CURTAINS FOR THE KING
Thailand stages a spectacular royal cremation
Residents of condominiums in the heart of Bangkok were surprised to be told earlier this month that they are forbidden to use their windows for three days. They are not allowed to look out at all for 72 hours. Their curtains must be kept drawn at all times, day and night. And they absolutely must not, under any circumstances, set foot on their balconies.
The explanation for this extraordinary demand was the upcoming five-day funeral of Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Rama IX, who died a year ago after 70 years on the throne of Thailand. Bhumibol will be cremated on a vast ornate funeral pyre on the evening of Thursday October 26, and his ashes will be collected the following morning.
Roads throughout the royal district will be closed during the funeral period, and traffic on the river will be restricted too.
The cost of the funeral is estimated at $90 million, and more than quarter of a million people are expected to attend funeral ceremonies and related events.
According to notices posted in condominiums in the area, security concerns were behind the order banning residents from using their windows during the funeral. But this is not true. There is very little risk of any significant security incidents during the funeral, and it is unprecedented in any modern country for people to be told to close their curtains for three days just because a state event is being held with some VIPs in attendance.
The real reasons are rooted in the fact that for all its apparent modernity, Thailand remains under the shadow of a medieval monarchy that has managed to maintain archaic and oppressive customs and traditions into the 21st century. Indeed, the new king, the widely hated Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, seems determined to restore authoritarian aspects of royal rule that were relaxed during the reign of his father, and create a neoabsolutist monarchy that rules through force and fear.
One of the old royal traditions that has survived into modern times is the insistence that in the presence of royalty, commoners must stoop or prostrate on the ground to ensure their heads are never higher than the head of any royals in the vicinity. This leads to regular absurd scenes of even high-ranking officials sitting or kneeling on the ground while a royal occupies the only chair. The palace appears not to understand how ridiculous such images appear to modern citizens of the world. Thais are expected to know their place.
This outdated custom causes significant complications in a modern city like Bangkok: once the Thai capital began to expand vertically as well as horizontally, and skyscrapers and bridges and pedestrian overpasses started to be built, it was no longer possible to ensure that nobody was higher than the king. The palace, however, has clung on to the insistence that wherever possible, Thais must be prevented from being directly above a member of the royal family. This leads to traffic gridlock whenever convoys of royal vehicles travel through Bangkok — hundreds of police are enlisted to block overpasses and pedestrian walkways, sometimes for hours. Simply crossing the street can become suddenly impossible.
Before the Skytrain elevated transport system was inaugurated in December 1999, planners had to consult the palace about the thorny issue of whether trains should be stopped too when a royal convoy was travelling underneath. For once sanity prevailed. “We have talked about this matter with the … royal palace,” an official told The New York Times. “The palace allows the Skytrain to run normally with no stop on this regard.”
The disruption to traffic caused by the royals causes simmering resentment in Thailand, as even some senior royalists recognise. In comments to U.S. ambassador Eric John in early 2010, elderly privy councillor Siddhi Savetsila admitted that even he was irritated by delays caused by royal motorcades. He was particularly critical of Vajiralongkorn, who had started demanding that windows should be closed when his convoys passed by. John relayed the comments — along with highly critical remarks about Vajiralongkorn from privy council president Prem Tinsulanonda and leading royalist Anand Panyarachun — in a secret diplomatic cable, 10BANGKOK192, that was later leaked and published by WikiLeaks.
Prostration was officially abolished in Thailand by King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, in 1873. But during Bhumibol’s reign, overt displays of obeisance and subservience to the monarch were reintroduced, and Vajiralongkorn has proven even keener than his father to insist that Thais show him the respect he believes he deserves. The idea of people looking down on him from above, from windows and balconies, appals him. Spectators at the funeral procession must be beneath him, sitting or standing on the sidewalk, as the royal procession sweeps past.
