democracy discourse fellow
Peera Songkünnatham
Peera Songkünnatham is a literary translator from northeastern Thailand. Formerly a rather self-obsessed columnist, they now focus on other people’s stories as an editor of online archives under the umbrella of the Siddhi-Issara Foundation. They are the Editor-in-Chief of Sanam Ratsadon: An Archive of Common[er] Feelings, a website which curates historic Thai writings, performances, and speeches in English translation. The name Sanam Ratsadon (“The People’s Field”) is taken from monarchy-critical activists’ renaming of Sanam Luang (“Royal Field”), a once-public site in Bangkok’s historical center. Fond of counter-storytelling, Peera strives to shift the fields of meaning and perception of Thainess and commoner-ness, often dismissed as unintellectual and fatalistic, through demonstrating the simple yet underappreciated truths that ordinary people think and ordinary people dream.
Country
Thailand
Categories
Literature
Political Archives
Dissident Dreams
Dissident Dreams brings together literary, journalistic, and data storytelling approaches to visibilizing and centering contributions from the bottom, the no-name, and the foreign to democratic dissidence in Thailand. The project spans two websites under the umbrella of the Siddhi-Issara Foundation. Sourcing mainly from the foundation’s on-the-ground operations crowdfunding and providing bail for over a thousand defendants in freedom-related cases, The People’s Will Archive will produce monthly feature stories on dissident aspirations with materials ranging from personal letters and political songs to individual testimonies and anonymous donation data. Sanam Ratsadon will produce three special issues on dissident inspirations from another Southeast Asian country, namely Indonesia, Burma/Myanmar, and the Philippines. With input from a guest editor, each issue will put together Thai voices inspired by democratic dissidence in a neighboring country and voices from that neighboring country which may further inspire Thai people’s democratic dissidence. An exhibit and event will be organized at the end of the project.
The change the project aims to create is two-fold. One, it becomes clear that every no-name and every small contribution counts in the grand schemes of democratization. This change is meant to happen both on the counter-historical record and in the people’s hearts and minds. As ordinary people’s contributions to democracy and freedom are foregrounded, celebrity culture in Thai pro-democracy movements is substantially decentered. Two, there is a model of how urgent work to secure basic rights on the frontlines of a country can and should translate to an internationalist mindset. Internationalism becomes a norm rather than an outlier in Thai literary and journalistic thinking about democratization and anti-authoritarian struggles. As it becomes clear that many movements for democracy in Thailand have had inspirations from abroad, and not only from Western countries, international relations among Southeast Asian peoples can then be strengthened from the bottom via dissident citizen engagement rather than via compliant state actors.
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