So how are we going to shut down the whole of Bangkok?

It’s easy.  Like Khun Suthep said, everyone will come out onto the streets and no one will be able to go anywhere, especially the Thaksin clique and corrupt politicians.

Everyone?

Well, everyone in Bangkok.  And the south.  Except for the Muslims.  People from the north and northeast, well, you can’t expect them to understand what we are trying to do.

So how long will it last?

Until we achieve victory.  Didn’t you listen to the speeches?

Well yes.  But we’ve been promised victory so many times.  I just wondered how long before we have to do something else for the final victory. 

No, this is the final battle that will lead to victory.

Like the last one.

No, not really.

And the ones before that.  So how long will it go on?

I don’t know.  Khun Suthep will tell us.

That’s not very democratic, is it?

How do you mean?

Well, he decides what we do, when we do it, where we do it.  Doesn’t anyone else have a say?

Well, I suppose the people behind the stage talk among themselves.

All those men? 

Yes, and they decide for us.

Well, like I said, it doesn’t sound very democratic and I thought that was what we were demonstrating for.

Yes, we are.  A true democracy, not the tyranny of the majority or a parliamentary dictatorship or a democracy corrupted by the Thaksin system. 

But if nobody has a say, …

No, these decisions are made by good people, so it must be democratic. 

Oh.  But how do we know they’re good? 

Well of course they’re good people.  It wouldn’t be democratic otherwise, would it?

Well, I don’t know.  I was looking on the internet and some people say Khun Suthep is a corrupt politician like all the others, and they had chapter and verse on it.

What sites were you looking at?  These red shirt sites are just lies and lèse majesté and disgusting filth.

No, it was some farangs.  They were analyzing what’s going on and they said …

But how can you believe what farangs say?  How can they understand Thailand?  They’re not Thai.  They just get their information from the foreign news and you know how biased that is.

Is it?

Of course it is.  Half the police at Din Daeng were really Khmer and were being paid in Cambodian money, we know that.  But none of the foreign reporters have mentioned that, did they?  That shows how biased they are.

But some of them have lived here for years and speak Thai and read Thai and sometimes I think some of them have learned more about Thailand than me.

That’s not a very patriotic thing to say.  It doesn’t matter what they know.  They’re not Thai so they cannot understand Thainess, and that’s what we’re fighting for here.

Oh.  I thought we were fighting for democracy.

Of course we are.  Thai democracy.  Not a corrupt democracy copied from somewhere else. 

I see.  A corrupt democracy of our own. 

No, … listen, you’re looking a bit out of sorts.  Why don’t we have a good whistle?  That’ll cheer you up.

I can’t.  I’ve lost my pea.  And any case, whistling doesn’t do it for me any more.  Just gives me ear-ache.

OK.  Take a selfie, post it on your Facebook page and see how many likes you get.

I’m fed up with that as well.  It’s always the same crowd.

But it’s important we stick together and remember that we’re doing this for everybody.

Everybody?  Most of the country wants us to give up and go home.  At least they will by next week.

But those are the bad people who don’t understand.  But we mustn’t look down on them.  They just haven’t had the education that we have.  We know what’s good for the country, and everybody in it, whether they know it or not.  That’s why we have to be brave and break the law if we have to.  Because we are good people and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. 

Yes, but just think …

No!  Why would you want to do that?  Thinking’s the one thing you must never do.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).