The requirement that residents along the funeral route stay away from their windows and keep their curtains closed draws from another old royal tradition too — the taboo on looking directly at the monarch. Until the 19th century, ordinary Thais were forbidden from watching royal parades and processions. This created a paradoxical situation in which the palace spent immense time, effort and resources creating lavish spectacles that hardly anybody was supposed to see. Thais were only able to catch snatched glances of royal ceremonies, a deliberate strategy to reinforce the illusion of the king’s majesty and superiority.
One of the most exhaustive Western books on Thai royal ritual is Siamese State Ceremonies, published by British scholar H.G. Quaritch Wales in 1931. The book includes detailed discussion of the taboo on looking at the king, and notes that until the 19th century, fences were erected along the routes of royal processions to prevent ordinary people witnessing them. He adds that the palace tolerated people trying to peek through gaps in the fence because their brief glimpses “served the valuable purpose of allowing the people to be impressed by the majesty of royalty — from a safe distance”.
As Thailand came in increasing contact with the West, and the Thai monarchy faced pressure to show itself to be “civilized” according to Western norms, the rules on looking at the monarch were relaxed. Indeed, as historian Thongchai Winichakul has observed, visual performances were crucial to the creation of a hyperroyalist cult during the reign of King Bhumibol. The impact was magnified by the advent of television which made the royal spectacle visible even in the furthest flung corners of the kingdom. Moreover, the daily Royal News television broadcasts each evening ensured that Thais were fed a constant diet of palace propaganda. “The spectacle of Bhumibol was elevated to another level from the mid-1970s by frequent majestic pageantry,” Thongchai notes. “The sacred aura of the monarchy is conveyed through awe and amazement either by physical attendance or through television.”
But while the monarchy is now visible to all Thais in a way impossible to envisage in previous centuries, one crucial element has not changed: it is the palace that controls how the royals are seen. The monarchy continues to exert rigid control over what images people can see and the context in which they see them. When unauthorized images emerge — such as a video I shared on social media this year showing Vajiralongkorn and one of his mistresses in a Munich mall wearing extremely skimpy clothing and fake tattoos — the palace panics and seeks to shut down the spectacle. The Thai junta pressured Facebook to block the video within Thailand and ordered Thais to have no online contact with me and two other prominent critical commentators on the monarchy, exiled academics Pavin Chachavalpongpun and Somsak Jeamteerasakul.
Every aspect of the royal funeral has been painstakingly stage managed. Three full dress rehearsals have been held. The palace seeks to control every aspect of the performance. Mourners have been given detailed instructions on what to wear and what clothing is forbidden. They have even been forbidden from bringing colourful umbrellas in case it rains — only black or grey ones are allowed.
Thai television stations have been under strict instructions to show no entertainment shows during October, only broadcasting propaganda about Bhumibol’s life. For the five days of the funeral, every single television channel has to broadcast the official pool footage of the ceremony. Thais wishing to witness the event have to do it on terms dictated by the palace — donning black clothes and attending the ceremonies in person, or watching the official coverage on television. People are not only banned from watching the funeral from their windows, but also forbidden to fly drones over the event.
A 170-page media guide has been produced for journalists, with strict instructions on how they should behave at the ceremonies. Photographers and video journalists covering the funeral must remain in designated areas and are forbidden to transmit images or leave the area until the processions have ended. Journalists must wear black clothing, and even dyed hair is forbidden.
These excessive and pedantic rules and regulations are typical of how the Thai elite seek to control ordinary people. It is a syndrome that affects all aspects of Thai life. Low-level officials and bureaucrats are not expected to show any initiative — they are told what to do. School pupils and university students are not taught how to think — they are told what to think. Thais are not supposed to see for themselves, and interact with royalty on their own terms — the palace controls the spectacle and sets the rules for participation.
But in the 21st century, authoritarian regimes can’t keep control of information any more. They can’t regulate what people see, however hard they try. Thanks to community radio, the internet and social media, Thais can access alternatives to the dishonest official narrative, and start to see the reality behind the staged performances and theatrical propaganda.
The junta can order people to close their curtains, but it can’t stop them opening their eyes.
