From The Nation, June 28, 2002

History in the Remaking

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Conventional views of Thailand's past are being shattered by academics who feel the truth is not always being told

THONGCHAI: We need a new historical culture in which stories of our differences have a place in society.

 

Thongchai Winichakul, a noted professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has returned to Thailand on several occasions in the past few years to deliver public and academic speeches. Each time the venue is packed with people eager to hear his fresh and critical views about Thai history and society. He has not disappointed them.

On one occasion last year, respected Thai economist Professor Ammar Siamwalla congratulated him after his keynote speech at Thammasat University with a note of admiration: "You've kept your high standard." In his speech, Thongchai critically traced the roots of the master narrative of Thai history and exposed some hidden facts.

For example, in the stories of Siam's "loss" of territory to French imperialists, known as the Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893, historiographers projected Siam as a lamb bullied by France in the role of a wolf. Siam's survival was at risk at a time when all of its neighbours had been colonised. Bangkok had to give some of its territory to the imperial wolf to save the rest of the country.

"In fact, it was a case of Siam as a wolf being defeated by the bigger French wolf in their competition to gain control over the Lao and Cambodian lambs," he said. "Nonetheless, the story looks credible when told in a wrong context. It's a context in which the country's present boundary is taken as the old territory. It causes us to misunderstand that some parts of Laos and Cambodia that we 'lost' to France were always a part of Siam."

According to Thongchai, the 1893 crisis gave rise to the concept of the nation's history as we understand it today. The map that shapes today's understanding of national history and territory appeared for the first time after the crisis. Ironically, he wrote, the map was the outcome of cooperation between France, Britain and Siam.

Over the years, Thongchai has repeatedly called for a new historical "culture" in which history is read more critically. Under the predominant theme of the master narrative - in which Siam was a peace-loving country which endured many external threats only to be rescued by heroic leaders - any different view of history has always been suppressed. The legacy still hurts people who were reluctant or resistant to territorial integration.

In Thongchai's view - reflected in one of his speeches two years ago - the scores of student activists brutally killed during the October 6, 1976 massacre were victims of the prevailing view of Thai history because the master narrative, which stresses national unity, did not have room for people with a different opinion.

Some concepts discussed by Thongchai in the past few years were based on his 1994 book "Siam Mapped: a history of the geo-body of a nation", which is considered an original ontribution to our body of knowledge. By talking about them in public he is attempting to communicate more with Thais to get them to understand the country's real history.

His new book about the history of Thai national history will, partly, be a further development of the concepts he has discussed in recent years.

Earlier this year Thongchai came back again to reinforce his calls for an alternative view of Thai history. At the 8th Thai Studies Conference in Nakhon Phanom, he backed a new way of writing history. Instead of taking a central view, historians should begin at the interstices - where a location stops being this or that nation. That would mean autonomous history of areas that were not independent nations, but had resisted integration - or are still struggling for autonomy, such as in the cases of the Karen, Mon and Kachin, or Aceh and Irian Jaya.

Indeed, the need to go beyond the current view of Thai history was an important message from the conference. Apart from Thongchai, two prominent historians - Professor David Wyatt from Cornell University and Professor Srisakara Vallibhotama - also criticised the flaws and shortcomings of current views.

Wyatt emphasised that history was more than the history of a nation, while Srisakara recalled how people on the two banks of the Mekong River were spiritually attached to one another before national boundaries cut them apart.

"The validity of writing 'national history' in Asia is now disputed and the need to 'rescue' its 'casualties' advocated," Thongchai wrote. "This is an opportunity to propose alternatives, including radical and 'wild' ones . . . it is time to move on."

Thongchai did "move on" to the interstices. His latest academic, yet spicy, keynote address two weeks ago in Pattani exposed limits of geographical logic of Thailand's history that could not honestly explain the accounts of Pattani. He called stories from Pattani an anomaly in the geographical logic of Thai national history. He argued, in spite of their differences, that the stories should also have a place in Thai history and society (see related report).

Last week he elaborated on some points with The Nation.

How should we treat stories from the borders, like that of Pattani? How does it fit into our present knowledge of national history?

The master narrative should reduce its role and power. It could become one among many narratives, none of which is national. Some will be better known than others. The story of Bangkok [for example] may be better known because it involved a lot of people from different places.

But there should not be a big story that squeezes in other smaller ones in the name of harmony. Some people said we can have diversity, but they should stay in harmony. Why harmony? Can't we have diversity but not in harmony? We could disagree on things but we don't have to fight. Conflict resolution is not about reaching an agreement. It only means we disagree but don't confront by violence, that's all.

Why don't we allow different stories, even conflicting ones, to co-exist without trying to fit them all into one big story?

But hasn't the master narrative under the concept of unity become powerful because it's simple, easy to feel and understand?

I think we care too much about unity in the past. Some said it had a mission - to fight external enemies or whatever. I think this is similar to many other countries. But they also allow people with differences to live together. I think it's important to open the space for everybody in society.

It's not always true that minority groups want their own independent nation. They would not want trouble from separatism. But they need respect as fellow human beings. I think they can if we don't humiliate them. Do we believe a nation comes before anything, before their lives? Personally I think normal people will be satisfied if they can have a happy life.

On the contrary, life can go on even if we don't think about history.

It's true we don't think much about history [in our daily life]. But sometimes history has a legacy. We don't feel it because we are part of the majority.

But those suppressed by the master narrative must be disturbed. One easy example was when I delivered my speech at Pattani. I knew the term Khaek [for the Muslims] is kind of insulting, but I didn't care much about it until someone told me after my talk that they did not like the term. It's like we treat them as others, someone with lower status.

As I said, we don't realise it, but they feel it all the time. Sometimes the [suppressive] kind of thinking is also in state policy and many other things.

I have to reckon with national history because it has its negative side. It killed people. I am looking for an alternative kind of history and perhaps a new historical culture.