The People's Assembly in Thailand:
The
Quest for a Sustaining
Energy for Societal Change
by Chaiwat Thirapantu
As a member of 1960s generation, I grew up in the midst of the search for the meaning of life. The book Sidharatha by Herman Hesse, The Art of Loving by Erich From and Herbert Marcuse have brought us out of the lecture rooms into the streets with pictures of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh. The public demonstration songs from Bob Dylon and Joan Baez comforted our rebellious souls. In numerous parties and meetings, we sang the song “Imagine” by John Lennon with our full voice. That was the world we wished to have and strongly desired to live our lives in, not only for us but for our children and for the next generation.
As I returned from Germany to Thailand in 1974, I started working in the labor and the farmers movements. For twenty years I spent my time organizing protests with hope to strengthen the country’s politics by fighting against the establishment. I got involved in street fight, one of the bloodiest fights against the military dictatorship in May 1992.We Thais called it “The Bloodied May”. It was the first time I witnessed and felt “the field of energy” with my own body and mind. Two weeks long, we experienced and touched this kind of creativity and courage as human beings that fought against the military regime that ruled Thailand. Unfortunately, after the government dictatorship has been overthrown and a new election was held and everything went back to “the normal state”, no creativity, no innovative ideas, and no actions .Citizens returned to people who live their “normal lives”, all the energy was gone. We could not manage to sustain the energy to bring forth the society we dreamed to have. It seems that most of us have forgotten how many courageous citizens have scarified their lives for that dream.
To bring that dream back, I threw away old theories and methodologies and began a long journey to find how to create a positive energy without protesting and fighting a “common enemy?” How to make sure that this energy will sustain? And, how we could notice when it starts to wither away?
I began to read about Chaos theory, Complexity theory and others books to help me understand the concept of “new science” and self-organizing processes. In 1993, I published a book in Thai called “Chaos Theory and Siamese Society at the Bifurcation.” My approach of bringing new sciences to social science has shaken some academic circles in Thailand. I even created a small wave of provocative thinking in small Thai intellectual world. Yet, this is still far from real societal change. Looking to bring theories into practice, I continued the second phase of my learning journey searching for the methodology that can bring these theories into practice.
I took my first lesson, Zukunftskonferenz workshop (Future Search), in October1996, in Switzerland. Three months later, I tried the method out with 50 participants in my home town in Southern Thailand. Since the process turned out so well I continue to apply the methodology to organizations or communities to create common purposes or shared visions. However, Future Search is only limited to 72-81 participants, I searched for other methodologies to accommodate much larger number of participants. In 1998, my learning journey brought me to Oberursel, Germany where I learned about Open Space. The method facilitated by Mathias zur Bonsen and his team. In 1999, in Riccione, Italy I met David Cooperider and Diana Whitney, who helped me understand the principles and the methodology of Appreciative Inquiry. Open Space and Appreciative Inquiry have fulfilled my dream. I now understand the methodology and hold the “tools” which would ignite the energy of more than 1000 people to participate in a social change process. I practiced large group intervention like these on many occasions such as in communities planning, public organizations, and city participatory planning to make myself more skillful and to gain more confidence. I often combined Appreciative Inquiry with Open Space or Appreciative Inquiry with some part of Future Search in my practice. In May, 2002, I organized for the first time a four-day workshop using Appreciative Inquiry technique for 400 participants who had already taken part in my training courses and workshops. This was a “safety net,” a testing acrobat, the first large scale intervention for me and Thailand.
In 2002, I came across the World Café when I attended the Authentic Leadership Workshop in Halifax, Canada. The Café was facilitated by David Isaacs and I enjoyed the concept of walking from table to table. At that moment, I realized that World Café would fit in a Thai context smoothly. In southern Thailand where I was born, people visit traditional coffee shops every morning for social and political conversation. This coffee shop assembly is called Sapa Ga fae.
Since then I have applied the idea of World Café with Appreciate Inquiry with 500 to 600 participants and have gained more confidence and be more skillful in organizing large scale forums. In July 2004, I organized the first people’s politic meeting “Big Bang Bangkok” with 1,000 participants. We invited Bangkok residents to share their concerns, to find common goals and to present their views to the candidates of the governor election. The meeting was a success. The forum was broadcast live on cable TV and was televised on the evening news and in the newspapers the next morning. The event has made me more confident in organizing a forum for thousands of people.
