A Division of Listening: Insurgent Sympathy and the Sonic Broadcasts of the Thai Military

Introduction During ten weeks of antigovernment protest in 2010, the Thai military used physical and psychological tactics, including the broadcasting of coercive music and speech, against a coalition of domestic demonstrators known as the Red Shirts. These protesters had seized some of Bangkok's busiest commercial districts in order to call -- with substantial amplification themselves -- for the dissolution of the current government and a host of political reforms. Specific motivations for the movement included the desire for fairer demo 24:2 doi 10.1215/10679847-3458673 Copyright 2016 by Duke University Press 24:2 May 2016 cratic processes, legitimate elections, and an end to incessant coups as well as government censorship of public discourse. Protesters and soldiers spent ten weeks engaged in a complex standoff in which the broadcasting of sound figured crucially, including in the military's attempts to calm and coerce the masses. However, significant distortion, both sonic and otherwise, upended the possibility of dialogue. In an assault more frightening and violent than most expected, the military attacked protesters with snipers and live ammunition, killing dozens during a major crackdown in May of that year. At least ninety-one people died during the occupation, with thousands more injured. Malls and hotels were torched as soldiers rolled through the vacant consumer corridors of downtown Bangkok in armored vehicles, waging urban warfare with the few remaining dissidents. Afterward, stages and speaker systems were shoveled away by tanks during an eerie week of cleanup; the devices were the unplugged, denuded remnants of an attenuated effort to speak. Around the country, the crackdown brought stunned quiet . . . an emphatic absence because the prior months had been so thick with sound. Partly to ward off boredom, partly to announce the movement's presence, the Red Shirt protest sites had blustered day and night with music and speeches, both...