For those with little background knowledge about Thai politics, you should read this to understand what has happened in Thailand since 2006 that eventually led to the Redshirt phenomenon.
Download here.
Download the file from the link above.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Brutality of the charming Abhisit, the military gang, and their allies
Thai military under the command of the Abhisit government shamelessly violated the nation's constitution and human rights by employing troops armed with heavy weapons to brutally charge the empty-handed crowds comprised of men, women and even chldren at the dawn of April 13, a national holiday in Thailand, while dictating all the mainstream media not to report any truthful accounts and worse to conjure a feeling of hatred against the innocent redshirts among all Thais. A single picture speaks more than a thousand words.
HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT ATTACK THE FREE HAND PROTESTERS BY FORCE WHO HAVE THEIR OWN FREEDOM TO STAGE A POLITICAL VIEW?
Apparently, a downtown battle field sparked yesterday as the puppet government used the military troop by way of declaring the state of emergency over the area of Bangkok area and its outskirts to specifically dissolve by force the Red-shirt protesters. Red-shirt protesters politically demand the puppet prime minister and government-entangling privy councillor head to resign.
In pictures, the troop brutally shot the Red-shirt protesters who protected their barracks for political rally to dead and to get injured, while the latter fought back free hand. Not only the people, a few monks were also killed. Most corpses were kept and destroyed by the troop to avert the evidence. Up to now, nearly one hundred people were registered dead and injured, being drastically contrast to the government report, as saying only two were dead.
Some pictures showed the Red-shirt women put themselves on knee with flowers before the soldiers to beg for life. Some pictures delineated the shameful action of the soldiers drawing on by force the hairs of the unarmed woman protester.
The government also made an image-smearing story by hiring people to put on red shirt and dictated them to destroy the civil and public properties in the evening as if the Red-shirt protesters had made. (Alchemist, prachathai)
HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT ATTACK THE FREE HAND PROTESTERS BY FORCE WHO HAVE THEIR OWN FREEDOM TO STAGE A POLITICAL VIEW?
Apparently, a downtown battle field sparked yesterday as the puppet government used the military troop by way of declaring the state of emergency over the area of Bangkok area and its outskirts to specifically dissolve by force the Red-shirt protesters. Red-shirt protesters politically demand the puppet prime minister and government-entangling privy councillor head to resign.
In pictures, the troop brutally shot the Red-shirt protesters who protected their barracks for political rally to dead and to get injured, while the latter fought back free hand. Not only the people, a few monks were also killed. Most corpses were kept and destroyed by the troop to avert the evidence. Up to now, nearly one hundred people were registered dead and injured, being drastically contrast to the government report, as saying only two were dead.
Some pictures showed the Red-shirt women put themselves on knee with flowers before the soldiers to beg for life. Some pictures delineated the shameful action of the soldiers drawing on by force the hairs of the unarmed woman protester.
The government also made an image-smearing story by hiring people to put on red shirt and dictated them to destroy the civil and public properties in the evening as if the Red-shirt protesters had made. (Alchemist, prachathai)
'Managed democracy' just doesn't work
The Thailand Lesson
'Managed democracy' just doesn't work
From today's Wall Street Journal Asia, April 14, 2009
Some Asian leaders like to argue that "managed democracy," where elections are held but old elites and the military really call the shots, is best. To see just how well that works, look no further than Thailand, where the petrol bombs of mob rule have been added to the mix.
APIs this the way to democracy?
.
Yesterday, military police opened fire on antigovernment protesters in Bangkok. At least 79 people were wounded and one killed in that and other incidents. The same protest group charged into a regional summit in Pattaya on Saturday, forcing Asian dignitaries -- including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso -- to escape via helicopter. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency Sunday. Bangkok has come to a virtual standstill.
The chaos could not come at a worse time for one of Asia's most important economies, and a country which has been taking fitful but determined steps toward democracy for many years now. Mob action is unlikely to advance that cause, but some of the protest, at least, is rooted in genuine frustration. Thais re-elected Thaksin Shinawatra to a second term as their leader in 2005, only to see him overthrown by a military coup the following year. The military-backed government held genuine elections in 2007 and again, Thai voters elected Mr. Thaksin's allies. Last year, that government was overthrown after violent street protests, airport occupations and controversial legal rulings that hobbled Mr. Thaksin's party and political allies.
Many of the so-called "red shirt" protestors on the streets today say they want a return to democracy. Their demands include dissolving the current government and restoring Thailand's pro-democracy 1997 constitution. Jakrapob Penkair, a protest leader, told us by telephone yesterday that "Abhisit's government as we see it is the fruit of a troubled structure. If we don't go to the trouble of resolving it structurally, we will have the same vicious cycle." Undermining the rule of law, however, is an odd way to try to save it.
Despite his best efforts to avoid conflict, Mr. Abhisit is caught in a political corner. A military crackdown endangers his own government's sagging popularity. But he can't easily command popular authority because he himself didn't come to power in an entirely democratic fashion, having been elected by Parliament on the back of protests that brought the country to a standstill. Yesterday he said on national television that he ordered the state of emergency "not to create fear or put pressure or to harm any group of people. It's a step by step process to restore order and stop violence."
More at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123963903748613851.html
'Managed democracy' just doesn't work
From today's Wall Street Journal Asia, April 14, 2009
Some Asian leaders like to argue that "managed democracy," where elections are held but old elites and the military really call the shots, is best. To see just how well that works, look no further than Thailand, where the petrol bombs of mob rule have been added to the mix.
APIs this the way to democracy?
.
Yesterday, military police opened fire on antigovernment protesters in Bangkok. At least 79 people were wounded and one killed in that and other incidents. The same protest group charged into a regional summit in Pattaya on Saturday, forcing Asian dignitaries -- including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso -- to escape via helicopter. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency Sunday. Bangkok has come to a virtual standstill.
The chaos could not come at a worse time for one of Asia's most important economies, and a country which has been taking fitful but determined steps toward democracy for many years now. Mob action is unlikely to advance that cause, but some of the protest, at least, is rooted in genuine frustration. Thais re-elected Thaksin Shinawatra to a second term as their leader in 2005, only to see him overthrown by a military coup the following year. The military-backed government held genuine elections in 2007 and again, Thai voters elected Mr. Thaksin's allies. Last year, that government was overthrown after violent street protests, airport occupations and controversial legal rulings that hobbled Mr. Thaksin's party and political allies.
Many of the so-called "red shirt" protestors on the streets today say they want a return to democracy. Their demands include dissolving the current government and restoring Thailand's pro-democracy 1997 constitution. Jakrapob Penkair, a protest leader, told us by telephone yesterday that "Abhisit's government as we see it is the fruit of a troubled structure. If we don't go to the trouble of resolving it structurally, we will have the same vicious cycle." Undermining the rule of law, however, is an odd way to try to save it.
Despite his best efforts to avoid conflict, Mr. Abhisit is caught in a political corner. A military crackdown endangers his own government's sagging popularity. But he can't easily command popular authority because he himself didn't come to power in an entirely democratic fashion, having been elected by Parliament on the back of protests that brought the country to a standstill. Yesterday he said on national television that he ordered the state of emergency "not to create fear or put pressure or to harm any group of people. It's a step by step process to restore order and stop violence."
More at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123963903748613851.html
Some pictures to comfirm the brutality of the Abhisit government and Thai military leaders
http://uddtoday.ning.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=1gdw6r62ec0nd&sort=mostRecent
Please note that this link has been blocked by the Thailand ICT Ministry. You could, howeve, use a proxy site to view it. I am having no trouble accessing it in the U.S.
Please note that this link has been blocked by the Thailand ICT Ministry. You could, howeve, use a proxy site to view it. I am having no trouble accessing it in the U.S.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Open Letter To Barack H. Obama
Open Letter
To Barack H. Obama
The 44th President of the United States
Yours Excellency:
Firstly we, Thai people in red shirt, believe that your political concepts building from the great national founders of the United States of America. The most famous part of Abraham Lincoln speech is the "government of the people - by the people - for the people". You also delivered your historic acceptance speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963 that “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal", where hundreds of thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. They came to march for jobs, and for freedom, and for equality.
Please look onto Thai Democracy development, The Thai Revolution of 1932 or the Siamese Coup d'état of 1932 was a bloodless transition on the 24 June 1932, which the system of government in Thai was changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Since then the fake democracy have been developed by the elite and military who playing a role more than 16 times in toppling governments until now. Many times military suppresses Thai activists and students that requesting for freedom and real democracy. In the October 14, 1973 period, 77 people were killed and 857 wounded. On October 6, 1976, around 500 were killed and 11,000 arrested. In May 1992 period, 52 people were killed, many disappearances, hundreds of injuries, and over 3,500 arrested. Many of those arrested were tortured.