In the year 2000, there was an election in Thailand. The Thai Rak Thai Party won the election and formed a coalition government with Dr.Taksin Shinawatra as the Prime Minister. He is in a word “Silvio Berlusconi of Thailand.” A business tycoon and a media mogul who ran our country like his holding company. In the first two years of his first term, Dr.Taksin used the populist policies, dumping a lot of money into grassroots level combining with the “carrot and stick” approach to drive civil servants. With these policies he was quite successful. In February 2005, he won a landslide election and for the first time in Thai history, the country was governed by a single party. The Prime Minister has become over confident and is becoming more and more authoritarian. He violates more and more human rights policies in Thailand. It is a critical time for civic groups to take creative action to bind “a political giant” with democratic strings. I observed social and political situation carefully. Looking and waiting for the moment which produces some conditions that would allow me to take political actions that signal a kind of people politics “resurgence.”
At the end of June 2005, the General Secretary of the Democrat Party, the opposition party, the oldest party in Thailand, had asked me to facilitate a “People Assembly” with 3,000 participants. I accepted the opportunity without hesitation as this is the chance to apply what I have practiced as a show case of Strategic Dialogue between people politics and party politics. It could open a chance for Thai society to start taking a journey on a road less traveled to a “new democracy” or as Tom Atlee put it “the Tao of Democracy.”
In the meeting with core group of the party’s leaders, I described my experiences in organizing and facilitating large forums. I pointed out to them the key factors that make the events successful. I recommended them to use Appreciative Inquiry in combination with World Café as the methodologies of the facilitation. I know that this group will love World Café because they also use a Sapa Ga Fae (coffee shop assembly) at their party head quarter from time to time. The party’s functionary responsible for organizing the People Assembly agreed with the approach, but wanted to make sure that other leading party’s members and 98 members of the parliament would support the first People’s Assembly with their “full heart.”
Preparing for a road less traveled
To gain full support from top ranked members we organized two workshops to demonstrate the principles, methodology, and processes of Appreciative Inquiry and World Café. At the beginning of August 2005, the first workshop was held in Phuket for 80 participants. Top members of the Democrat party and members of the Parliament took part in this two day workshop. I gave the participants some theoretical input and let them divide into pairs for an appreciative interview process. Later they worked in small groups of eight people, then larger groups of twenty four. On the next day, I ran Sapa Ga Fae (a Thai version of the World Café) with other variants as “café presentation.”
The first test run of People Assembly model in Phuket went smoothly and all participants felt confident that the People Assembly on October, 8 and 9 would not be a flop.
Based on the success in Phuket, the Party’s General Secretary voiced his idea to have a second workshop for the party branch leaders from 76 provinces as they are “the party’s front lines”. The front line leaders need to understand the methodology and processes so that in the future they can organize party assemblies in their provinces themselves. For me to have those people as my “extension arms” as facilitators in small group conversations could secure the process and reduce unexpected risks that might occur in the large scale political meeting. In some way, our assembly challenges the authoritarian nature of the Prime Minister. My co-facilitator, Mr. Paibool Wattanasiritham, and I have conducted the second workshop of 180 participants at the end of August in Bangkok. The event was very successful. We received praise from the influential party members who enjoy our vibrant conversations and felt the thrill of the historic People Assembly in October. I, myself felt relieved that I could overcome their doubts and hesitance, and won tremendous trust from the core party’s leaders. Now, I can concentrate on designing the process that from the opening session to the end. I knew that the Democrat Party, as the organizer will do everything to make sure that their first People Assembly will be the “talk of the nation.” The party paid for one hour of live television broadcasting, from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. I know when we are on the air that I must present a powerful massage for both the participants in the meeting hall and the audiences at home. I must plan for the setting that creates an environment for conversation.
