COUNCIL FOR PEACE AND ORDER (NCPO)
5.3 The Process of Creating Patriotic Songs of the NCPO
5.3.2 Power Relations in the Creation Process of the NCPO’s Songs From the production process, the power relations found in the production
process were as following:
1) General Prayut Chan-o-cha
General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Head of the NCPO, was the origin of the NCPO‟s songs. Besides, he had an important role in composing lyrics. For all four songs, “Return Happiness to Thailand,” “Because you are Thailand,” “Hope and Faith,” and “the Bridge,” besides being the commander to initiate the creation of songs, he also determined the original content of the songs, needed to communicate to people. In the past, the Chief-in-Command might suggest the direction of the songs, but no evidence was found that any of them composed the lyrics of the songs by themselves like General Prayut Chan-o-cha.
In terms of power relations of this leader, it was found that General Prayut Chan-o-cha determined the content of the songs by himself and had an authority to order the production of the songs whose lyrics were written by the leader of the coup.
2) Royal Thai Army Band Department
The center for song production of the NCPO was Royal Thai Army Band Department who was responsible for producing songs for the Army‟s activities and missions. Usually, the chain of command would be from the Army concerned offices; however, for this time, the leader ordered them directly. For the first song,
“Return Happiness to Thailand, the handwriting of General Prayut Chan-o-cha assigned the songs as a consequence of his communication with Major General Krisda Sarika, the director of Royal Thai Army Band Department. The song thus was rapidly produced in three days to publicize timely.
The reasons why the Department of Royal Army Band was the center for the production of the NCPO‟s songs were to increase the effectiveness of the operation in several ways:
(1) For the rapid production since everything during that time was urgent and needed to be timely.
(2) The Department is a unit under the command of General Prayut Chan-o-cha so it is easier to talk and it can be assured that he can command and control everything in the directions he planned.
Accordingly, to let the military officials be responsible would facilitate the working of the NCPO and can control the content and production entirely as planned. Therefore, the Department had full authority in the production process of the NCPO. Notably, the Department was responsible for musical works of the Army directly, so it had a significant role in changing the direction of patriotic songs from March to the Pop genre. Besides, from introducing an experienced composer in pop music to join in the process, it helped to reduce the military melody or march melody in the patriotic songs in the period of the NCPO.
From the narration of Major Surachai Thawinprai, responsible for music arrangement of the NCPO‟s songs, General Prayut Chan-o-cha did not specify that the songs needed to be pop songs but “must be beautiful, easy to listen, and can access to people.” Hence, it led to the selection of people whom they thought should be the right man for this job. Thus, they considered it should be pop songs and then Mr. Wichian Tantipimolphan, was introduced. His melody and music arrangement in pop style was approved and publicized finally.
3) The Army/Directorate of Civil Affairs
The Directorate of Civil Affairs, Royal Thai Army was responsible for supervising all communication missions with people by having the Department of Public Relations of Psychology Office as a supporting unit. The main task was to implant the desirable ideologies to people in the country and also was one of the processes in disseminating the NCPO‟s songs to the public. It also used the songs for the Army‟s activities and coordination activities between the military and the civilians. It was a significant unit in driving the songs through various communication channels over which the NCPO had an authority after the coup. These channels were mainly networks of the Department of Public Relations through the Television Pool of Thailand (TPT) of free TV: Channel 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, Thai PBS, and all affiliates of the Department. For digital TV, the dissemination was in the form of a request for cooperation. In general, the songs were publicized as accompanying songs of the program “Thailand Moves Forward” and “Return Happiness to People of the country”
and other activities depending on the situations.
The roles of Directorate of Civil Affairs thus was another factor that helped promote the NCPO‟s songs with the hidden meaning of the NCPO‟s ideologies and make the songs to be well known nationwide. Primarily, it asked cooperation from many parts of private sectors in transmitting the songs. Besides its authority in disseminating the songs, it also determines the strategies for the dissemination, i.e., when, where, and how to disseminate the songs that enabled people to expose to them, and it was responsible for selecting other songs from outside sources to accompany the NCPO‟s song series. Moreover, it was authorized to control and ban the dissemination of any song that was inappropriate for the situation immediately.
The dissemination of the songs to people led to the domination of space of thought of people in the society. Besides, having communication channels that could reach people throughout the country by controlling principal TV and radio stations, the NCPO also used the frequency of dissemination to get quicker access.
Napaporn Triwitwareekul described the station‟s cooperation with the NCPO in broadcasting the song “Return Happiness to Thailand.”
“We understand well that the antenna and station do not belong to us so we must comply with the policies of the network. For instance, here our wave106.5 FM depends on the Post and Telegraph Department. Therefore, we needed to comply with their policies by opening the song of the NCPO at the beginning of every hour.” (Napaporn Triwitwareekul, personal communication, August 31, 2016)
Winai Suatim, the Director of the program production (English program), channel 11 or NBT World 11, narrated about the running of the program
“Thailand Moves Forward” to comply with the NCPO‟s policies,
“There are many teams whom the Prime Minister assigned to operate the program. For our team, we are responsible for running the program “Thailand Moves Forward,” and we will broadcast their song to comply with the policies of the NCPO.” (Winai Suatim, personal communication, April 12, 2017).