It has been widely reported in Thailand and global news that General Prem Tinsulanont, Privy Council head, who had made a fake democracy for long and backing the current government now, was politically naked. Before The 2006 Thailand coup, he had rally set his speaking at military institutes to against the elected government. Then he also was a person backing the yellow-shirted people that starting anti-government, led by Sondhi Limthongkul as a news media, whose missions were to overthrow the Thaksin government. As followed, General Sonti Boonyaratklin staged a coup d'état against the elected government of caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Then Constitution Law of 1997 had been replaced by the new ones of 2007. It means that fake democracy now legitimated and executed on the path of the conspiracy of political evil-elite network, formed by elite’s royalist, military, Democrat party, media and some academics. Political turmoil had continued since the leaders of the coup returned the country to democracy early last year and Mr. Thaksin’s supporters were voted back into office as Samak government. Therefore, Sondhi again, as a leader of anti-government protesters, started to protest and seized Government House, attacked NBT TV station, blocked Parliament Meeting, attacked the Police Head Office of Bangkok, and blocked trains and Bangkok seaport, and finally turning to be PAD terrorist, seized Suvarnaphumi International Airport and Bangkok Airport. It is surprisingly that no proceed on legal has been resulted for penalty yet. The network overthrew Samak and Somchai governments by any means (including the injustice court rulings), and help setting up the current coalition government nastily, through military intervention. That is 77 years for our fake democracy since the first coup.
On April 8, 2009, The March, more than 100,000 people, on Bangkok calling for democracy was the largest gathering of red-shirt protesters in Thailand's history. What we protest is that we are not accepted the "government of the political evil-elite network - by military - for the political evil-elite network ". Even though we, Thai people in red shirt, believe that the method of nonviolent resistance to government is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice, freedom and equality. But it may turn to the people revolution in Thailand if the people could not endure to injustices and economic conditions.
We urge US government as representative of American people who adore true democracy to support our democracy and social justice in Thailand. Since all events in killing the Thai people said above are surprisingly legitimacy in Thailand, but Thai political and military men said that was internal affairs. And now 7 people were killed this morning. So, Thailand needs change. The support of your Excellency shall be highly appreciated.
Yours Excellency, we remain
Sincerely,
Thai people in Red-Shirt Groups for Democracy
13 April 2009
AlJazeera broadcast clearly showed soldiers firing at ground level - not into the air.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/04/20094135521189943.html
To Barack H. Obama
The 44th President of the United States
Yours Excellency:
Firstly we, Thai people in red shirt, believe that your political concepts building from the great national founders of the United States of America. The most famous part of Abraham Lincoln speech is the "government of the people - by the people - for the people". You also delivered your historic acceptance speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963 that “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal", where hundreds of thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. They came to march for jobs, and for freedom, and for equality.
Please look onto Thai Democracy development, The Thai Revolution of 1932 or the Siamese Coup d'état of 1932 was a bloodless transition on the 24 June 1932, which the system of government in Thai was changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Since then the fake democracy have been developed by the elite and military who playing a role more than 16 times in toppling governments until now. Many times military suppresses Thai activists and students that requesting for freedom and real democracy. In the October 14, 1973 period, 77 people were killed and 857 wounded. On October 6, 1976, around 500 were killed and 11,000 arrested. In May 1992 period, 52 people were killed, many disappearances, hundreds of injuries, and over 3,500 arrested. Many of those arrested were tortured.
It has been widely reported in Thailand and global news that General Prem Tinsulanont, Privy Council head, who had made a fake democracy for long and backing the current government now, was politically naked. Before The 2006 Thailand coup, he had rally set his speaking at military institutes to against the elected government. Then he also was a person backing the yellow-shirted people that starting anti-government, led by Sondhi Limthongkul as a news media, whose missions were to overthrow the Thaksin government. As followed, General Sonti Boonyaratklin staged a coup d'état against the elected government of caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Then Constitution Law of 1997 had been replaced by the new ones of 2007. It means that fake democracy now legitimated and executed on the path of the conspiracy of political evil-elite network, formed by elite’s royalist, military, Democrat party, media and some academics. Political turmoil had continued since the leaders of the coup returned the country to democracy early last year and Mr. Thaksin’s supporters were voted back into office as Samak government. Therefore, Sondhi again, as a leader of anti-government protesters, started to protest and seized Government House, attacked NBT TV station, blocked Parliament Meeting, attacked the Police Head Office of Bangkok, and blocked trains and Bangkok seaport, and finally turning to be PAD terrorist, seized Suvarnaphumi International Airport and Bangkok Airport. It is surprisingly that no proceed on legal has been resulted for penalty yet. The network overthrew Samak and Somchai governments by any means (including the injustice court rulings), and help setting up the current coalition government nastily, through military intervention. That is 77 years for our fake democracy since the first coup.
On April 8, 2009, The March, more than 100,000 people, on Bangkok calling for democracy was the largest gathering of red-shirt protesters in Thailand's history. What we protest is that we are not accepted the "government of the political evil-elite network - by military - for the political evil-elite network ". Even though we, Thai people in red shirt, believe that the method of nonviolent resistance to government is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice, freedom and equality. But it may turn to the people revolution in Thailand if the people could not endure to injustices and economic conditions.
We urge US government as representative of American people who adore true democracy to support our democracy and social justice in Thailand. Since all events in killing the Thai people said above are surprisingly legitimacy in Thailand, but Thai political and military men said that was internal affairs. And now 7 people were killed this morning. So, Thailand needs change. The support of your Excellency shall be highly appreciated.
Yours Excellency, we remain
Sincerely,
Thai people in Red-Shirt Groups for Democracy
13 April 2009
AlJazeera broadcast clearly showed soldiers firing at ground level - not into the air.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/04/20094135521189943.html
Please Help Us!: Listen to a female voice of Thai about the oppressive acts of Abhisit adminstration and the ignorance from the mainstream media
The lady also speaks in English.
"You come here and find the bullets. You are the fact finders, right?," she addressed the distorted media.
Here's the link to the youtube video
Please Help Us
Violent clashes on the streets of Bangkok
Thailand's army has begun an operation to remove anti-government protesters blocking the centre of the capital Bangkok, sparking violent clashes.
"You come here and find the bullets. You are the fact finders, right?," she addressed the distorted media.
Here's the link to the youtube video
Please Help Us
Violent clashes on the streets of Bangkok
Thailand's army has begun an operation to remove anti-government protesters blocking the centre of the capital Bangkok, sparking violent clashes.
Jonathan Steele guardian.co.uk on Abhisit's useless charm
Less charm, more action
Thailand's prime minister may have charmed Gordon Brown, but he has yet to make an impact on the nation's real problems
Jonathan Steele guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 March 2009 13.00 BST
Forget Gordon Brown's recent love-in with Barack Obama in Washington. What about his extraordinarily intense relationship with Thailand's new prime minister? Brown first met him in Davos in January, invited him to next week's G20 conference in London and, if that wasn't enough, hosted him a fortnight ago in Downing Street. Three encounters in three months. Not bad for a man in power for barely a hundred days.
It helps, of course, that Abhisit Vejjajiva is an Anglophile, born in Britain, educated at Eton and with a first-class degree from Oxford. His brains and international sophistication – unique for a Thai prime minister – have made him the darling of Bangkok's diplomats while his fierce opposition to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who fled last year to avoid imprisonment, delights most of the urban middle class.
But Abhisit faces an uphill struggle in wooing investors as the world recession intensifies. The country's image lies in tatters. First came a military coup in 2006, a throwback to a pre-globalisation era. Last year, in spite of the restoration of civilian rule, increasing polarisation led to months of demonstrations by "yellow shirts" v "red shirts" which culminated in the occupation of government house and Bangkok's airports – blatant crimes for which no-one has been charged. Then came a judicial coup, with the courts banning the then prime minister and over a hundred other politicians, thereby paving the way for Abhisit to be voted into power by a rump parliament.
Are the roots of the crisis economic or political? Globalisation has increased the gap between the country's still huge rural population and the cities in spite of Thaksin's welfare reforms. Landing in Bangkok, you see well-watered paddy fields glinting in the sunlight, but drive two hours east and vast acreages lie fallow in the dry season, their farmers unable to afford irrigation. Thousands of others have lost their land to forestry projects, dam-building, or gas pipelines.
Thaksin, who was the first man to complete a full term and be re-elected, mobilised the rural population. Yet his much-needed pro-poor policies and welfare subsidies did not cut into the lifestyle of Bangkok's middle class. The city's spacious and tasteful shopping centres make Bond Street and Oxford Street look crowded and tatty. What turned many in Bangkok against Thaksin was his media manipulation and political bullying while the old elite, rooted in royalism, the military, and an ossified civil service hated his challenge to their power.
Chaiwat Satha-Anand, a political scientist at Thammasat University, describes Thaksin's system as "authoritarian democracy". He was elected fairly by people who "could vote a government in but not influence the ways in which it governs". In office, Thaksin increasingly monopolised decision-making, controlled TV, and enriched himself and his friends. By contrast, Thailand's previous system, restored by the 2006 military coup, is "democratic authoritarianism" in which civil rights are granted as long as they don't threaten the country's traditional rulers. Others describe Thaksin as an ideologically confusing mixture of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Italy's businessman-politician Silvio Berlusconi.