The Democrat party rented a big exhibition hall with a space to accommodate 10,000 people. There were six meeting rooms where we can put 35 café tables with 10 chairs each, and a big meeting room with 100 tables to accommodate 1,000 people. The hall was divided in two parts, one part served the convention while the other was used for dinner, music, and performances. We also had another hall to serve Thai, vegetarians, and Islamic lunches. In the meeting hall, we arrange the chairs in a U-shape so that all participants in 320 small groups can see the facilitators and all the presentations. For me, it is very important that all participants feel connected with the two facilitators. If I can ignite the energy in myself and other speakers then that energy would flow through every group in the hall. And they will feel the power of connectedness and “the field” as well. We hang 12 big screens with surround speakers around the hall so people will feel “close” to the facilitators. The hall has a dark ceiling with good lighting creating an atmosphere of seriousness but calm. We tested all “light and sound” with my power points presentation and checking for the time sequences, from the opening remarks of the party leader, poem reading, and the facilitators storytelling and instruction. All of these actions would take place within 50 minutes so that the TV crew can broadcast the paired-conversations in small groups to the spectators at home so that they would sense what is going on in the room and witness this historic People Assembly.
To secure diversity in small groups of eight, we assigned names to every seat and asked 90 volunteers to escort the participants to their seats. In the foyer, the Democrat Party deployed the space for party’s exhibition and to my surprise they set a beautiful sculpture as a metaphor for “bringing democracy back to the people.” They decorated the setting with powerful quotations of famous philosophers and politicians. It was the place that many participants made their pictures session and for the media, it presented a powerful massage.
As for the session design, the first hour was for me the most critical transition phase. During this phase, the facilitator must create full trust in the participants and the process. They must believe that the success of this meeting is in their own hands. They must listen with concentration to our message even though it is not easy in context. Many participants had experienced the boredom of political meetings where experts continuously talk and the participants sit and listen for hours with little time for questions and answers. I guessed around 2,800 people never took part in this kind of real participatory meeting before. I must make people feel that they were in the process of participating in a collective journey, nobody knows where it will end up but it is worth exploring that new path. I needed somebody whom people feel comfortable listening deeply to from the beginning. I told the organizers to invite our most famous poet, Noawarat Phongpaibool, our Thai “Pablo Neruda,” because he has capacity to inspire people. I knew that if we clearly explained to him the People Assembly concept, his poem would touch people’s hearts. I never doubted his capacity to inspire people and make our meeting more colorful. It would touch people’s hearts and ignite energy. I was certain that if everything went according to plan, we would not fail. It was the Democrat Party who implemented my blue print of large-scale systems change. And the Democrats definitely do not want to “lose their faces”. Therefore, the burden was on the facilitators’ shoulders.
On the evening of October 7th, the facilitators, the poet and his music team had our last rehearsal. The stage manager, all crew members, volunteers, lights and sounds engineer made their final checks.
The people power in a co-creative way.
We started on Saturday 8th, at 9:00 AM with an opening speech from the Party leader. Then Mr. Noawarat and his band came on stage. The sound of his poem and music brought the hall to silence. I knew that he had laid the ground for me and my co-facilitator. Paibool talked about the People Assembly as a true democratic gathering that respected every voice. I started with Margaret Mead’s quotation “Never doubt that a small group of committed and thoughtful citizens can not change the world...” followed by mother Teresa’s words about the power of love and the “energy of dharma” to lift up the spirits in the hall. My intention was to create an atmosphere of strong commitment to forging a common future. I gave four questions to people to interview each other in the groups and share the responses with the groups and synthesized their common interests. These were the questions.
From your heart, tell me why did you come here to join the People Assembly?
From your point of view, what are the most challenging issues that our society will encounter? Please name it only three issues, and tell us why they are so important.
Please tell me five strategic goals that you and Thai society should achieve in 2009.
Tell me from your heart. When you leave the People Assembly and return home, what do you want to do immediately? Why? And do you have any suggestion for Democrat party, what should they do as a political institution to guide Thai society to better future?
People worked in 375 small groups until lunch time. After lunch, I ask them to bring four small groups into one bigger group of 32 persons asking the groups to synthesize the challenges and synthesized five strategic goals. Before they started to work, I remind them of some rules of the game using Adam Kahane’s quotation “To change the world, is to change the way you talk and listen.” I asked them for one hour of thinking together, and every group should prepare themselves for three minutes presentation. We know that all groups would like to voice their concerns, but we managed in one and half hours to give 44 groups(from 100 groups) the opportunities to report their results. We showed the participants our appreciation for their discipline and energetic contributions. After that, the participants were invited to dinner and music to celebrate the success. During this period, we asked the group volunteers to cluster the strategic goals from 100 groups into seven strategic issues.
