Title: Challenges of Documenting state violence in Thailand: the Case of the Oct 6 Massacre

Time and Date: July 25, 2018, 12.30-14.00
Venue: Inamori Memorial Bld, Room 201 (Tonantei)

Speaker: Puangthong Pawakapan
(Department of International Relations, Chulalongkorn University)
(Visiting scholar, CSEAS, Kyoto University)

Chair and discussant: Charnvit Kasetsiri
(Visiting scholar, CSEAS Kyoto University)
(former President of Thammasat University)

Abstract:
The massacre at Thammasat University on October 6, 1976 was a
disturbing history of the Thai nation. It isa traumatic past for the
victims but a divisive history for the establishment. The massacre has
been increasingly discussed among and known to the new generations,
albeit in the non-mainstream circle. Documentation of the atrocity was
long overdue but it took 40 years for the work to begin. In late
September 2017, a small group of academics and activists, including
Puangthong, created the online archive called “Documentation of
October 6” www.doct6.com. One of the motives, possibly the most
perturbed one, of creating the archive was the realization that the
basic and important information about the 41 dead victims, as simple
as their identities, has been neglected and missing all along. Though
the astounding discovery did not change the narrative of the event, it
raised several questions, i.e. why and what is the meaning of such
negligence; how the repressed and traumatic memory led to the
disremembering of the victims. In this talk, Puangthong will also shed
light on the challenges and difficulties for documenting state crime
in the society imbued with a culture of impunity and the undervalue of
individuality.