Satha-Anand as well as a leading human rights lawyer, Somchai Homlaor, say political violence under Thaksin was unprecedented. Thousands were murdered by the police and army in a "war on drugs". Environmental activists disappeared, and an insurgency by the Muslim minority in southern Thailand was met with massive repression. "The culture of impunity, especially in the police, is very strong. No government even now can bring them to justice", Homlaor argues.
Thaksin's beneficial economic record cannot be undone, and Abhisit is keeping most of his programmes, including giving cheques to millions of low-income families as part of a stimulus package. The former prime minister's political shadow still looms. Claiming his trial was politically motivated and flawed, he still addresses rallies by phone from abroad. His remaining MPs are planning a no-confidence motion in Abhisit and want amnesty for all banned politicians (mainly their colleagues).
Yet after the turmoil of the last 30 months the country's politics seem to have relaxed. A pro-Thaksin rally that I watched in Bangkok last month felt ritualistic and good-natured rather than angry. (Another one yesterday seems to have been similar in tone). The protesters did not try to storm government house, so as to keep the moral high ground compared with the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) behaviour last year. Now the PAD is discussing whether to abandon street politics and become a party, a move which could split the anti-Thaksin vote when elections are called.
Homlaor takes an optimistic view. Although recent events tarnished the image of Thais as "soft smiling people", he believes there is greater restraint than in his student days "when protesters rushed to gun-shops to be able to fire on the police". Only ten have died in political violence since 2006 compared to much larger numbers in the turmoil of 1973, 1976, and 1992. The coup of 2006 lasted little more than a year. "We've created a norm that the military will not seize and retain power, and a politician will not become a dictator under a parliamentary system", he says.
There is increasing debate about Thailand's biggest taboo, the role of the monarchy, and the draconian lese-majeste laws which criminalise critics. "The King favours the other side, but we can't say that. They'll put us in gaol. We call him the invisible hand", a middle-aged woman on the pro-Thaksin march told me.
Kavi Chongkittavorn of the Bangkok paper the Nation highlights a paradox that runs against China's paradigm of a controlled press and an increasingly free web. In Thailand, he says, "while the printed and general media environment is pretty free, filtering of the internet is on the rise, judging from the numbers of blocked and shut websites". The authorities claim they contained pornography or insulted the monarchy, but Chongkittavorn says only about 100 of the 4,800 shut sites were pornographic. The rest dealt with the monarchy and "most were just disapproving, nothing serious".
Where does this leave Abhisit, as he strives to present a modern face to the world? The Bangkok pundits point out that his government shut over 2000 websites, angering young middle-class Thais. They applaud his promise to revive the stalled investigation of one of the most prominent abuses under Thaksin, the police abduction of a well-known human rights lawyer. But until the killers are brought to justice it is too early to know if official impunity is ending. Abhisit has talked of improving the way the lese-majeste laws are "interpreted", a phrase he used in a Financial Times interview. This sounds like interfering in the administration of justice rather than persuading parliament to soften or scrap the law.
Thailand's economic recession is as serious as every other country's. Gordon Brown may be enamoured by Abhisit's efforts on that front. But most Thais know their prime minister's control over global financial forces is limited. Changing Thailand's standards of governance is the area where he could make an impact – provided he has the will.
Thailand's prime minister may have charmed Gordon Brown, but he has yet to make an impact on the nation's real problems
Jonathan Steele guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 March 2009 13.00 BST
Forget Gordon Brown's recent love-in with Barack Obama in Washington. What about his extraordinarily intense relationship with Thailand's new prime minister? Brown first met him in Davos in January, invited him to next week's G20 conference in London and, if that wasn't enough, hosted him a fortnight ago in Downing Street. Three encounters in three months. Not bad for a man in power for barely a hundred days.
It helps, of course, that Abhisit Vejjajiva is an Anglophile, born in Britain, educated at Eton and with a first-class degree from Oxford. His brains and international sophistication – unique for a Thai prime minister – have made him the darling of Bangkok's diplomats while his fierce opposition to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who fled last year to avoid imprisonment, delights most of the urban middle class.
But Abhisit faces an uphill struggle in wooing investors as the world recession intensifies. The country's image lies in tatters. First came a military coup in 2006, a throwback to a pre-globalisation era. Last year, in spite of the restoration of civilian rule, increasing polarisation led to months of demonstrations by "yellow shirts" v "red shirts" which culminated in the occupation of government house and Bangkok's airports – blatant crimes for which no-one has been charged. Then came a judicial coup, with the courts banning the then prime minister and over a hundred other politicians, thereby paving the way for Abhisit to be voted into power by a rump parliament.
Are the roots of the crisis economic or political? Globalisation has increased the gap between the country's still huge rural population and the cities in spite of Thaksin's welfare reforms. Landing in Bangkok, you see well-watered paddy fields glinting in the sunlight, but drive two hours east and vast acreages lie fallow in the dry season, their farmers unable to afford irrigation. Thousands of others have lost their land to forestry projects, dam-building, or gas pipelines.
Thaksin, who was the first man to complete a full term and be re-elected, mobilised the rural population. Yet his much-needed pro-poor policies and welfare subsidies did not cut into the lifestyle of Bangkok's middle class. The city's spacious and tasteful shopping centres make Bond Street and Oxford Street look crowded and tatty. What turned many in Bangkok against Thaksin was his media manipulation and political bullying while the old elite, rooted in royalism, the military, and an ossified civil service hated his challenge to their power.
Chaiwat Satha-Anand, a political scientist at Thammasat University, describes Thaksin's system as "authoritarian democracy". He was elected fairly by people who "could vote a government in but not influence the ways in which it governs". In office, Thaksin increasingly monopolised decision-making, controlled TV, and enriched himself and his friends. By contrast, Thailand's previous system, restored by the 2006 military coup, is "democratic authoritarianism" in which civil rights are granted as long as they don't threaten the country's traditional rulers. Others describe Thaksin as an ideologically confusing mixture of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Italy's businessman-politician Silvio Berlusconi.
Satha-Anand as well as a leading human rights lawyer, Somchai Homlaor, say political violence under Thaksin was unprecedented. Thousands were murdered by the police and army in a "war on drugs". Environmental activists disappeared, and an insurgency by the Muslim minority in southern Thailand was met with massive repression. "The culture of impunity, especially in the police, is very strong. No government even now can bring them to justice", Homlaor argues.
Thaksin's beneficial economic record cannot be undone, and Abhisit is keeping most of his programmes, including giving cheques to millions of low-income families as part of a stimulus package. The former prime minister's political shadow still looms. Claiming his trial was politically motivated and flawed, he still addresses rallies by phone from abroad. His remaining MPs are planning a no-confidence motion in Abhisit and want amnesty for all banned politicians (mainly their colleagues).
Yet after the turmoil of the last 30 months the country's politics seem to have relaxed. A pro-Thaksin rally that I watched in Bangkok last month felt ritualistic and good-natured rather than angry. (Another one yesterday seems to have been similar in tone). The protesters did not try to storm government house, so as to keep the moral high ground compared with the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) behaviour last year. Now the PAD is discussing whether to abandon street politics and become a party, a move which could split the anti-Thaksin vote when elections are called.
Homlaor takes an optimistic view. Although recent events tarnished the image of Thais as "soft smiling people", he believes there is greater restraint than in his student days "when protesters rushed to gun-shops to be able to fire on the police". Only ten have died in political violence since 2006 compared to much larger numbers in the turmoil of 1973, 1976, and 1992. The coup of 2006 lasted little more than a year. "We've created a norm that the military will not seize and retain power, and a politician will not become a dictator under a parliamentary system", he says.
There is increasing debate about Thailand's biggest taboo, the role of the monarchy, and the draconian lese-majeste laws which criminalise critics. "The King favours the other side, but we can't say that. They'll put us in gaol. We call him the invisible hand", a middle-aged woman on the pro-Thaksin march told me.
Kavi Chongkittavorn of the Bangkok paper the Nation highlights a paradox that runs against China's paradigm of a controlled press and an increasingly free web. In Thailand, he says, "while the printed and general media environment is pretty free, filtering of the internet is on the rise, judging from the numbers of blocked and shut websites". The authorities claim they contained pornography or insulted the monarchy, but Chongkittavorn says only about 100 of the 4,800 shut sites were pornographic. The rest dealt with the monarchy and "most were just disapproving, nothing serious".
Where does this leave Abhisit, as he strives to present a modern face to the world? The Bangkok pundits point out that his government shut over 2000 websites, angering young middle-class Thais. They applaud his promise to revive the stalled investigation of one of the most prominent abuses under Thaksin, the police abduction of a well-known human rights lawyer. But until the killers are brought to justice it is too early to know if official impunity is ending. Abhisit has talked of improving the way the lese-majeste laws are "interpreted", a phrase he used in a Financial Times interview. This sounds like interfering in the administration of justice rather than persuading parliament to soften or scrap the law.