Everybody who entered the dinning hall was greeted by our staff with one rose and the Thai song “Flower for the People.” It was a very relaxing atmosphere. For me it was important, after a tough day we should have time for Sa-nuk (The Thais love to have fun or Sa-nuk.)
Once people were at their tables, there was a short silence as the lights were dimmed, and people were waiting to see what happened next. The musicians dressed in traditional costumes brought big drums on the stage. These were “sacred drums” from the four cultural regions of Thailand, northern, north-eastern, southern, and the middle of the kingdom. It was my desire to let the audiences sound “the drum beats” as feeling “rhythm of our nation.” Every region played their drums one after another as a solo, each region has its own rhythm. The drummers, then, play together synchronistically, their rhythms as one. People in the dining hall could feel that diverse rhythms could synchronize into one as “the rhythm of Thai nation.” I designed this as a metaphor because when people listen deeply, you can connect to others even if we are all different.
The master of ceremony invited me to come on stage; he gave me enough time for a short speech. I made my personal “check in” with around 2,800 people. I told them from my heart the reason I came here. I am not a member of the Democrat Party and not doing the Party a favor, but acting in the name of civic group, who looking for political strategic connection, which could make a turning point in unfolding future. I told the audience that when the General Secretary asked me to be a facilitator for a People Assembly of 3,000 I took 30 seconds to listen to the calling of my heart and listen to my motherland calling me. I just followed the rhythm of my heart that synchronized with the heart of our Thai nation. And I think deep to your hearts, hoping that you would have the inner call as I do.”
My intention with this open heart is to open people’s minds and make them sense by our hearts. When they listen deeply to their inner voices to unfolding universe they will find hidden connections and the experience that we are all connected, our destiny binds us together. And tomorrow the participants must come to Sapa Ga fae (coffee shop assembly) again, to finish our works. The master of ceremony announced seven issues and seven halls that participants would find them in. The seven issues included educational reform as a tool for a quality society, fighting against corruption, economic development and reform, revitalizing ethics, political reform and people empowerment, ending the violence in three provinces. We suggested to the participants that if any hall was full, they should go to the next one. It is on first come first serve basis, and when he/she lost his/her interest in the issue he/she could walk into the other halls, as we practice in Open Space.
On the next morning, October 9th, around 2,600 person and media returned to the Assembly. They went into the halls convened around different topics of their interests. Every hall was run by two facilitators, the participants sat at a table for 10 persons. Even though, I prefer to have 6 or 8 people at a table we lacked of tables and spaces.
The organizer made mistakes in setting the Café atmosphere. The teams did not focus on the small details. They forgot to put flowers on the tables and instead of coffee cups we got snack boxes served on a plane.
Our Sapa Ga fae (coffee shop assembly) did not have cross-pollination to walk from one table to others.(I myself recommended this but the Party wanted to make it shorter, because a lot of people travel from very far provinces and did not want a very late night).We gave every table one hour for conversation and each group had one minute to report to the large assembly what was the most relevant actions we should do together.
After lunch we returned to the biggest hall where we were gathered yesterday. We sat in theater format to hear reports from the speakers of seven halls. Every speaker presented core ideas and strategic works in 10 minutes. Those ideas were recorded and forwarded as suggestions for future government.
Before the closing remarks of Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrat Party’s leader, Paibool, my co-facilitator told his appreciation to all participants. I, myself , as one “warrior of civil society movement” made a personal reflection of lessons learned from 30 years walking on the long road of transforming our society. I ended my speech with Gandhi’s quotation “Be the change you want to see the world.” I intended to challenge many civic group leaders and politicians of Democrat Party to “rethink” again. (Later some Democrat members of parliament told me it was a very good speech.)
Possibility of creating “new politic”?
On October 9th and 10th nearly every newspaper in Thai and English reported about the two days the First People Assembly. It was also broadcast on some TV channels, and one favorite political talk show Thueng Lug Thueng Kon (Never Give Up the Ball) with the Democrat Party leader. The moderator argued of possibility of “new politics” that Democrat party want to pursue.
My last remark, today November 25th, the authoritarian government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is in a big trouble, much of middle class Thai society deny him to lead Thailand. We are coming to the next political crisis and also (for me) the opportunity to make second step to the evolution of “new politics” in Thailand. I can not wait to see where this opportunity will take me.
Send an email to Chaiwat Thirapantu.