หัวเรื่อง: to read is to see the unseen (next)
In her teenage years, Ida moved on to another genre of books - books that inspired or were about the popular uprising of the mid-’70s. Curiously, one of the titles she picked up had been around since she was little, but abhorred: Pi-sart (The Evil) by Seni Saowaphong. Ida said her mother, whose relatives were active in the historic October movement, had the political novel nicely wrapped and put on the family’s bookshelves. Mistaking it for a yarn of ghost stories, it was the only book in the house, Ida says, she never had the urge to pursue until much later.
But Pi-sart and other similar works Ida discovered at her high school’s library changed her world view, and began the first waves of disillusionment. Inspired by the sacrifices of Khon Duen Tula (the October Generation), in their challenging of the military dictatorship, she sought to enrol in Thammasat University, where the majority of her heroes had studied.
But fate dictated otherwise. Despite choosing only one seat at Chulalongkorn University (as a way to placate her parents), and the rest at Thammasat, Ida unexpectedly passed the entrance exam to the e’litist faculty of arts of Chulalongkorn University. She said she cried vehemently upon learning of the result.
The young woman would spend the following four years at Thammasat anyhow, showing up at her school only for the final exams. Years later, an old friend recalled spotting Ida among the Pak Moon protesters in front of the World Bank’s country office while she was on her way to class. It was an indelible image, says the friend, to see Ida in her plain white blouse, a sort of cloth band around her forehead, sitting underneath the scorching sun along with several brown-faced Isan villagers …
Ida would soon become disillusioned. But not by the common folk, she says. Upon learning that her former heroes and heroines, who once stood up to the powers that be, have become eager players in the stock market, in the world of profit and power at all cost they themselves once condemned, Ida’s faith was shattered. The Black May uprising in 1992 was the breaking straw. Even after all of the lives that had been lost, maimed and thwarted, at the end of the day, the real winners have always been the ruling classes who negotiated among themselves, she says.
“I realised that there are so many things in politics that we do not know, that we will never have an actual say,” Ida reminisced.
“People who were killed or injured were commoners. They were willing to sacrifice their lives even though they had to struggle to feed themselves from one day to the next. From that point on I concluded that I would never push for any big changes, changes that would come at the expense of others.”
For a long while, Ida became, acted deliberately like, an angry young woman. After the Black May experience, she felt everything was so meaningless and almost dropped out of Chula. Thanks to her close friend, Mukhom, who introduced her to one understanding philosophy professor, Ida stuck it out until she graduated. Still, against her parents’ wishes she drifted from one job to the next, lasting from four hours to a little more than a year.
When Phra Paisan Visalo and his associates set up a small think-tank to study the potential problems of nuclear energy in Thailand, which has since evolved into the Alternative Energy Project for Sustainability (AEPS), Ida was asked if she would like to join.
Initially reticent, she says she would only contribute her proficiency in English to help in translating foreign documents, but not to participate in any political way.
Little did she realise that her faith in idealism would slowly be nurtured back. Through AEPS, Ida says she has got to know some former members of the October generation, people like her former head Watcharee Paoluengthong and the late Wanida Tantiwittayapitak, who still live modestly and work for the poor as they did years ago.
At AEPS, Ida also had the chance to take “revenge” on some of the October heroes-turned-ideological traitors. Due to their oratory and mobilising skills, a few have been recruited to work on publicity stunts for several mega-projects, including the coal-fired power plant schemes in the Bo Nok and Ban Krud sub-districts of Prachuap Khiri Khan. They would discover that their rhetoric was in no way comparable to the rural people’s “direct” reminder of their past commitments.
“It was the Prachuap folk who took revenge for me,” a light smile appeared on Ida’s lips. “I once came across one [of the October people]; I felt so mad but I could do nothing except stare at him. Along came phi Krarok [a villager]. Upon learning what had happened, she immediately walked over to him and shouted some expletives, followed by the name he once adopted while working for the Communist Party of Thailand. It was such simple creativity but something I couldn’t do myself. Eventually, all of those public relation teams had to flee the area.”
Again, the campaigns in Prachuap Khiri Khan have taught Ida about another way of reading.
“At the time, I worked more like a secretary to the villagers. I’d search for any documents that might be useful for them. I translated the EIA [Environmental Impact Assessment] reports, which were either in English or had technical terminology that needed to be put into layman’s terms. Even then, I couldn’t tell if the content was accurate or not. The villagers were the ones who pointed out the glaring mistakes there, like the omission of the coral reefs.
“It was the first time I witnessed two different forms of knowledge - one on the huge tome of papers and the other that comes from the experiences of real people.”
One irony of all these years was that despite her first love of letters - she continued to do some translation and editing work in the very little free time she had - Ida deliberately suppressed her other, literary, side. Only one or two villagers she worked with were allowed to read her written work, which included translations of Arundhati Roy’s essays chastising the Indian government’s nuclear testing and the Narmada dam project.
“I think books are for city people, something that would be considered trivial in the real world of villagers. How can I read [Virginia Woolf's] Mrs Dalloway and protest at the same time?” Ida gave her rare mischievous laugh.
“I’d always feel guilty. It has been a dilemma for me. I grew up with books. I love reading. But I feel they don’t respond to the social problems I wanted to resolve. In my teenage years, I dreamed of writing books that would change the world. But I have become aware that books in themselves can only shape people’s thinking, and it will take a long time, ages, to eventually transform the world. How many writers have striven to do that? Tolstoy did it. So did Gorky. And who am I?”
Due to health and financial reasons, Ida had to suspend her work at AEPS. At present, besides editing Aan and some pocketbooks, which will come under the journal’s label, she also works on her memoir of the time she spent in Prachuap. “It is like an unwritten obligation between me and the people there,” Ida noted. “It would be a challenge for me to write as if the villagers said it themselves, a tribute to the real owners of the story.”
But isn’t her very present work, editing rather esoteric, high-brow critiques a little too detached from the earthly chaos? Ida replies that the on-going turmoil, with the rampant absurdity of political blurriness, is the best time to consume such critical works.
“Now we could hear the playing of [nationalistic song] Rao Su with [leftist] Saeng Dao Haeng Sattha on the same stage. Things that wouldn’t have co-existed together, the ultra-right wing is brushing side by side with the radical left leaning. It might work for the better - everything that we used to cherish now just melts into thin air.
“So this might be the prime time for some quiet soul searching, to delve into something on a deeper level, leaving the outside world reel in its insanity.
“Reading requires people to be slower, to be still. It could shape, mould, a person’s outlook. I believe that some serious readers still exist in this society. I am aware that most Thai people have not been reared in the reading culture. But there are those in the cities, the so-called intellectuals, who could exert influence in the future of the country. If there is no effort to develop the quality of this group, they might do something that will affect the majority of the people.”
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