Thailand's economic recession is as serious as every other country's. Gordon Brown may be enamoured by Abhisit's efforts on that front. But most Thais know their prime minister's control over global financial forces is limited. Changing Thailand's standards of governance is the area where he could make an impact – provided he has the will.
The charmer making a mess of his country
The charmer making a mess of his country
The Prime Minister of Thailand, best friends at Eton with Boris Johnson, is presiding over a chaotic and callous regimeRichard Lloyd Parry
However indignant you felt about him, and the calamitous mess over which he presides, it would be impossible ever to throw a shoe at a man such as Abhisit Vejjajiva. Among his peers, the new Prime Minister of Thailand challenges even Barack Obama for the title of World's Most Decent Leader.
As a young politician, he was a heart-throb among middle-aged Bangkok matrons. At Eton, where he was known by the name “Mark Vejj”, he was best friends with Boris Johnson. He is handsome, youthful, brilliant, cosmopolitan, impeccably well mannered and rather posh. So when he gives a speech at his old university, Oxford, tomorrow, it is safe to assume that the audience at St John's College will be keeping its brogues securely laced.
But Mr Abhisit's charm should not be a distraction from ugly truths about what is happening in Thailand. In the past four years, it has gone from being one of the most free and stable countries of South-East Asia to one of its most chaotic and divided. Writers, academics and journalists have been imprisoned or hounded into exile for harmless comment on Thailand's monarchy. Helpless boat people have been chased out to sea to their deaths. Democratically elected governments have been forced out, first by the army and then by the power of the mob.
All of this has been done with the approval - sometimes passive, sometimes explicit - of the nice Mr Abhisit. The title of his talk at St John's tomorrow, “Taking on the Challenges of Democracy”, could not be more appropriate, for Thailand's leader is indeed democratically challenged. Rarely since the days of Dr Faustus has a gifted and promising man achieved power through such grubby and disreputable means.
Background
Profile: Abhisit Vejjajiva
Vejjajiva vows to sweep nation clean
Old Etonian is new Thai Prime Minister
Thai Premier defies protests for maiden speech
Since Mr Abhisit became the leader of the Democrat Party in 2005, there have been two general elections in Thailand. He boycotted the first one in 2006, which was won, for the third time in a row, by the man at the centre of 21st-century Thai politics, Thaksin Shinawatra. His next electoral test came in 2007, when he was defeated decisively. The greatest “challenge” of democracy for Mr Abhisit has been as simple as that - whenever they have been given a chance to elect him, Thai voters have chosen someone else.
Thaksin represents another challenge: a profoundly unsavoury politician who is adored by the majority of his own people. As Prime Minister, he used his great wealth to political and personal advantage (last year he and his wife were convicted in absentia of a multimillion-pound property cheat). In southern Thailand he ordered a brutal campaign against Islamic insurgents which left scores of innocent people dead.
Thaksin's version of the war on drugs was to license the police to execute without trial anyone they suspected of being a dealer. But for all of this, he changed for the better the lives of millions of rural Thais.
His cheap healthcare programme gave the poorest people access to affordable medical treatment for the first time ever. A micro-credit scheme allowed many villagers to lift themselves out of subsistence level poverty. But the majority of Thais chose him as their leader, time and again - and after he was forced into exile, and then criminally convicted, they have gone on voting for his political heirs and supporters.
By contrast Mr Abhisit owes his job, not to the will of his people, but to the support of powerful friends - and even they have required a comically large number of attempts to propel their boy to power. First there was the army, which drove Mr Thaksin into exile in a bloodless coup in 2006. Over the course of a year, the generals convened an assembly of tame delegates who rewrote the country's constitution to give Mr Abhisit a better chance of winning. To imagine the election which followed in footballing terms: the Democrat Party was playing downhill, against a team without a striker, in a game refereed by one of their dads. And still Thaksin's side won.
At this point, Mr Abhisit was helped out by a new and sinister force in Thailand - the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). At times he has had the decency to appear slightly embarrassed by this mob of yellow-shirted anti-Thaksin activists, led by a rich media owner and apparently supported by the Thai Queen. What exactly the PAD believes in is not easy to pin down, but at heart they want to strip the vote from those silly people who can't be trusted not to vote for Thaksin's side.
When they don't get their way, they resort to force, occupying first the Prime Minister's office and then Bangkok's international airport last year, in chaotic scenes that were broadcast across the world.
The Democrats have never employed such tactics themselves, but they have benefited from them. After the latest pro-Thaksin Government was forced from power by a court ruling last year, they formed a Government by jumping into bed not only with PAD supporters, but even former Thaksin cronies, under the watchful supervision of the army. Mr Abhisit might argue that these were political compromises necessary so that a decent man could finally get his hands on the levers of government. But in the three months since he became Prime Minister, he has come to look more like the puppet than the master of those who hoisted him to power.
A series of disgraceful incidents have made it harder than ever to understand what has happened to the liberalism for which he used to stand. In January, the Thai military beat up and set adrift some 1,000 boat people from Burma, scores of whom died at sea. Journalists and academics continue to be arrested and imprisoned under Thailand's Kafakaesque lèse-majesté law, under which a prison sentence of 12 years can be imposed for dispraise of the Thai King and his family.
At times, it has looked as if someone in power is consciously making a fool of Mr Abhisit - such as the speech he gave last week about the importance of media freedom, which was followed a few hours later by the arrest of the webmaster of an independent website.
Thailand is no Zimbabwe or China, and by comparison with most of their Asian neighbours, Thais are blessedly free and prosperous. But it has the alarming air of a democracy lurching into reverse and out of control, in which familiar freedoms are flying out of the window with unpredictable speed. It is all the more painful that this should be happening under a leader of such obvious talent, a man with all the qualifications except the essential one - democratic legitimacy.
Richard Lloyd Parry is Asia editor of The Times
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7780309.stm
Published: 2009/04/08 06:39:50 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Print Sponsor
The Prime Minister of Thailand, best friends at Eton with Boris Johnson, is presiding over a chaotic and callous regimeRichard Lloyd Parry
However indignant you felt about him, and the calamitous mess over which he presides, it would be impossible ever to throw a shoe at a man such as Abhisit Vejjajiva. Among his peers, the new Prime Minister of Thailand challenges even Barack Obama for the title of World's Most Decent Leader.
As a young politician, he was a heart-throb among middle-aged Bangkok matrons. At Eton, where he was known by the name “Mark Vejj”, he was best friends with Boris Johnson. He is handsome, youthful, brilliant, cosmopolitan, impeccably well mannered and rather posh. So when he gives a speech at his old university, Oxford, tomorrow, it is safe to assume that the audience at St John's College will be keeping its brogues securely laced.
But Mr Abhisit's charm should not be a distraction from ugly truths about what is happening in Thailand. In the past four years, it has gone from being one of the most free and stable countries of South-East Asia to one of its most chaotic and divided. Writers, academics and journalists have been imprisoned or hounded into exile for harmless comment on Thailand's monarchy. Helpless boat people have been chased out to sea to their deaths. Democratically elected governments have been forced out, first by the army and then by the power of the mob.
All of this has been done with the approval - sometimes passive, sometimes explicit - of the nice Mr Abhisit. The title of his talk at St John's tomorrow, “Taking on the Challenges of Democracy”, could not be more appropriate, for Thailand's leader is indeed democratically challenged. Rarely since the days of Dr Faustus has a gifted and promising man achieved power through such grubby and disreputable means.
Background
Profile: Abhisit Vejjajiva
Vejjajiva vows to sweep nation clean
Old Etonian is new Thai Prime Minister
Thai Premier defies protests for maiden speech
Since Mr Abhisit became the leader of the Democrat Party in 2005, there have been two general elections in Thailand. He boycotted the first one in 2006, which was won, for the third time in a row, by the man at the centre of 21st-century Thai politics, Thaksin Shinawatra. His next electoral test came in 2007, when he was defeated decisively. The greatest “challenge” of democracy for Mr Abhisit has been as simple as that - whenever they have been given a chance to elect him, Thai voters have chosen someone else.
Thaksin represents another challenge: a profoundly unsavoury politician who is adored by the majority of his own people. As Prime Minister, he used his great wealth to political and personal advantage (last year he and his wife were convicted in absentia of a multimillion-pound property cheat). In southern Thailand he ordered a brutal campaign against Islamic insurgents which left scores of innocent people dead.
Thaksin's version of the war on drugs was to license the police to execute without trial anyone they suspected of being a dealer. But for all of this, he changed for the better the lives of millions of rural Thais.
His cheap healthcare programme gave the poorest people access to affordable medical treatment for the first time ever. A micro-credit scheme allowed many villagers to lift themselves out of subsistence level poverty. But the majority of Thais chose him as their leader, time and again - and after he was forced into exile, and then criminally convicted, they have gone on voting for his political heirs and supporters.
By contrast Mr Abhisit owes his job, not to the will of his people, but to the support of powerful friends - and even they have required a comically large number of attempts to propel their boy to power. First there was the army, which drove Mr Thaksin into exile in a bloodless coup in 2006. Over the course of a year, the generals convened an assembly of tame delegates who rewrote the country's constitution to give Mr Abhisit a better chance of winning. To imagine the election which followed in footballing terms: the Democrat Party was playing downhill, against a team without a striker, in a game refereed by one of their dads. And still Thaksin's side won.
