

The page then proposes the solution.

"The way we can help ourselves is by adopting the correct and certain thinking of upholding the national interest, and reducing our personal interests and conflicts over pointless things."

For those of you still anxious about how to answer the bus and show your love for the country, the site has some pointers. If you click on forums you surprisingly come to a page selling "I Love Thailand" T-shirts in large quantities. Another page has some lovely shots for computer-screen wallpapers with the "I love Thailand" slogan in the corner. Judging from the posted videos, if you hang around a shopping mall long enough someone will thrust a cardboard speech-bubble reading "I love Thailand" in your hands and ask you to say a few words. The main campaign invites you to enter a photo contest. Other pages urge you to send in ideas of what the campaign should be doing. It's early days for the campaign and for the site, but it's hard to see a compelling reason for anyone to adopt this as his social networking portal.

Though the owners sometimes duck and hide, it is clear all these campaigns are paid for with public money. In different ways, they sow anxiety. Each month citizens are called to another task. Protect the institution. Join the moderation society. Show your love for the country. Each time, it is not so clear how citizens should comply.

Both the moso and ILoveThailand campaigns are explicitly designed to counter the social and political divisions of recent years. For one, the answer is to act moderately. For the other, the answer is to unite.

Neither campaign acknowledges that there might be some real causes underlying those divisions. Neither campaign suggests any solutions to such causes. Neither acknowledges that people may have plunged into political activism because they thought it was their civic duty and because they had the country's interest at heart. Both want to sweep real problems under the carpet where they will fester and ferment. Is this a wise strategy?

Source: nationmultimedia.com