Living under censorship in China and Thailand

This summer, I spent a month in China teaching at an upscale demonstration school. After returning home for a short three weeks, I was off again. Now, I’m in Thailand for an 8-month stint completing my undergraduate honours thesis.

For someone who considers themselves a free-speech absolutist and has suffered the consequences of that virtue more than once, the conditions of censorship I’ve been expected to endure over the past year have been nothing short of exhausting.

“Just don’t say anything” has been a chipper caution present in both endeavors. Unavoidably, well-meaning ‘allies’ approached me prior to my departures and took the liberty of reminding me how the nation I was about to operate out of was “not a democracy” and “watch what you say.”

It was only too easy to nod and pretend as though I could follow the advice. In China, that guise quickly shattered the moment I noticed the Communist Party’s presence at the demonstration school I was teaching at. A red-velvet draped room, aptly titled the “Party Member’s Activity Room,” had been hidden down a long, overcast hall filled with unwatered plants.

My breathless superior begged me not to question any of the Chinese program directors on it. A regular movie night I had arranged for the students was subsequently cancelled after I chose to show my favorite Jack Black film, “School of Rock,” which, as benign and comedic as it may be to Westerners, was considered too anti-authoritarian and rebellious in theme. I was accused of giving the students the “wrong idea.”

I’ve only recently been able to come to comfortable terms with it, but after engaging in a heated political discussion with some of the Chinese programmers, my chances of a safe return home had been reduced greatly.

A solo car ride with one of the programmers had made me aware of that, and I can still feel the shudder of goosebumps crawling across my neck when I realized the severity of the situation. Stepping aboard the Montreal-bound plane elicited from me one of the greatest sighs of relief I’d ever emitted.

Needless to say, I’ll never be returning to China.

Now in Thailand, my attempted demure ideal of indifference to the censorship conditions has also fallen. I’ve noticed the awful beast lurking between the coconut trees, and it has certainly noticed me.

As I began writing this, I was in fact sitting in my classroom, listening to my professor engage with Thai students on their opinion of the potential election behind held next year, which would be the first in five years. The way in which they so flippantly declare their adversity to democracy is gut-wrenching, but not the most disturbing of this already dystopian picture. I know why Professor Smith* is smiling so tightly and nodding his head so complicity.

He just showed an illegal video in class. And a Thai student took a picture of it happening.

The student might not even have bad intentions. He might’ve taken the picture to show his friends what a badass his professor is. And he might share that image via a secure connection, on an anonymous platform.

But the alternative, that he posts it on social media even with those good intentions, could be the difference between safe passage and 25 years in prison for government criticism. If his intentions aren’t so good, and he reports the action to the police, Professor Smith’s freedom is at risk.

Thailand’s censorship laws don’t care about intention or context. Two variables “freer” societies with speech laws (like Canada) like to pretend makes the difference between “reasonable” restrictions and dictatorial censorship. People are routinely imprisoned for criticism against the government or King, a sentence which carries a minimum sentence of 25 years.

As you can imagine, the charges don’t need a lot of substantiation, nor is there an unambiguous way of determining what is and is not valid criticism. Thai authorities are, in fact, incentivized to prosecute. A light-handed approach to those accused of lese-majeste carries with it the risk of being accused of complacence (or endorsement) of the purported crime.

The illegal content Professor Smith showed had emerged onto the internet six days prior, a music video by a Thai rap group calling themselves Rap Against Dictatorship. The song, “Which is my country,” amassed a gargantuan 20 million hits within that short week.

The song is a rallying cry against corruption, censorship, and the abuse of the Thai people by those supposedly in charge of their well-being. More compelling than its charged rhymes is the setting of the video itself. In it, the group is surrounded by a cheering, smiling audience who is looking past them at a scene occasionally given a shot, a bloodied body hanging from a tree being beaten mercilessly by a police officer with a steel chair.

The scene is a reenactment of one which happened at Thammasat University on October 6th of 1976. Thailand had just finished enjoying its 3rd year of absolute democracy, courtesy of the student activists of Thammasat University. That day, pro-Monarchy paramilitary and police laid siege to the campus and ruthlessly suppressed thousands of unarmed students.  Hundreds were slaughtered, raped, immolated and tortured while thousands were arrested in what remains a completely unacknowledged event in Thai history.

Sometimes given the vague ascription of “the October 6 incident,” almost none of the students murdered during the well-documented and photographed slaughter have been even so much as attempted to be identified, nor have any of the agents who had a role in their execution. The connection the government had in sanctioning and clearing the crimes committed against those students is an otherwise illegal discussion. Censorship made an entire massacre disappear into thin air.

On October 8th I posted a tweet commemorating the belated anniversary of the Thammasat University Massacre and was quickly ordered to take it down by a Thai friend.

“What are you doing?!” She asked, her voice hushed even though we were alone, “That could get you in trouble, delete it!”

Rap Against Dictatorship have been threatened by the police, who are struggling to decide what to do now that the music video has erupted into a global phenomenon. But in addition to accusing the music group of committing a crime, the police are taking it one step further and threatening anyone who shares the music video with 5 years in prison and a 100,000 THB fine (approx. 40,000 CAD).

Leaving class, I stopped Professor Smith and asked him if he was okay. He shrugged and attempted to lightheartedly dismiss my concerns.

“Maybe I should have learned to be more careful by now.” He said, smiling sheepishly and attempting a joke, “I guess I’ll just have to watch who gets what grade this semester.”

Sadder then that statement is how familiar it feels. More depressing than all of it is how it makes me want to be back at home, where the “worst” thing that could happen to me for not “being careful” is social, academic, and occupational ostracization.

For making those alternatives seem any less abusive and nightmarish than they are, I’ll never forgive Thailand.  

*Professor Smith is a pseudonym.