At this point, Mr Abhisit was helped out by a new and sinister force in Thailand - the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). At times he has had the decency to appear slightly embarrassed by this mob of yellow-shirted anti-Thaksin activists, led by a rich media owner and apparently supported by the Thai Queen. What exactly the PAD believes in is not easy to pin down, but at heart they want to strip the vote from those silly people who can't be trusted not to vote for Thaksin's side.
When they don't get their way, they resort to force, occupying first the Prime Minister's office and then Bangkok's international airport last year, in chaotic scenes that were broadcast across the world.
The Democrats have never employed such tactics themselves, but they have benefited from them. After the latest pro-Thaksin Government was forced from power by a court ruling last year, they formed a Government by jumping into bed not only with PAD supporters, but even former Thaksin cronies, under the watchful supervision of the army. Mr Abhisit might argue that these were political compromises necessary so that a decent man could finally get his hands on the levers of government. But in the three months since he became Prime Minister, he has come to look more like the puppet than the master of those who hoisted him to power.
A series of disgraceful incidents have made it harder than ever to understand what has happened to the liberalism for which he used to stand. In January, the Thai military beat up and set adrift some 1,000 boat people from Burma, scores of whom died at sea. Journalists and academics continue to be arrested and imprisoned under Thailand's Kafakaesque lèse-majesté law, under which a prison sentence of 12 years can be imposed for dispraise of the Thai King and his family.
At times, it has looked as if someone in power is consciously making a fool of Mr Abhisit - such as the speech he gave last week about the importance of media freedom, which was followed a few hours later by the arrest of the webmaster of an independent website.
Thailand is no Zimbabwe or China, and by comparison with most of their Asian neighbours, Thais are blessedly free and prosperous. But it has the alarming air of a democracy lurching into reverse and out of control, in which familiar freedoms are flying out of the window with unpredictable speed. It is all the more painful that this should be happening under a leader of such obvious talent, a man with all the qualifications except the essential one - democratic legitimacy.
Richard Lloyd Parry is Asia editor of The Times
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7780309.stm
Published: 2009/04/08 06:39:50 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Print Sponsor
Abhisit's Profile at BBC
Profile: Abhisit Vejjajiva
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is the English-born, Oxford-educated 44-year-old leader of Thailand's Democrat Party.
Young and photogenic, though not known as particularly dynamic, he has a reputation for "clean politics".
Distinctly upper-class, Mr Abhisit hails from a wealthy family of Thai-Chinese origin. Both his parents were medical professors.
He was born in the British city of Newcastle in 1964 and educated at England's top public school, Eton. He then went on to gain a degree in politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) at Oxford University.
Mr Abhisit's support is drawn mainly from southern Thailand and from Bangkok's educated middle-classes. He has had less success in attracting the support of working class and rural Thais.
In 1992, Mr Abhisit joined Thailand's oldest party, the Democrats and, at the age of 27, entered parliament as one of its youngest ever members. Having tried and failed to become party leader in 2001, he eventually got the post in 2005.
Championing a raft of populist policies, Mr Abhisit campaigned under the slogan "Putting People First".
The Democratic Party has failed to win power at recent national elections but in December 2008, a Constitutional Court ruling removed from power the government led by allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Amid the turmoil of the airport blockade caused by anti-Thaksin protesters, a few Thaksin loyalists changed sides. This enabled Mr Abhisit to form a new government and become the next prime minister without calling elections.
The Democrats are not openly allied to one group of protesters or the other, but in the past the party has been closely associated with elements of the People's Alliance for Democracy, whose protests helped depose Mr Thaksin and his allies.
Mr Abhisit has been criticised for his choice of foreign minister, Kasit Piromya - an open supporter of the PAD movement and its airport blockade.
Anti-corruption platform
While not entirely ditching the liberal reforms of "Thaksinomics" - a term used to refer to the economic set of policies of the exiled former leader - he has argued for a more statist approach.
Among other things, Mr Abhisit has advocated free healthcare, a higher minimum wage, and free education, textbooks and milk for nursery-school children.
He has also been a consistent campaigner against corruption.
When Mr Thaksin called a snap election in February 2006, Mr Abhisit's campaign pitch was that he was "prepared to become a prime minister who adheres to the principle of good governance and ethics, not authoritarianism".
Later that year, he opposed the military when it overthrew Mr Thaksin in a coup.
"We cannot and do not support any kind of extra-constitutional change, but it is done. The country has to move forward and the best way forward is for the coup leaders to quickly return power to the people and carry out the reforms they promised," he said at the time.
The patrician also said he expected high standards of probity from his party and any government he led.
Going beyond the current transparency rules for Thai MPs, he said he would require all future Democrat Party representatives to declare their assets and any involvement in private companies. Currently, those measures apply only to cabinet members.
Academic
Before entering parliament, Mr Abhisit had a brief academic career. After Oxford, he taught at Thailand's Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy.
Later, he returned to Oxford to study for a Master's degree. He then taught economics at Thammasat University before studying law at Ramkhamhaeng University.
Mr Abhisit's family is a circle of accomplished individuals. One of his two sisters is a professor of child psychology, while the other is a leading Thai author.
Mr Abhisit's wife is a dentist-turned-mathematics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University. They have two children.
Among the chinks in the Abhisit armour are his failure, so far, to win the popular vote and the impression that his good looks tend to outshine his sometimes rather bland political pronouncements.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7780309.stm
Published: 2009/04/08 06:39:50 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Print Sponsor
A message from a cyber warrior at prachathai webboard
The Abhisit Administration has ordered a crack down of the red-shirted protesters gathering to block one of Bangkok's main road this morning (around 4:30AM local time).
Soldiers, fully armed with M16, used real ammos to shoot at the protesters. There are at least 4 killed and more than 69 injured from this incident, while Thai medias, mostly controlled by the government, report no death.
Within 48 hours, the Abhisit Administration will definitely order another crack down of the red-shirted ten of thousands of the red-shirted protesters gathering in front of the Government House.
This will definitely result in more deahts and injury of peaceful and unarmed protesters at the Government House.
Please take any neccessary action to help Thai people immediately before more lives will be lost.
See pictures of protesters being shot (unsure whether dead or not)
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/rajdumnern/topic/P7738708/P7738708-48.jpg
http://images.temppic.com/13-04-2009/images_vertis/1239593330_13853.png
Soldiers, fully armed with M16, used real ammos to shoot at the protesters. There are at least 4 killed and more than 69 injured from this incident, while Thai medias, mostly controlled by the government, report no death.
Within 48 hours, the Abhisit Administration will definitely order another crack down of the red-shirted ten of thousands of the red-shirted protesters gathering in front of the Government House.
This will definitely result in more deahts and injury of peaceful and unarmed protesters at the Government House.
Please take any neccessary action to help Thai people immediately before more lives will be lost.
See pictures of protesters being shot (unsure whether dead or not)
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/rajdumnern/topic/P7738708/P7738708-48.jpg
http://images.temppic.com/13-04-2009/images_vertis/1239593330_13853.png
Abhisit government killing innocent people with bare hands
Dear Friends from around the world,
I have been following news about politics in Thailand since the shocking coup on September 19, 2006. I have been involved in many online communities that fight for a tru democracy. I am going to share facts and truth about the ugliness of politics in Thailand.
Now that the majority of Thais are ideologically liberated and in favor of a true democracy, they have become a threat to the interests and privileges that the Thai elites have enjoy. The elites include the interest groups surrounding the monarchy, the military, the royal consultants known as the Privy Council, the PAD, the Democrat Party, and a few other allies.
On the early morning of April 13, the Abhisit goverment ordered a big troup with heavy arms to kill the innocent people with bare hands who were calling for the resignation of Abhisit for many valid reasons that you will have read by the time you have examine other links within in this blog.
Thank you very much for caring about democracy in Thailand and the lives of the innocent people.
PD
I have been following news about politics in Thailand since the shocking coup on September 19, 2006. I have been involved in many online communities that fight for a tru democracy. I am going to share facts and truth about the ugliness of politics in Thailand.
Now that the majority of Thais are ideologically liberated and in favor of a true democracy, they have become a threat to the interests and privileges that the Thai elites have enjoy. The elites include the interest groups surrounding the monarchy, the military, the royal consultants known as the Privy Council, the PAD, the Democrat Party, and a few other allies.
On the early morning of April 13, the Abhisit goverment ordered a big troup with heavy arms to kill the innocent people with bare hands who were calling for the resignation of Abhisit for many valid reasons that you will have read by the time you have examine other links within in this blog.
Thank you very much for caring about democracy in Thailand and the lives of the innocent people.
PD
Monday, June 23, 2003
Critical Literacy in EFL Context: An introduction for novices
Critical Literacy in EFL Context: An introduction for novices
by Snea Thinsan
Language Education, School of Education, Indiana University, U.S.A.
