Peaceful Methods Fail

Have you every witnessed success by peaceful means?

After the uprising in Thailand in 1973, the Thai people seemed to have experienced an experiemtn in parliamentary democracy. But through the people's struggle, the students found that parliamentary democracy does not fit into the society. They don't want democracy on paper — they strive for democracy for the majority of the people and they give it the term "people's democracy".

The Thai students have a famous saying —"one of us has fallen yet thousands stand up".

They could never achieve people's democracy through parliamentary proceedures because those who are in positions would never be willing to give up their own interests. They are there to protect their own interests. The October 6 coup proved that parliamentary democracy is an illusion and that people must become awakened through the bloody massacre and the hundreds and thousands of students and people who were arrested and tortured.

They don't want democracy on paper — they strive for the majority of the people and they give it the term "peoples democracy".

This is a lesson — even though the lesson is learned with the price of blood. We have the confidence to say the Thai people struggle will make further advances in the future.

It is a bright future. Some people say that after October 6 everything is finished. This is not the case. We have to consider the struggle of the Thai people as part of the struggle of Third World peoples for national liberation and national independance.

The success of the Thai people is the success of the Third World. The success of African nations for national independance is an encouragement to the Thai struggling for their own destiny. The success of the Indo-Chinese people in particular gives them much encourgement showing that people are the motive force of history.