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Rituals of National Loyalty: An Anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand. By KATHERINE A. BOWIE. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. xx, 393 pp. $57.00 (cloth); $21.00 (paper).
Katherine Bowie traveled to Thailand in 1974 and was drawn to the political changes taking place. In October 1973, there had been a popular uprising and the military government was replaced by a democratically elected government. In October 1976, there was a similar massive uprising that replaced the democratically elected leaders with a repressive military government. The violent swing from a popular democratic uprising followed by the seemingly equally popular right wing uprising three years later frames the problem: how could popular movements swing so rapidly from the left to the right? The answer, for Bowie, lies in the national government's use of political ritual to manipulate villagers' views and emotions through the Village Scout movement. Bowie's account is both vivid and personal; as a political reporter following the farm organization movement, she was identified with the leftists and received threats from the right (p. 4).
She begins with images of political passion, a photograph of a wounded student being "escorted" by police and a Village Scout juxtaposed with "Cries of hundreds of villagers shouting, 'We will fight! We...