URL: http://php.indiana.edu/~sthinsan/ITMELT.htm
=======================================================
“Why did people create all these bad things, Dad?”
Peuan, my 9-year old daughter asked me while watching CNN on a very cold day in January, 2003.
“I think they know these things are bad,” she continued while I was trying to figure out what her phrase “these bad things” referred to.
“What do you mean by “bad things”?” I asked, still unclear about what she was talking about.
“You know, things like guns, drugs, things like that....”
I smiled with a happy surprise at how thoughtful the question was. I told her it was a very interesting question about which I had never asked myself. We went on to discuss about computer viruses, bombs and other things. It was a most engaging conversation between us!
Peuan’s question seems like a naïve one, but, who knows, simple questions like this one could change the world if asked and answered properly. I agree that many inventions, though two-pronged swords, have advantages that outweigh their drawbacks. However, what if the genius chemists had decided not to use their knowledge to produce destructive drugs? The world today could at least be a totally different one for many drug addicts.
“Bad things” and a lot of problems that they have caused surround us and even have become the normal part of our daily life. We act, or fail to act, as if we accept them that way. Think about crime news, pollution, corruptions, prostitution, poverty, wars, family violence, child abuses, among other undesirable realities. Do you ever seriously think about them or engage actively in conversations that make you understand them better? What have you done about them? As an English teacher, I, not long ago, realized how little and superficially I had thought about and acted against the “bad things” around me. Such realization helped me fall in love with “Critical Literacy pretty easily and now profoundly.
Having teachers like myself before falling in love with critical literacy in mind, I am going to create an easy-to-understand introduction to critical literacy. I will first offer a few selective definitions by the authorities in the field. Then, I will offer a more practical description. Importantly, I will also try to convince the reader why CL should be a focus of EFL curricula in Asia, using the four dimensions of critical literacy practices.
Critical literacy: A blurred picture
It was not very easy at first for me to define “critical literacy” because many people have been using the word “critical” in many different contexts, and some think that, by adding this popular word, their activities essentially promote critical literacy. I used an online concordance tool to find how and how extensively the word “critical” is used in body of educational literature, and found that the word is used to mean different things, in different contexts, at different levels of education, fields of study, and so on (for details, please see http://php.indiana.edu/~sthinsan/criticalContext.htm). Hence, the pictures of critical literacy can be blurred to many novices and beginners.
It is very important to think of critical literacy as the “target” or “goal” of education first because it will then help us understand other terminologies and their relationships with critical literacy. The ultimate goal, when we talk about critical literacy, is to create human beings that are “critically literate”—yet another tricky term that needs further elaboration.
The hardcore approach to making individual human “critically literate” is predominantly influenced by the work of a Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Freire, the Father of critical pedagogy or radical pedagogy who departed the world in 1997. Freire’s version of being critical is essentially the prototype that gives birth to the practices of critical literacy, increasingly inspiring educators and scholars worldwide to strive forward under approaches with different names, such as critical thinking, feminism, multicultural education, and, a most recent one, critical media literacy, although these fields did not necessarily originally start from the same school of thoughts. For instance, critical thinking is a different branch, having its own leading thinkers, target audience, and organizations created to explore and experiment ‘critical thinking’. For very detailed discussions about the similarities and differences between as well as limits of critical thinking and critical literacy, please see Burbules and Berk (1999). To satisfy your curiosity, let me offer a short statement by my professor who first introduced the term critical literacy to me. Professor Harste, an esteemed professor of education at Indiana University, kindly pointed out via email the differences between critical thinking and critical literacy, the two most frequently confused, as follow:
Critical literacy is about examining issues surrounding language and power and language and access. Whereas critical thinking is psychological, critical literacy is sociological, interested in interrogating the systems of meaning that operate to position language learners in particular ways in particular contexts. From an instructional perspective, critical literacy is also about redesign and taking new social action but these later components need to be built on an understanding of the systems of power that are in play on language speakers and learners.
(Harste, personal contact, November 6, 2002)
How the other fields relate or differ from critical literacy is beyond the scope of this paper, but you can access the resources I have collected via the links at my personal home page at http://php.indiana.edu/~sthinsan/.
What exactly does ‘critical literacy’ entail, then?
Critical literacy: Definitions
Critical literacy to me is a goal and, to achieve it, people take different vehicles labeled with various names, and each of them serves the immediate societal needs. For instance, in the multicultural U.S.A., Canada, and Australia, multicultural education has been a predominant theme in academic conversations. Similarly, critical thinking and feminism have been two other areas of interest among Western scholars for a long time. Therefore, you might find different versions of critical literacy mentioned here and there. Lankshear and McLaren (1993) describe very well the different faces of critical literacy in an introduction to a book they co-edited. Among these different names, however, critical pedagogy is the one that is fundamentally and directly influenced by Freire’s work, especially the classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1970, 1993). For the readers who are keen on tracing the historical development and read overview accounts of critical literacy in relation to the philosophers of other related fields, including Dewey and Vygotsky, please read Critical Literacy in Action: Writing Words, Changing World (Shor & Pari, 1999).
The idea of critical pedagogy began with the neo-Marxian literature on Critical Theory (Stanley, 1992), but the most influential authors in this field nowadays include Paolo Freire, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, and Ira Shor (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Freire is widely known and admired for his work in adult literacy, education and fighting oppression. In best known work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he sees critical pedagogy as concerned with the development of conscienticizao, which he used to refer to “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 2002, 35; see also pages 87-124 for elaboration of the term). Essentially, Freire thinks that, for people to gain freedom, they need to understand the system of oppressive relations and know where they are situated in that system.
Influenced largely by Freire, critical pedagogy therefore aims at bringing members of an oppressed group to a critical consciousness of their situation so that they can move on to praxis, or social action that leads to desirable transformation. Very importantly, Freire considers an ingrained, fatalistic belief in the inevitability and necessity of an unjust status quo as a great single barrier, and this influences the work of so many education thinkers, especially Nieto, whose interest is on multicultural education. In her recent book, The Light in Their Eyes, Nieto (1999) argues that typical schooling system supports, rather than challenges, the status quo. She implies that school is a place to tame students who think or behave differently from the way the institutions, which are influenced by the community, expect. Essentially, Nieto defines multicultural education in a very comprehensive scope, but ultimately following Freire’s views.
Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in school and society accepts and affirms the pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers represent. Multicultural education permeates the curriculum and instructional strategies used in schools, as well as the interactions among teachers, students, and parents, and the very way that schools conceptualize the nature of teaching and learning. Because it uses critical pedagogy as its underlying philosophy and focuses on knowledge, reflection, and action (praxis) as the basis for social change, multicultural education promotes the democratic principles of social justice (Nieto, 1999, 3).
Another illustration of critical literacy is offered by Giroux, who interestingly raises a point about schools teaching a “language of critique” but failing to encourage a “language of possibility” (Giroux 1983, 1988). Therefore, Giroux suggests that critical educators should work hard in order to “raise ambitious, desires, and real hope for those who wish to take seriously the issue of educational struggle and social justice” (Giroux 1988, 177). In his later work, Giroux adds that critical pedagogy
signals how questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities. . . . Pedagogy in the critical sense illuminates the relationship among knowledge, authority, and power” (Giroux, 1994, 30).
At the core, critical pedagogy theorists agree that it is not enough to reform the habits of thoughts of thinkers without challenging and transforming the institutions, ideologies, and relations that engender distorted, oppressed thinking in the first place, and that the reform needs to go hand in hand with efforts to challenge the institutional policy and practices and all that causes distorted, oppressed thinking (Burbules & Berk, 1999). These similar points are also stressed or exemplified in work by other prominent authors including Giroux, Kellner, McLaren, Torres, Valenzuela, and Vygotsky.
Practical descriptions of critical literacy
To enable new comers to this field to understand how critical literacy can be practiced, let me offer you the operationalized descriptions of it. Critical literacy is not just critical reading, nor critical writing, nor even critical thinking! Unless these activities involved the efforts to enable the learners to see realities that are influenced by the hidden sociopolitical factors within their immediate and global societies and to empower them to step forward and act as an agent for changes, critical reading, writing and thinking will not be considered critical literacy practices. While discussions about the varied definitions and scopes of critical literacy may not benefit new comers very much, I would like to present a most practical version of description. Critical literacy is "a moving target" which generally involves efforts in "disrupting the taken for granted, interrogating dominant perspectives, exposing the political in what was thought to be innocent, and promoting social justice in all kinds of forms" (Jerome C. Harste, L750 Course Syllabus, Fall 2002, Indiana University).
The other practical guideline about what critical literacy entails can be borrowed from Leland and Harste (2000). In their efforts to select the best children’s story books that promote critical literacy, Leland and Harste chose: stories that help students understand differences that make a difference; stories that give voice to “the indignant ones” that are historically unheard, stories that promote social actions; stories that help students understand how systems of meaning in society position; and stories that examine distance, difference and otherness. Of course, they do not think that introducing these books will necessarily make students critically literate, but add that,
Critical literacy isn’t about the book per se but about social practices that keep particular structures of knowing, believing, and being in place. It is about power relationships and how language positions others and us. It is about access and how language is used to welcome some children into “the literature club” (Smith, 1988) while denying access to others. It is also about diversity---specifically, how issues of diversity forces us to rethink our approach to how we share literature with children” (Leland and Harste, 2000, 467).
