Protesters adopt three-finger salute
Opponents of Thailand’s military coup are risking arrest by flashing the three-finger salute from the movies to defy a junta that has banned all public protests.
The gesture has become the unofficial symbol of resistance against a military regime that has suspended democracy and severely curtailed freedom of expression.
“Showing three fingers has become a symbol to call for basic political rights in a country ruled by one person as if with the most sovereign power, who is General Prayut Chan-O-Cha,” Sombat Boonngamanong, a prominent activist wanted by the junta, wrote on Facebook.
Critics of the May 22 coup, including the youngest daughter of ousted former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, have posted photographs of themselves flashing three fingers on Facebook and other social media sites.
“Dear #HungerGames. We’ve taken your sign as our own. Our struggle is non-fiction,” wrote one Twitter user.
In the movies, the residents of District 12 in a dystopian future North America, who are forced to compete in a televised death match, initially use the gesture to mean thanks, admiration and goodbye to someone they love.
It later becomes a more general symbol of a wider uprising against the wealthy, totalitarian regime.
In Thailand some protesters say the salute is also a nod to the French revolutionary motto “liberty, equality, fraternity”.
The military, which has imposed martial law, controls on the media and a night-time curfew, has warned that people flashing three fingers could face arrest under its ban on public protests.
“If they gather as more than five people and show the symbol of three fingers then it’s against the law,” army spokesman Winthai Suvaree told reporters.
But he suggested that people posting photos on the internet were unlikely to be detained, saying coup-makers were “not paying any attention” to the three-finger salute by Thaksin’s daughter. Malcolm Turnbull needed some spicy soup. Clive Palmer was ogling the Peking duck. And Andrew Bolt just wanted to stir the pot.
As if Tony Abbott didn’t have enough on his plate trying to sell the world’s most unpopular Budget, he is now piggy in the middle of a slanging match between Bolt, his friend and favourite foaming-at-the-mouth columnist, and Turnbull, his Cabinet colleague and “frenemy”, as Jason Clare described the Communications Minister in Parliament.
Equally unpalatably, perhaps, as the Prime Minister prepares to meet President Barack Obama in the US next week, American audiences have been chortling about him behind his back, thanks to British comedian John Oliver skewering him on his satirical news programme
The domestic spat began when Turnbull and PUP’s Palmer were spotted emerging from Wild Duck, a Chinese restaurant in Canberra, last week. According to Turnbull, it was a “spontaneous” get-together — he was already dining with others, and texted Palmer, an old friend, to invite him.
Bolt, though, was sure he could smell burning. With the Government negotiating with cross-benchers to get its Budget measures through, “why is Malcolm Turnbull wooing Clive Palmer on his own?” he demanded of Abbott in a TV interview last Sunday, adding: “It looks like he’s got his eye on your job”.
Abbott played things down, but Bolt — who has little love for Turnbull or his left-liberal politics — would not let go. In his News Corp column on Monday, he accused Turnbull — deposed from the Liberal leadership by Abbott by one vote in 2009 — of sending out the “unmistakable message” that if Liberal MPs swapped leaders again, “maybe Palmer will play ball”. Bolt also blasted him for launching a parliamentary group of friends of the ABC.
On Monday, Turnbull hit back, describing Bolt’s leadership speculation as bordering “on the demented” and “unhinged”. Bolt then took to the hated ABC to condemn that “amazingly over-the-top and abusive response”, while Turnbull’s wife, Lucy, revealed on Q & Malcolm had texted her after the dinner, saying he had needed spicy soup to combat the flu.
No one — not even Bolt — believes Turnbull is actively conspiring at the moment to win back the leadership. But after the awful polls recently, Abbott could probably have done without an Essential Media survey yesterday revealing 31 per cent of voters consider Turnbull the “best leader of the Liberal Party”, compared with only 18 per cent for him.
Meanwhile, Oliver — who on his HBO show presented clips of Abbott’s most embarrassing gaffes, including his remark about “the housewives of Australia . . . [doing] the ironing” — can only have rubbed salt in the wound.
Palmer said he had focused on his Peking duck and a much anticipated caramelised banana split. He did remember that he didn’t pick up the bill. “I always like a free meal,” he said.