Page 115 - The lraternational Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand.indd

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XV-2023

with the Communist Party of Thailand. Those left behind had for the most part to
remain silent. Others turned to traditional themes and genres while younger authors
increasingly undertook experiments with new and in part surreal methods of writing.

Everywhere, interest in politics was waning under the looser political climate.
Readers also started to prefer increasingly lighter forms of entertainment literature.

Two political events - the amnesty for socialists who had gone into exile in 1979
and the break-up of the Soviet Union and international Communism in 1989 – almost

caused politically engaged literature in Thailand to completely disappear.

When a special law was decreed to abolish punishments against those involved
the 1976 uprising, the exiled intellectuals came back from the woods, disappointed
with the outcome of their struggle. The political situation and the attitude of the
population had changed to such an extent that the themes and rhetoric of politically

engaged literature no longer applied to the present. The writers and former student
leaders, who had made the fight between the proletariat and capitalists according
to Western example one of their main topics, became skeptical and self-critical and

believed the whole issue had become devalued.
In fact, the rapid economic upswing that the country experienced after a new

economic plan in the early 1980s changed the circumstances of the urban population
and created a luxurious way of life for many in comparison with the period before
the 1970s. When the government made the ambitious attempt after 1987 to follow

the example of South Korea and turn Thailand into a new industrial country, the Thai
way of life increasingly resembled that of a European industrial society. Accordingly,
the pursuit of private interests increasingly took the place of participation in political
concerns.

When it became clear that Marxist-socialist ideology would not find wider

international adoption following the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and the
political turnaround in Eastern Europe, formal littérature engagée came to an end in
Thailand. The academic revolt and the literature that it supported were based almost
exclusively on international socialism. Therefore, after the political collapse of
international socialism it was not possible for littérature engagée to continue to exist

in Thailand as the country had no previous history of such critical political literature.

Nevertheless, this literature has left its mark with many writers and intellectuals.
Many authors withdrew into a “cult of solitude” (Nagavajara, 1996). But the memory
of what literature was able to stimulate in terms of thought and action in the years from
1973 to 1976 has not disappeared.

Pornsan Watanangura 107