Why critical literacy in EFL contexts?
Critical literacy can be targeted at all levels and all kinds of education. Freire sees the philosophy embedded within his Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a way to humanize all oppressed human beings. I am proposing that hardcore critical literacy should be made a focus of all types of curricula, where liberating and empowering the learners in Freire’s sense are possible. For English teachers in particular, I would like to offer the following brief explanations why critical literacy should, or I rather say MUST, be practiced in EFL contexts in Asian countries.
To make it the easiest for us to see the practical reasons, I will walk us through the four dimensions of critical practices in the U.S. that Lewison, et al.(2002) and Harste (2002) have categorized.
Dimension 1: Disrupting the taken for granted,
One of the educational goals in any given society should be to sensitize individual members of society about the problems around them. Without seeing problems as problematic, people can become ignorant of them, which is one of the reasons why most serious problems remain unsolved.
Domestic problems in Asian countries are not very difficult to identify. They are virtually everywhere, but they often are taken for granted or left untouched. In the Thai society, for instance, when a husband hits his wife, the neighbors consider it a personal or household problem and feel that they have no rights to interfere. We are also taught to believe that the wife and the husband are like “the tongue and the teeth”; they come in contact once in a while. Never do we think that only teeth can bite the tongue, not the other way round! That is, in the same light, it is usually the husband who beats the wife. Where did the proverb, “the tongue and the teeth” come from? Who created it? Who benefits from it? I am afraid we have to admit that, in most Asian countries, men traditionally were superior and took charge of creating the norms and traditions. Being told from generation to generation of the same expectation, women naturally submit to it. What we see here is that nothing is purely neutral and fair. Language, in particular, is a most influential tool to help position people in the society because it contains values, expectations, beliefs, and status, which sadly are framed by the oppressors, rarely by the oppressed.
The list of similar episodes can go on and on, and we will see more clearly that there are the oppressed and the oppressors behind every problem that we can think of. Wouldn’t discussions on these issues interesting and appropriate? Wouldn’t involvement in such dialogs and inquiry make us more sensitive about the other very serious problems that surround us?
Globally, problems, or oppressions, come in different, new forms. Imperialism and wars were the two obvious examples of oppression in our history. In our present days, capitalism has been an unbeatable force. With it come a lot of social problems. Gone are the morality standards that kept many societies peaceful. Come are child labor and child prostitution (driven by sex tours encouraged by the more financial power). More on the list is the currency attacks that destroyed lives and the Asian economy! Are we aware of these threats and the tricks that are used to manipulate us?
In the era when the world is much smaller, propaganda can be done worldwide through the advanced communications technology. Our Asian fellow members cannot just learn to speak English, but to see the threats and the tricks that hide behind it. If we can forget about Freire’s radical pedagogy for a while, we still can feel that there is an increased need for mutual understanding among the citizens of the world due to cultural differences.
Given the amazing bond and interactions among people in the world that the Internet has created, English is becoming fully the language of power and the language for power. That is, English is becoming power—those in power will use it to maintain and extend power. It can also be used as weapons. Specifically, it can be used to manipulate target audiences. No longer can we treat English as a neutral entity. No longer can we teach English merely as a set of grammar rules. In all, we can no longer teach the students to understand and use English, but we need to empower them by helping them see what the English language carries within it and enabling them to use it effectively when they need to.
Dimension 2: Interrogating dominant perspectives
“Your husband is like your god. Respect him and your life will be prosperous,” said my grandmother more than a decade ago to my mother and my younger sisters.
In Thailand, men are traditionally expected to the elephant’s front legs and women the back ones; this means that women should follow whatever the husband leads or directs. With this kind of perspective passing down many generations, many girls have been deprived of their opportunity to further their education. “Why would you bother to study? In no time, you will be married, and follow your husband,” someone in my village said not too many years ago.
Many of unfair, inappropriate dominant perspectives like these have gone unchallenged for a long time. They serve to maintain the status quo. There are some worse ones you can think of, too. How about this? “Listen to every word of your teacher and do whatever he tells you to, and you will be successful.” Is this view problematic? Should they continue to go unchallenged? I trust that you can see them as problematic, too, and that they should be interrogated. Interrogating is a better word than challenge, because ‘challenge’ may imply intended confrontation, whereas ‘interrogate’ suggests more careful consideration of factors involved and the multiple views. Freire encourages us to examine all subject matter in depth, not to swallow facts passively; so, in order to be able to digest the information well, we need to scrutinize the different factors in the play thoroughly first.
My point so far is that a lot of what goes on in a society can be seemingly sensible, but could also have detrimental effects. Once the taken for granted are regarded as potentially wrong, we can move a step forward into asking questions such as:
· Why should a wife follow her husband?
· Do all husbands have the qualities to lead the family? Is it fair for them to be imposed such a role?
· Does the perceived role give rise to household discrimination?
· Why can’t women be the front legs?
· What do we gain and what do we lose from depending too much on men to take care of the family?
· Is this perspective realistic nowadays? Why? Why not?
These questions will make the EFL classrooms more motivating, won’t they? At the same time, the students’ perspectives can change for the better. Remember that the ultimate goal is to empower the oppressed, liberate the restricted souls, and bring about social justice.
The teachers can encourage the students to explore multiple perspectives through many interesting activities in which the students go and interview people in the community, or conduct a research in the real settings, or set up a debate, etc. At the same time, the teacher can ask the students to search the Internet for information about men-women relationships in other cultures, invite guest speakers to the classrooms, etc. A principle of critical literacy practice is based on a belief that learning is social action and even reading is also social action, which means that we learn to construct new knowledge, new values, perspectives, and identity through communication with others. Through constructive social interactions, students can be empowered and become a more confident, hopeful persons, just like the way Freire’s peasant students felt during their study with him.
Dimension 3: Exposing the political in what was thought to be innocent
As pointed out earlier, the language we use is not neutral or innocent. Even schools, which, in Asian views, are the places parents usually trust are not innocent. Gee (2001) claims that the kinds of literacy promoted at schools are usually not the kind that enable the students to understand the harm that sociopolitical systems and institutions (including schools) combine to cause. Schools, in fact, have long been as a place to create classes and maintain the status quo (Nieto, 1999). For example, some schools can serve political or religious purposes, imposing certain values on the students, weakening them in one way or another. Some of my friends used to be punished for speaking the Northern dialect in class. Others were teased for not being able to speak Central Thai, the official language, properly in high school. That must have discouraged, instead of empowered, them.
While the hardcore practice of critical literacy questions the failure of schools to empower the students, schools can actually cause problems. Seldom do we think that schools can be the culprit for students’ dropout rate, low achievement or even suicide. We traditionally regard teachers as people who can do no wrong. We sometimes forget that the school also includes the children’s friends, who can be both good and bad influences.
Education is politics, edited by Shor and Pari (1999), is a great source to help you understand the sociopolitical, and socioeconomic, factors that influence the educational practices. At the same time, it reflects the efforts of many teachers from different cultures who refuse to fit the students and themselves into the status quo.
As you may be able to imagine, an incident may involve many factors at different layers. Analyzing the sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural factors that are behind a given problem will give the learners insights into the real problem(s) or oppressive realities. Only when full and correct understanding of the problem is achieved will the students be liberated and empowered. With empowerment and liberation, the students will be ready to become a subject or agent for positive actions toward more desirable changes.
Dimension 4: Promoting social justice in all kinds of forms
Taking social actions can be the most rewarding part of critical literacy practice, but in reality taking actions is probably the least practiced among the four dimensions. A lot of problems in Asia are not even seen as problems. Exploration of the alternative views, as opposed to the dominant perspectives that support the unfair status quo, is likely less practiced. Therefore, it is probably right to say that attempts to unpack the hidden sociopolitical, cultural and economic factors are rare in Asian education, including EFL classes, not to mention taking social actions.
I believe you can agree with me up to this line. Think about the craze for fashion, lavish spending, reluctance to involved in any profound thinking, self-centeredness, and the like that you probably experience, too, among your students. Now, is it time to guide them into a more appropriate direction toward social justice? Given that social justice is undoubtedly desirable to you, what’s our next question? What can EFL teachers and students do to promote social justice? Here are a few ideas that pop up as I write.
Create classroom rules and regulations that promote social justice (paying attention to issues surrounding race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, gender, …..)
Run a web forum in which students post and responses to problems that deal with social issues. At the end, ask them to plan a social action out of the ideas they have learned from the forum.
Set up a key pal project (formerly known as pen-friends), in which students exchange ideas with students around the world and ask them to plan a social action out of what they have learn.
Have the students write to the prisoners, the Prime Minister, or the politicians about the social problems of their concerns. They can work in pairs, in groups, or individually.
