Ask a dozen people what it means to wear a yellow shirt and you are lucky if you get no more than 13 answers. For this writer, wearing yellow is all about a middle class rebellion against the elite.
What does elite mean? For our red shirted cousins, elite is synonymous to aristocracy and the Establishment. But for this writer, years of working in government has driven one to despise another kind of elite entirely, the kind that did not play by the rules, had red tape torn up for them, received unfair promotions and appointments based on their connections and generally were rich brats who did not know much about how things really worked in government.
It just so happened that virtually all of the above could be connected to the Thaksin regime and not, as our red cousins alleged, the aristocracy.
One fairly pleasant person who shall remain anonymous entered the Owelian Ministry of Truth, henceforth to be referred to as MinTrue, at the level of Deputy Director General. Many people work their entire lives to get to that rank yet this person's key to success was not technical excellence, but rather being the offspring of a judge who made history by creating a new category of "innocently guilty" when he judged Thaksin's first asset concealment case.
Lower down the pecking order, a few were spared the agony, and it was agony, of signing in and out every day for work. The central affairs bureau took a sadistic glee in timekeeping, opening up the signing in book only a short time before work commenced on the fifth floor while most of us were 20-odd stories higher up. Having to take a lift in peak hours to sign in and then go back up again is one particularly traumatic memory of MinTrue minionship. But back to the point at hand. One very nice chap was spared the agony because of an uncle who was deputy Prime Minister under Tux. The other was the offspring of someone rho ran a pro-Thaksin television station.
Yet at the same time, the Central Affairs Bureau, obviously frustrated from catering for and finding excuses for these elite, took a sadistic pleasure in throwing the rulebook hard at others who lacked the Thaksinite aura of protection. How hard? How about invoking an ancient rule that makes it illegal for a civil servant to cross a provincial boundary without informing their commanding officer beforehand. That might have made sense when taking an elephant to Ayuthaya took days, but not in this day and age where Hua Hin is a half day trip.
Scattered throughout MinTrue were Thaksinites who enjoyed privileges simply because of their connections. Such privileges also included winning a beauty pageant despite the obvious fat, sorry, facts staring the judges in the eye. Performance mattered little, nor did capability.
Against this backdrop of double standards then came along the Temasek deal. The government changed the law on telecom holding on a Friday and, by pure coincidence, Temasek just happened to have 73 billion Baht in cash on hand to buy Shincorp off Thaksin's kids, cook and driver the next working day, tax free at that. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The backlash that followed was definitely led by the tax-paying middle class who had enough of this injustice. Was it led, as the Reds allege, by the old elite who had been displaced by Thaksinites? It never felt that way. Granted, there was the odd Khunying / bank owner who spend an inordinate amount of time dancing in the front row of the Mob to music from Zuzu, but by and large, the old Establishment preferred not to get involved with the antics of a son of a Chinese immigrant media commoner and played the neutral card. At least that was how it felt.
Media is often referred to as the forth caste in a three caste system in Thailand. The Establishment despises media and calls them the lowest of the low. To have this lowest of the low Chinese immigrant rise up and challenge the Thaksin regime, an act which they themselves had failed to miserably, was too much for most Thai "Hi-So" as they are called to take.
The middle class did not just want the change that Thaksin had delivered. They did not want change from one corrupt, self-serving regime to another corrupt, self-serving regime. But rather the proto-Yellows wanted justice, to see that nobody was above the law. They wanted a meritocracy, ideals that were later to become part of New Politics.
In that sense, Red and Yellow are not that different. Both are a protest, a rebellion against perceived injustice. But while the rationale is similar, the conclusions could not be more different. One side wants a strong, empowered Thaksin back to force a radical revolution for a better future on Thailand, Lee Kuan Yew style. The other wants a democracy of reason and reasonable representatives in power in the current, slightly modified, framework to evolve Thailand.
This but one man's vision of what it means to wear a yellow shirt. There are many others.
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