The program “Thailand Moves Forward” is broadcast at 6.00 PM every day and the program “Return Happiness to People of the Country” at 8.15 PM every Friday. Both programs are broadcast on Channel 3, 5, 7, 9, Thai PBS, and 11 NBT. It means that the NCPO has channels for disseminating their songs via TV and radio stations under their surveillance every day. Notably, the cooperation from radio stations to open the NCPO‟s songs at the beginning of every hour means the radio listeners can hear the NCPO‟s songs every hour.
Although the Directorate of Civil Affairs was not responsible for the production of songs but dissemination; therefore, the leading role was to administer dissemination channels and control the distribution to enhance ideologies. Also, it had to coordinate with concerned TV and radio units and stations, i.e., those broadcasting the program “Thailand Moves Forward” and “Return Happiness to People of the Country,” or TV and radio stations of private companies. The moderators of both government and private sectors had to comply with the policies requested by the Army. From the researcher‟s observation, the Directorate of Civil Affairs, Royal Thai Army, played roles in organizing the program, “Thailand Moves Forward” and
“Return Happiness to People in the Country”, in framing broadcasting time with Free
TV stations, and in monitoring the Department of Public Relations with their affiliated TV and Radio stations all through the country. Besides, the NCPO assigned Lieutenant General Sansern Kaewkumnerd to be Director-General of the Department of Public Relations to control the operation of the Department and to determine the frequency of broadcasting of the NCPO‟s songs through mass media. All of these conditions should be sufficient to broaden the NCPO‟s communication capacity with people widely.
4) Private Sectors
Private sectors here mean individuals and offices who and that are neither government nor the Army but involved in the creation process in either of the two roles as following:
(1) Individuals or organizations participating in the production process of the NCPO‟s patriotic songs.
In the process of creating the NCPO‟s four patriotic songs:
“Return Happiness to Thailand”, “Because you are Thailand,” “Hope and Faith”, and
“the Bridge”, it was found that Mr. Wichian Tantipimolphan was the only civilian from the private sector. He was assigned to help arrange the lyric of the songs composed by General Prayut Chan-o-cha and write the melody that matched with the words. Mr. Wichian Tantipimolphan was an independent composer for GMM Grammy Public Company Limited, and his expertise was the composition of pop songs, the soundtrack for both TV drama or series and stage performance. By analogy, the roles of Mr. Wichian was to produce musical works as ordered by the superior or the owner of an organization or the production manager of drama or plays.
However, for the process of the NCPO‟s creation, the one who gave an order was the military while the helper did not gain any hires nor compensation like to work with a private company. Thus, his working for the NCPO was in the form of being requested to help, and the NCPO gave freedom for him to arrange the lyrics and melody in the style at which he was good ultimately.
Mr. Wichian explained how he joined in the production process,
“He might think of me. He might like my songs since my first song up to the last one in the contest organized by the Army so he might have seen something in my style
and want me to try.” (Wichian Tantipimolphan, personal communication, March 20, 2017).
As Mr. Wichian was an independent composer, no permission from the affiliation for joining in the creation process for the army was needed.
Therefore, this was his willingness to participate in without being paid but with pride for working for the country, as he said, “Actually, I was thrilled to do it because at least I am a part of helping the country. I have to say that I am very proud of it.”
(Wichian Tantipimolphan, personal communication, March 20, 2017).
The relationship between Mr. Wichian and the Director of the Royal Thai Army Band Department was in the form of younger paying respect to an older. Especially, since this was the mission for the Army, the Department during the control by the military, had an authorized power so, under this crisis, everyone tended to cooperate fully.
What should be noted is the willingness of an independent composer who joined in the creation process without pays, but only a feeling of pride, This reflects that dominance over space of thought has extended to cover composers who jointly created the songs with the NCPO, which they perceived as for public benefits. Accordingly, this illustrates the use of hegemony to obsess the producers successfully.
(2) Individuals or organizations who owned the songs the NCPO used to disseminate in combination with the self-composed songs.
For this case, individuals or artists did not involve in the creation process of the NCPO‟s songs directly. However, it was the case in which owners from the private sector who owns the songs allowed the NCPO to use their songs for military activities or the songs may be disseminated in parallel to the NCPO‟s songs.
Therefore, in this case, it was a request for cooperation, so the power relation was between the government and private sectors towards public benefits. The private sectors just provided a partnership for the NCPO by allowing the NCPO to use their songs in the NCPO‟s activities.
From this study, it was found that the following individuals and organizations from private sectors provided cooperation for the government by letting
the NCPO use their songs in the program “Thailand Moves Forward” and “Return Happiness to People in the Country”:
a) Work Point Entertainment Public Company Limited: the owner of the song “Tomorrow.”
b) GMM Grammy Public Company Limited: co-producer of the song “Twelve Values” with the Ministry of Culture as a medium to create happiness for Thai people.
c) BB Picture Co., Ltd: the owner of the song “Good Men Never Die,” soundtrack of the film, “Khun Rong Palad Choo, Weerachon Khon Thuk Luem” (Choo: A Forgotten Hero)
Power relations in the process of creating patriotic songs of the NCPO were shown as below
Figure 5.4 Illustrates Power Relations in the Process of Creating Patriotic Songs of the NCPO
In the factor of power relations in the process of creating patriotic songs of the NCPO, the military leader and offices had the absolute power, beyond private sectors, in the creation process, in the dissemination of ideologies through songs, and in controlling all media and channels.
Gen. Prayut
Army/
Directorate of Civil Affairs
Mass Media Private
Artist/org.
Royal Thai Army Band
Dept.
Private Composers