In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hogwarts students organize Dumbledore’s Army to prepare themselves to do battle with the evil forces of Voldemort. A new division of Dumbledore’s Army has emerged in Thailand, as youthful protesters, emulating Harry Potter and his friends, challenge restrictions on young people and anti-democratic policies imposed by the nation’s military dictators.
The prime minister of Thailand is a former leader of their army who lead a 2014 military coup. At least two other military heads are in his governing cabinet. The military wrote the most recent Thailand constitution to ensure their control over the country even when there are elections. The United States has continued its close military and economic ties with the military regime in Thailand despite U.S. claims to support democracy in Southeast Asia.
The Thai government tries to maintain control by instilling obedience in young people. They are required to pledge to respect discipline and filial piety, which includes loyalty to the country’s rulers. Students take trips to military bases to impress them with the military’s power. The penalty in school for minor infractions like wearing the wrong color socks is often caning, beating with a bamboo strip. During some school ceremonies, students are forced to prostrate themselves before teachers.
Thai students began with school based issues, protesting against school rules that require boys to wear crew cuts and girls to crop their hair at earlobe length. Perms and dyed hair are taboo. Gradually, the student movement expanded to challenge the disappearance of Thai dissidents and demanding that the military and its allies withdraw from politics and government and respect human rights. At rallies, youthful protesters come dressed in pop culture costumes and as Harry Potter characters.
At a recent Democracy Monument in Bangkok, young people dressed in Harry Potter outfits waved makeshift magic wands and demanded that the military stop interfering in politics and society. Organizers charged that “Thailand has been dominated by the dark power of the Death Eaters. It is now time for the wizards and muggles of democracy to come out and join forces to protect rights, freedoms and brotherhood and reclaim power into the hands of the people.”At the rally, youthful protesters raised their hands in the three-fingered salute of defiance from the book and movie series “Hunger Games.” The gesture is forbidden by the military junta that that governs Thailand.
Benjamaporn Nivas, fifteen years old, is one of the Thai student protest leaders. In June, she staged a performance art protest in Bangkok. She sat slumped over in chair with her hands tied behind her back. Her mouth was covered by duct tape, she had scissors in her lap, and wore a sign asking people who saw her to cut her hair because its length violated school rules. Ms. Benjamaporn declared, “Maybe the older generation doesn’t understand that their rights and freedom have been taken from them, but we understand. They don’t have the right to touch the hair on our head.”
This fall, expect a new wave of youth protest in the United States as students return to schools unprepared to address Coronavirus concerns, Black Lives Matter rallies continue, climate change worries escalate, and the Trump campaign incites unrest with outrages attacks on his opponents and threats to void the election results placing American democracy at risk.
American social studies teachers will have to make difficult decisions. Will they focus lessons on academic explanations of how the electoral college works and, in the name of balance, present Trump’s false statements and angry tweets as legitimate political commentary? Or will teachers encourage critical examination of Trump’s record and claims and encourage student activism as a measure of their understanding of civic responsibility? In their lessons, will teachers join students as members of Dumbledore’s Army in defense of democracy in the United States?
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Coming in October from Routledge: Supporting Civics Education with Student Activism: Citizens for a Democratic Society by Pablo Muriel and Alan Singer