Thailand's junta dances lightly abroad amid crackdown at home

A tale of two Thailands is about to be played out in London's most prestigious traditional concert venue and the jails of Southeast Asia.

In the British capital, a gala show at the Royal Albert Hall will next month honour a Thai princess, in a performance of a masked court dance last staged there for Queen Victoria 130 years ago. Almost ten thousand kilometres away, student dramatists and even a bookseller languish in prison cells because they are deemed to have insulted the very same Thai royal family.

The contrast reflects a two-pronged campaign by the ruling generals in Bangkok to shore up power and preserve the existing social order. While Thailand seeks to polish its image internationally and push a particularly(CORR?) conservative strand of its tradition, artists and describe the era of military rule as increasingly stifling.

"I feel the chill every time we put out a show," said Janya Wongsurawat, co-founder of Shallow News in Depth, a popular weekly online political satire show once described as 'Jon Stewart on crack'. "I am extremely nervous before it runs."

The creative anxiety reflects junta-ruled Thailand's harsh approach to anything deemed to challenge the institutional status quo or military rule. Draconian lese-majeste laws have been used to jail two students for putting on a play, a man who wrote on the wall of a shopping centre toilet, and - most recently - a bookseller for stocking two supposedly offensive volumes.

The government in Bangkok last month shuttered Peace TV, a channel aligned to the "red shirt" political movement that backed the elected administration toppled in May last year. In an annual analysis published last week, Freedom House, a US think-tank, ranked Thailand alongside Libya as the country where press freedom had plummeted most last year.

The crackdown is far removed from the lavishly-costumed and junta-endorsed spectacle of the khon dance, due to be performed on June 18 at the Albert Hall and described as "perfect for those who love Thai culture".

This Thai twist on the Sanskrit Ramayana epic poem is sponsored by the junta-dominated government's ministry of culture in honour of April's 60th birthday of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, daughter of the long-ruling King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The Albert Hall says the event "is taking place based on its international artistic reputation, not personal or political views".

Yet, while the khon is superficially apolitical, it is also rooted in a particular vision of the former absolute monarchy of Thailand. In this, the country is ruled by a benevolent elite of khon di, or good people, rather than the squabbling and squalid politicians ousted by the military.<

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The show also chimes with the 12 core Thai values imposed by the junta and compulsorily taught in schools which are strong on deference to authority. That checklist of virtue has driven other post-coup government initiatives, such as the national tourism organisation's "Discover Thainess" campaign.

Its latest wheeze: offering discounts at shopping malls to people wearing traditional Thai dress - which, for all its elegance, is not noted for offering comfort in either tropical weather or modern city life.

"This is typical of a government of this kind of complexion," says one foreign government official, of the London dance show and other traditionalist initiatives. "There is that string of khon di, and conservative tradition and goodness, running through it."

Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the coup leader turned prime minister, insists he respects human rights. But his idiosyncratic speeches, like the cultural campaigns, can have a darker edge alongside the bonhomie.

In the latest example of what one commentator has dubbed his "compulsive loquaciousness", he insisted to guests at an international publishers' conference in Bangkok last week that he was not their enemy.

But what came next was from a more sinister side of the Land of Smiles than the one shortly to be displayed in London. "I follow you everywhere," he said. "You might find me annoying. You need to learn to listen."

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