Bloody Rhetoric and Civic Unrest: Rhetorical Aims of Human Blood Splashing in the 2010 Thai Political Revolt

Abstract

In 2010, thousands of Thai citizens from the Red Shirt Movement splashed seventy-nine gallons of their blood in Bangkok to revolt for democracy. I argue that their conduct exemplified kaya karma in the Thai culture: the intentional use of the body and physical actions to achieve an end. Drawing upon my interviews with protesters in Thailand, I show how the demonstration represented the Red Shirts’ intentions to construct a patriotic identity; build solidarity and consubstantiation; defame the prime minister; and invoke fear, intimidation, and discomfort in the government. Altogether, the protest aimed to bolster the movement’s authority and disparage the government. Examining the Red Shirts’ kaya karma, I contend, enables us to further engage “the facts of nonusage” to broaden the trajectory of comparative rhetorical studies beyond the focus on canonical texts of elite exemplars and complicate our ability to see the available means of persuasion in non-Western contexts.