The implications of coloured movements | Bangkok Post: opinion

One of the interpretations of the recent political conflict, which resulted in the red and yellow social movements, has been that this is a battle among the elite, essentially between former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his enemies, and that ordinary people are being used as paid pawns in the struggle.

Yellow shirt supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy rally for their cause.

This analysis argues that while this argument may not be totally wrong, it could be very misleading. The yellow and the red movements have turned out to be competitive mobilisations of supporters and ideological warfare. As such, they are completely different from the social movements of the 1990s, when groups or organisations of people got together to stage protests or sit-ins in order to air their grievances and bargain with government to advance their interests, mostly in cooperation with various NGOs. The results of these negotiations were not always successful, but one of the positive outcomes of these early social movements was the opening up of the political space for ordinary people within the framework of the parliamentary system.