M57 The Artists’ Front of Thailand

Manifesto of the Artists’ Front of Thailand (1975)

The student uprising in October 1973 which led to the overthrow of the military government in Thailand, and the political upheavals that dominated the subsequent few years of unstable democracy, had an immense impact on the country’s cultural landscape. For artists, much of the political activity centred around the Department of Thai Art at Silpakorn University in Bangkok, where a Marxist agenda that opposed Western-centric teaching was championed. The artists rejected abstraction, which they considered apolitical, and embraced representational art in order to document the reality of life in a country riven with hostilities.

The Artists’ Front of Thailand (Naewruam Silapin haeng prathet Thai) was a large association of artists formed in 1974 with the twin aims of opposing capitalist and imperialist artistic ideologies and of promoting the Thai Marxist theorist Chit Phumisak’s call for an ‘art for life’. In 1975 the movement, chaired by the figurative painter Kamchorn Soonpongsri (b. 1937), responded to Phumisak’s appeal by staging a vast public exhibition of posters along the Rajdamnern Avenue in Bangkok. The choice of venue was significant: traditionally the monarchy had used the road to stage royal parades, and it had been the centre of the 1973 uprising.

Yet the optimism of the students – and of the Artists’ Front – was short-lived. Soon after the exhibition, the monarchy rejected the left-wing student movement in favour of a military regime, which violently repressed the opposition, leading to a student massacre in October 1976. Many of those associated with the Artists’ Front went underground or were killed. Although their manifesto was originally written at some point in 1975, it was not published until much later.

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For thousands of years, ‘small groups of big people’ have taken power over politics and economics of a country or an area, have used their ‘power’ to frighten or hurt and take advantage of ‘big groups of little people’. The ‘small groups of big people’ waged wars against each other, but have deceived the ‘big groups of little people’ into fighting to the death for their parties. The ‘small groups of big people’ have formed constitutions without an agreement of the ‘big groups of little people’. Under these Constitutions, the ‘big groups of little people’ have been placed under the control of the ‘small groups of big people’. The ‘small groups of big people’ have used religion and culture art in dishonest ways, as a tool to prop up social face and name; they have promoted or invented misleading beliefs and ways of thoughts to the ‘big groups of little people’. The above mentioned were acts of the ‘small groups of ruling people’, which were seen as an insult to the dignity and intelligence of the ‘big groups of poor people’.

Thailand encounters all these kinds of situations, especially in politics, economics, education, and culture art. That is to say, the economic arena, which takes great part in society, is firmly under the control of the ‘small groups of elite people’ who are Thai and foreign nationals. They agreed to cooperate with each other in extorting the ‘big groups of poor people’s’ living. Similarly, in the political affairs, the ‘small groups of big people’ and their foreign partners, who share the excessive profits, have been the ones who make all national decisions for the ‘big groups of little people’. Most of the political acts have not served the ‘big groups of little people’ in Thailand, but the ‘rich’ people. The majority of the Thai people have not been living in a democracy. The foreign parties have exerted their influence in the Thai government and have promoted western imperialism to the Nation.

At the same time, policies of education and culture art given by the government, have failed in developing ‘little people’s’ ethnicity (value of living including social, intellectual, and moral thoughts) as they should primarily do. In fact, the policies were promoted for the ‘rich’ individuals’ sake, not for the priceless value of education and culture arts for the public. These kinds of empowering policies have been used as a tool to mislead the ‘big groups of little people’, to give up on their own beliefs and stop developing/fighting for their own right and society. The misleading policies have led the ‘little people’ to believe and follow the western imperialism as the ‘big people’ do.

As long as all the misleading structures of the government in politics, economics, education, and culture art continue taking great part in Thailand and/or Thai society, the real democracy of the Nation and its assets, i.e., independence, freedom, equality, and justice in society would be impossible to establish. The so-called democracy used in the country these days is what we may call ‘a democracy of the ‘big people’.

We, who are not satisfied with what the ‘big people’ have done and we, who are conscious of the priceless Thai culture art’s conservation, innovation, and development for the ‘little people’, then organize ourselves into The Artists’ Front of Thailand. Our mission is to conserve, innovate, and develop Thai culture art and make it serve all Thai people in the correct ways it should. The Artists’ Front of Thailand’s promotion on the valuable culture art could help the ‘little people’ develop their ethnicity (value of living and social, intellectual, and moral thoughts) to fight the injustice in society. All in all, to develop the whole Nation and society, the living basics, i.e., politics, economics, education, and culture art must be correctly and relatively promoted.