Democracy and Human Rights in Thai Literary: A Case Study of Phan Wan Fa Political Poetry Awards (2003-2012)

Abstract

The study explores and analyzes the representation and the concepts of democracy and human rights in Thailand in the poems that have won the Phan Wan Fa Award.  Founded and sponsored by the Thai parliament, the Phan Wan Fa Award is an open literary contest for the best short stories and poems that help promote democracy and raise democratic awareness.  This study focuses specifically only on poems that have won the awards, including the winner, the runner-up, and the 10 finalists.  Of all 113 poems which have won the awards in the last 10 years (2003-2012), the study found different treatments of democracy and human rights.  The most prominent one is to present a historical narrative of Thai democracy in alignment with the royalist-nationalist master narrative.  Thus, instead of deeming democracy a political system that upholds freedom and equality, these poems subsume democratic movements in Thai modern history under the patronage of monarchy and royalist nationalism.  Another frequent theme found in these poems is an anachronistic depiction of democracy as part of Thai heritage that can be dated as far back as the Sukhothai era.  In this light, democracy is no longer a modern political system, but a vague virtue associated with Thainess.  A large number of these award-winning poems, furthermore, reproduce the fallacy held by the Thai middle-class, namely the corruption of politicians and dirty elections with a finger pointing at the ignorance and the greed of the rural people.  Together with the theme of corrupted politicians, very often these poems reduce the concept of democracy into a moralistic practice, claiming that virtue and morality is the best solution for the abuse of power and social problems. Last but not least, the study has found a small number of poems that contemplate the general principles of democracy and human rights such as liberty, equality, human rights, and human dignity while challenging how these principles have been either intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood and misused in a Thai cultural and social context.