The faceless men and women of the White Mask campaign are making a bold showing on social media and trying to rally support on the streets. The Guy Fawkes mask has become a novel rallying point for those opposed to Thaksin Shinawatra and what they see as his puppet government.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW: Demonstrators from the anti-Thaksin V for Thailand group wearing Guy Fawkes masks. A new protest is planned for today at CentralWorld.
Both the mask and campaigning via social media provide the protesters with anonymity. Political analysts are divided on the impact of the new style of political activism, how far it will reach and how long it will last. They are also curious as to whether the people behind the faces are simply old faces from anti-Thaksin protests of the past.
- Counter-attacks:: Pro-government rallies planned
Political pundit Thitinan Pongsudhirak from Chulalongkorn University said social media was a new phenomenon with "a profound, immediate and growing impact on politics and society".
"It is a new platform for political expression, interplay and mobilisation," said Mr Thitinan, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies.
"It allows broad-based empowerment that could provide mechanisms for transparency and accountability. But its chief constraint is that it cannot replace some traditional modes and practices of politics, such as voting, elections, political parties, and politicians," he said.
The group, who call themselves V for Thailand, base themselves on the 2005 film V for Vendetta, whose lead character models himself on Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic who unsuccessfully tried to blow up the British parliament in 1605. Fawkes' tapering moustache and goatee inspired the mask used in the movie to conceal the identity of the character V. The mask has been used by political activists around the world, and became the trademark of the Occupy Wall Street campaigners in the US.
At a seminar on the White Mask phenomenon at Rangsit University yesterday, Suriyasai Katasila, coordinator of the Green Politics group that organised the seminar, predicted it would be a more powerful social movement than the multi-coloured group formed in 2010 to counter the red shirt supporters of Thaksin.
However, he said the White Mask movement could not focus solely on opposing Thaksin Shinawatra. Mr Suriyasai said if the movement gained popularity the government would not be able to remain in power.
Sangsit Piriyarangsan, dean of the College of Social Innovation at Rangsit University, said the White Mask campaign had no need for leaders as they mainly connected via social media. As a result, the government, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung who has accused a group of businessmen of financially supporting the movement, could not trace the leaders and supporters.
"The movement, driven by well-educated people, in fact, is not aimed at toppling the government but expressing disagreement with the government's policies and actions," he said.
He added that if the government had made its 350 million baht water management projects transparent he doubted the White Mask movement would have evolved.
Adm Pachun Tampratheep, a close aide to Privy Council president Gen Prem Tinsulanonda also attended the seminar.
So far, support on the streets for the V for Thailand group has been modest. Last Sunday, 1,700 people attended a rally, then on Wednesday about 500 turned up at a rally in front of Government House. Rallies are planned for today in front of the CentralWorld Plaza and Saphan Hin Park in Phuket.
One of the founders of the group, who helped create their Facebook page, said their aim was to ''encourage the silent majority to rise up and be aware how evil the Thaksin system is''.
He said it wouldn't be unusual if their members came from previous and current incarnations of anti-Thaksin groups such as the multi-coloured shirt group, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and supporters of the Democrat Party.
''We all share the same goal, which is to eliminate the Thaksin system from Thailand. We love our nation and we love our royal institution,'' he explained.
''The majority of our members are younger people aged from 25 to 44 years old. We measure the number of our members by checking the number of people who click 'Like' on the Facebook page and by how many people share the information about our group via Facebook.''
A man who identified himself as Chart, who was one of the V for Thailand leaders at the Thursday rally, said he was also a member of the multi-coloured shirt group that opposed Thaksin in 2010.
Chart said the V for Thailand group was made up of varied people who all believed the government was destroying the country.
''Even though fewer than 1,000 people come to support the rally today we have more than 50,000 supporters on Facebook,'' he said. ''I believe the group is growing bigger and we can eventually hold a bigger rally in the near future.''
He added they have trouble getting large turnouts as their supporters were scattered across the country.
But the V for Vendetta masks have spawned a good sideline business for street vendors. The numbers at Wednesday's rally were swelled by street vendors who came to sell the plastic masks for 120 baht each.
One woman at the rally said she sold them on Facebook and rejected any suggestion they were a breach of copyright.
''We order the masks from websites such as ebay.com, amazon.com, or some other online shopping websites,'' she said. ''I pay for the mask in foreign currency. If I convert the amount into Thai baht, I would say I pay around 100 to 150 baht per mask. It may sound a bit pricey, but that's because the masks I ordered are real, not copies.''
She said she originally only wanted the masks for herself and her friends, but in the end decided to order a large quantity and sell them to protesters to defray the costs.
''So far, we have sold all of what we ordered the first time,'' she said. ''We have to order more to keep up with the high demand.''
The group also posts a high resolution version of the mask on its Facebook page so it can be downloaded and printed for free.
The mask's manufacturer, Rubies Costume Company, sells well over 100,000 V masks every year, and the product is the best-selling mask on amazon.com, undoubtedly helped by the fact that the mask was adopted as the symbol of the world's most famous group of hacker-anarchists, Anonymous.
Si, a middle-aged woman who attended Thursday's rally, angrily said that the group had no financial backers and met all their own expenses.
''Money doesn't talk to us like other groups,'' she said. ''We don't have a wealthy supporter to pay for our daily expenses or tell us what to do over Skype. We pay for our own transport to get here, we pay to make our own placards and we pay to buy the masks.''
MASKED APPEAL: Pro-government groups plan to stage their own rallies to counter those of protesters donning Guy Fawkes masks.