Have the students create newspapers for the community (e.g. for distribution within school, or around town). Of course, the goal is to promote critical literacy.
Have the students evaluate the messages they read, watch or hear in everyday life and share their analysis with other classes or students in other schools nearby.
etc……..
Closing remarks
The four dimensions of critical literacy practice can make a great checklist for whether your EFL class is actually producing critically literate FL learners. I present them in a linear order. However, they can go in a reverse order, too. Getting the students to visit AIDS patients, for instance, will enable them to see a lot of hidden problems and later seek to understand them better, which means that they eventually can see the problem in reality.
Towards the end, I would like to share a story about my presentation in November, 2002, at the INTESOL Annual Conference, in which I shared a story about beggars and critical literacy after noticing that my audience did not appreciate the meaning of critical literacy from the many definitions I had offered. Here’s how the session went.
On that day, I used stories about beggars as an example of one episode that can link to the practices of the four dimensions of critical literacy. First, I asked the audience to imagine seeing some beggars lying along the footpath and a university student walking past them with no interest at all. She, a student, is well-dressed and looks wealthy, but has never given any money to these people nor talked to them. She used to be interested in them when she was very young, but her father did not give any clear answer, except a careless remark that these people were lazy and did not deserve any help. When she grows up, she sees these people as the grasses she walks past. [The lack of CL dimension 1]. Then, I asked them to think about CL dimension two [to interrogate multiple perspectives], and the audience started to participate more actively. I asked them to think of what a monk or a priest in the community would say about the issue, what a teacher would say, what the sons and daughters of the old beggars would say, and what the beggars themselves would inform us of what goes on in that scenario. The audience became clear about what CL can bring, I felt. Then, we continued to talk about what sociopolitical factors are involved and what we could do as teachers and students to promote social justice, or at least to help these beggars properly. The light in the audience’s eyes shone brightly at this stage and the discussions became very lively. I hope you would see the lights in your eyes if you looked in the mirror, after reading to this line.
In honor of and as a tribute to the life and work of Paolo Freire, my inspiration, let me end this paper with his words:
"From these pages I hope at least the following will endure: my trust in the people, and my faith in men and women, and in the creation of the world in which it will be easier to live." (Freire, 2002, Preface, Pedagogy of the Oppressed)
References
Note: Included below are also the resources that discuss relevant points, but are not cited in this paper directly.
Burbules, N. C. (1992/1995). "Forms of ideology-critique: A pedagogical perspective." Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 5 no. 1: 7-17. Republished in Critical Theory and Educational Research, McLaren, P. and Giarelli, J. (eds.) (New York: SUNY Press), 53-69.
Burbules, N. C. (1996). "Postmodern doubt and philosophy of education." Philosophy of Education 1995, Alven Neiman, ed., (Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society), 39-48.
Burbules, N. C. & Berk, R. (1999). In Critical Theories in Education, Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler, eds. (NY: Routledge, 1999).
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press).
Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury).
Freire, P. (1985). The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey).
Freire, P. and M. Donaldo (1987). Literacy: Reading the World and the Word (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey).
Freire, P. (2002). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum).
Gee, J. (2001, April). Critical literacy as critical discourse analysis. In J. Harste and P.D. Pearson (Co-Chairs), Book of readings for Critical perspectives on literacy: Possibilities and practices. Pre-convention institute conducted at the meeting of the International Reading Association, New Orleans.
Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey).
Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning (South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey, 1988).
Giroux, H. A. (1992). Border Crossings (New York: Routledge).
Giroux, H. A. (1994). "Toward a pedagogy of critical thinking." Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 200-201.
Giroux, H. A. (1994). Disturbing pleasures: Learning popular culture. New York: Routledge.
Giroux, H. A. and McLaren, P. (1994). Between Borders (New York, Routledge).
Kellner, Douglas. (1978). "Ideology, Marxism, and advanced capitalism." Socialist Review, no. 42: 37-65.
Lankshear, C. and McLaren, P. L. (eds.) (1993). Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern. New York: SUNY Press.
Leland, C. & Harste, J. (2002). Taking a Critical Stance: It's Not Just the Books You Choose.
Marx, K. (1845/1977), "Theses on Feuerbach." Karl Marx: Selected Writings, David McLellan, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press), 158.
McLaren, P. and Hammer, R. (1989). "Critical Pedagogy and the postmodern challenge." Educational Foundations, vol. 3 no. 3: 29-62.
McLaren, P. and Lankshear, C. (1993). Politics of Liberation: Paths from Freire (New York: Routledge).
McLaren, P. and Leonard, P. (1993). Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (New York: Routledge).
Nieto, S. (1999). The Light in Their Eyes. New York: Teachers College Press.
Shor, I. and Pari, C. Education Is Politics: Critical Teaching Across Differences K-12. NH: Heinemann.
Siegel, H. (1988).Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education (New York: Routledge).
Siegel, H. (1993). "Gimme that Old-Time Enlightenment Meta-Narrative." Inquiry, vol. 11 no. 4: 1, 17-22.
Siegel, H. (1996). "What price inclusion?" Philosophy of Education 1995, A. Neiman, ed. (Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society, 1-22.
Smith, F. (1988). Joining the literacy club: Further essays into education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Stanley, W. B. (1992). Curriculum for Utopia: Social Reconstructionism and Critical Pedagogy in the Postmodern Era (Albany: SUNY Press).
Warren, K. J. (1994). "Critical thinking and feminism." Re-Thinking Reason: New Perspectives in Critical Thinking, Kerry S. Walters, ed. (Albany: SUNY Press), 155-176.
Copyrights© Snea Thinsan 2003
Comments: sthinsan@indiana.edu
Designed and maintained by: Snea Thinsan
Associate Instructor, Doctoral student
Language Education Department, School of Education, Indiana University, IN, U.S.A.
Lecturer
English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Copyright © 2003 Snea Thinsan
All rights reserved.
Critical Literacy in EFL Context: An Introduction for Novices
By Snea Thinsan
Language Education, School of Education, Indiana University, U.S.A.
Visit Source
Introduction
“Why did people create all these bad things, Dad?” my 9-year-old daughter, Peuan, asked me while watching CNN on a cold January day in 2003.
I paused, trying to grasp what she meant by "bad things." Before I could answer, she continued, "I think they know these things are bad—guns, drugs, and things like that."
Her thoughtful question surprised me. We delved into a conversation about destructive inventions—computer viruses, bombs, and more. It was a deeply engaging exchange. While her question seemed simple, it carried profound potential to challenge societal norms.
Understanding Critical Literacy
Critical literacy, to me, is not merely a concept but a goal—a lens through which we question and challenge dominant perspectives. Influenced by the teachings of Paulo Freire, critical literacy seeks to empower individuals to perceive societal, political, and economic contradictions and act against oppressive systems.
While critical literacy intersects with other fields like multicultural education and critical thinking, it uniquely focuses on language, power, and access. According to Professor Harste at Indiana University, critical literacy examines systems of meaning that influence and position language learners, aiming to promote social action and redesign societal structures.
Why Critical Literacy Matters in EFL Contexts
In EFL (English as a Foreign Language) contexts, critical literacy is essential for empowering learners. Language is never neutral; it carries values, expectations, and societal norms. For instance, in Asian cultures, proverbs often reflect gender hierarchies. By examining these, students can uncover hidden biases and challenge the status quo.
Critical literacy fosters sensitivity to local and global issues. In an interconnected world, where English dominates as a language of power, EFL learners must be equipped to navigate and challenge sociopolitical dynamics effectively.
Dimensions of Critical Literacy Practices
1. Disrupting the Taken-for-Granted
Critical literacy encourages learners to question normalized societal issues. For example, domestic violence in some cultures is often dismissed as a private matter. By interrogating language and cultural norms, learners can challenge oppressive structures.
2. Interrogating Dominant Perspectives
Dominant perspectives often perpetuate inequality. For instance, traditional roles in some societies position men as leaders and women as followers. Through critical inquiry, learners can explore alternative perspectives, fostering a more equitable worldview.
3. Exposing the Political in the Innocent
Schools, language, and societal institutions are not as neutral as they appear. Critical literacy highlights how sociopolitical factors shape education and societal norms, empowering learners to question and transform oppressive practices.
4. Promoting Social Justice
Critical literacy culminates in social action. Activities like community engagement, debates, and advocacy projects help learners translate critical understanding into tangible change.
Conclusion
The practice of critical literacy in EFL contexts is not just about teaching language; it is about empowering learners to challenge societal norms, recognize oppression, and strive for social justice. As Paulo Freire once said, "From these pages, I hope at least the following will endure: my trust in the people, and my faith in men and women, and in the creation of a world in which it will be easier to live."
References
- Burbules, N. C., & Berk, R. (1999). Critical Theories in Education. New York: Routledge.
- Freire, P. (2002). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
- Giroux, H. A. (1994). "Toward a Pedagogy of Critical Thinking." Re-Thinking Reason. Albany: SUNY Press.
- Nieto, S. (1999). The Light in Their Eyes. New York: Teachers College Press.
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