Wielding too much power can backfire

So what’s next? Banning The Hunger Games: Mockingjay from being screened here? Summoning Jennifer Lawrence for coming up with the three-finger salute that could provoke a real-life rebellion in “District Thailand?” Forcing people to listen to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s monotonous briefings all day long?

What the junta should do, actually, is to read the third and final part of The Hunger Games and see how The Capitol eventually fell to the rebellion even after it had exerted almost complete control over their resources and suppressed their spirit.

Then, it should fire its media and public engagement advisers.

If the junta has no advisers and the strategy being implemented — interfering with the press, forcing seminars and public discussions to end, and arresting activists campaigning for reform issues — comes from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) itself, then the generals had better come up with an exit plan. Cracks are clearly emerging in the military regime’s post-putsch Thailand image.

The carefully crafted state of “peace and order” made possible by the enactment of strict martial law that forbids virtually anything that can be deemed as a challenge to the powers-that-be is gradually but surely unravelling as a mirage, a fantasy waiting to dissolve back into the harsh reality of a deeply divided society still in search of common ground.

The military’s iron-fisted rule is making this elusive common ground even more contentious.

Any chance for reconciliation is breaking into smaller, sharper pieces as the junta presses on with its “roadmap to democracy” misnomer.

While some people may have been willing to put up with the arbitrary summonings of politicians, activists and journalists during the first phase of the junta’s takeover, its continued use of authoritarian powers will provoke wider resistance.

The NCPO has been in power for nearly six months. It should stop being overly sensitive to media questions or public discussions about problems in society, which after all are relevant to the reform agenda being pushed by one of the assemblies it has established.

To keep a rule that said the NCPO is above criticism is oppressive. To arrest activists who merely want to bring to its attention what they view as an unfair attempt to regulate the use of forest areas or to ban a talk show about land redistribution is tyrannical.

The NCPO may believe that it has sufficient reason to justify maintaining these rigid measures that trample on media freedom and basic human rights. PM Prayut has repeatedly said he has no choice but to keep martial law in place because movements aimed at causing confusion and instigating public turmoil remain active.

The problem with this logic is that it is against the public’s wishes and the way of the world. As society progresses, it’s bound to become more diverse. People need more, not less, freedom to advance their interests. They need more space and legal leeway to help settle their competing and often conflicting needs.

That is where the crux of the reforms should be. They should be about setting up a framework that allows people with different opinions and needs to coexist in peace. It should be about nurturing diversity and never about forging uniformity.

The NCPO will never be able to force people to see things the same way anyway. Despite its power, it will never be able to force people not to love Thaksin Shinawatra. That much it should know.

The regime won’t be able to keep martial law and other authoritarian measures in place forever. If it does not start easing them now when a new election is due in less than a year, then when?

What the public expect from the NCPO is for it to show that it can maintain peace and order even in the face of conflicts, that it can do better than the previous governments. Blanket suppression may be a convenient thing at first but it will backfire if carried on for too long.

There is scant reason for the majority to be deprived of their rights and freedoms because the junta, with its overwhelming power, can’t deal with people who really pursue acts that threaten national security.

There is no reason for the military regime to fear journalists who criticise it. The press should be free to question the junta and the generals should be free to defend themselves. That is democracy. That is what we are made to believe we are heading towards, not away from.

Atiya Achakulwisut is Contributing Editor, Bangkok Post.