Presenting a presentable presentation

The Seven Martyrs displayed at Ban Song Khon Cathedral in Mukdahan province.



When I arrived here in Thailand, Profesor Chalong (who oversees my research in Bangkok) asked me to deliver a seminar paper to his graduate students at Chulalongkorn university. I had serious reservations about speaking at an academic forum in Thai, but what's the point of doing all this research if you're going to keep it to yourself? Connecting with other scholars and finding an audience for your work is the goal of every professor. A month ago I received the seminar schedule and found out I was the first lecturer in a series that included some very distinguished names in our field. This increased the stress level a bit, but since the audience was mostly graduate student with some faculty it turned out to be a very informal, enjoyable environment to share some preliminary conclusions.


As I have repeated many times, my research involves Thai nationalism and anti-colonialism during the WWII period. For this forum I chose to limit my remarks to the Thai government's attempt to rid the country of the Catholic church form 1940-1944. In the minds of Thai leaders, Catholicism was working hand-in-glove with French imperialists to consolidate power in Southeast Asia. Once the border war between Thailand and French Indochina broke out, Bangkok exploited the wartime atmosphere to persecute Catholics and entrench Buddhism as the national religion (a process which has recently received renewed interest).


The results were disastrous for Catholics. All French priests were arrested and deported, and most Thai priests were imprisoned. All religious meetings were banned, the churches and schools were closed and usually appropriated for government used. Catholics were forced to attend 'Re-education meetings' and asked to sign affadavits saying they had renounced Christianity. Catholic govt workers lost their jobs, and Thais boycotted their businesses. Thais who refused to stop teaching Catholicism were assaulted and sometimes even killed. The Vatican responded by sending in Italian priests and enlisting the help of the Italian embassy in Bangkok to recover lost property, but during the war they could exert little pressure. It was not until Japan's fortunes in the Pacific nose-dived and Thailand began preparing itself for an Allied victory that the religiou persecution ended. Late in 1944 Thailand adopted a new Constitution that ensured religious freedom and the government began gradually returning church property.





My ground-breaking powerpoint map of Catholic administrative boundaries.


On the whole, it think the presentation went quite well. Thailand is currently drafting a new constitution and there is strong support for writing in Buddhism as the national religion, so the topic received a great deal of interest. Most of the audience was not even aware of that such an episode had ever taken place. I have uncovered incontrovertable evidence that the entire campaign was the result of orders from the Ministry of Interior to the provincial governors, which raises serious questions about Thai-West relations. I made many mistakes in Thai, and often felt rather foolish, but managed to maintain people's interest when presenting the evidence. The most difficult part was attempting to explain how this episode fit into the overall framework of my dissertation (something I have difficulty explaining in English).

Even better, Kaddi was nice enough to sit through the who two hours so that I would have a friendly face to look at. Afterwards I think one of the graduate students tried to hit on her.



(And of course I was swamped with people who wanted to be featured on 301NIB, or wanted t-shirts and other merchandise. Celebrity is such a burden.)