BANGKOK — In junta-ruled Thailand, the simple act of reading in public has become an act of resistance.
On Saturday evening in Bangkok, a week and a half after the army seized power in a coup, about a dozen people gathered in the middle of a busy, elevated walkway connecting several of the capital’s most luxurious shopping malls.
As pedestrians trundled past, the protesters sat down, pulled out books such as George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” a dystopian novel about life in a totalitarian surveillance state — and began to read.
In a country where the army has vowed to crack down on anti-coup protesters demanding elections and a return to civilian rule, in a place where you can be detained for simply holding something that says “Peace Please” in the wrong part of town, the small protest was a major act of defiance — a quiet demonstration against the army’s May 22 seizure of power and the repression that has accompanied it.
“People are angry about this coup, but they can’t express it,” said a human rights activist who asked to be identified only by her nickname, Mook, for fear of being detained.
“So we were looking for an alternative way to resist, a way that is not confrontational,” she said. “And one of those ways is reading.”
Among their books: “Unarmed Insurrection,” “The Politics of Despotic Paternalism,” “The Power of Non-Violent Means.”
Kasama Na Nagara, who works in the financial sector and joined the book-reading protests, said she wanted her voice to be heard. Saturday marked the third protest. They have been careful to avoid soldiers.
