Symbols and images play an important part in politics as they can invoke emotions. A post at the Prachatai webboard has the below image comparing photos from the student protests in October 14, 1973 with the protests by UDD on March 26
Full size image available here.
BP: Symbolism - the first photo of the UDD protests is available from Getty Images here.
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17 minutes ago
Symbolism does mean a lot.Prachatai should leave October 14 uprising alone in the archive of history. They were spontaneous and neither the leaders or followers were paid.
What about the yellow shirts who want to save the country? Where are the leaders now? Shouldn't they go to jail or get appointed to be senators or ministers, like Kasit?
Would you care to interpret that last comment for us mere serfs?
Listen to the local pundits enough and you soon realize South East Asia is a complete lost cause in political terms. They might have everything going for them economically (although even that seems a bit of a shaky statement these days.), but there is absolutely nothing that the committed non-conservative can change here. The region is plain stuck with feudal overlords monopolising every game in town. This whole region is just a waste of time in political terms. Expats should stop wasting their time worrying their heads over the likes of Thaksin and Abhisit, who will always be nothing more than slumlords, and set about giving the pols at home a hard time. Let's face it! Most of us are expats are here mainly because the economies of our home countries have been based on financial pipedreams and exported unemployment for the last three decades. And anyway, it is a lot more fun taking a puff at the likes of Gordon and Cameron than it is at Thaksin and Abhisit - who are such a humorless bunch of dyed-in-the-wool inscrutable elitists. Much more satisfying to pull Gordon's chain!
The right wingers in 1970s said that the student movement were paid by Communists. Maybe people like Veharachan are also a repeat of history...
Oppai: you must be a closet right winger. I am proud of the October 14 uprising. Where were you then?