Children’s Revolt – The Isaan Record

The Thai government needs to step back from the brink. Before the world, it is facing off against its youth; any society that does so imperils its own future.

In the case of the movement that has been building over the past five months or so, it has become a battle between children and their elders. “Children” is meant metaphorically here, but with the significant segment of Thailand’s social movement comprising kids under 18, it is also a fact. 

High school students occasionally play a role in social movements, such as in Canada in the Quebec student protests in 1996 or the United Students Against Sweatshops some 20 years ago in the US. But when they have mobilized, school-aged students often play distant, secondary roles.

There was also the 1963 Children’s Crusade in the civil rights movement where children marched on city hall in Birmingham, Alabama only to be driven…