IN BANGKOK
I GOT to the red shirts' main rally site at Pan Fah bridge by boat at around 8.45 this morning, to find their unconventional blood 'donation' drive in full swing.
Hundreds of red shirts had formed several queues to donate blood which this evening, will be poured on the street at the entrances to Government House, where the Prime Minister's office is located.
Dramatic music boomed out of the sound system. Up on the stage, United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) leaders were having their blood drawn.
A red shirt leader has his blood drawn on stage.
-- ST PHOTOS BY: NIRMAL GHOSH
Doctors and nurses from hospitals and clinics had volunteered to do it professionally. There were stacks of supplies – clean disposable syringes in original packaging, alcohol, cotton wool and gauze and Band-aid, surgical gloves and masks. The blood was being put into large plastic bottles, the kind in which you get drinking water in bulk.
A few metres from the stage, hundreds of red shirts were filing into a tent to donate blood. An air conditioner wheezed fruitlessly as 20-30 people at any given moment crammed into the white tent on the hot and humid morning, with the queue outside stretching for about 50 metres. After they had given blood, they were provided with a generous bowl of rice porridge outside.
In the crowded tent, an endless stream of people
Free rice porridge
The media was swarming the place for this strange spectacle. Clearly UDD leader Nattawut Saikuar has created a stir with this idea, even if it is seen as bizarre by some - including many red shirts.
'This is to show we are ready to do anything to get democracy back' Nattawut told me.
Co-leader Dr Weng Tojirakarn said the exercise was symbolic of 'sacrifice'.
I worked the red shirt queues and found everyone hugely enthusiastic. A 42-year-old lady called Wan from Samut Prakarn said, 'If we can do this for the country, why not? Every drop of blood will help bring back democracy.'
While I was speaking with her another woman shoved forward and called out 'We will do anything for democracy!'
A 63-year-old former policeman, Saman Nuangjaidee, from the north-east, said 'We want to show we can give our lives for the nation. We want this government to dissolve parliament and give democracy back to the people.'
'Every drop will help bring back democracy'
Asked if he was doing this for former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he vehemently denied it, saying, 'This is not for Thaksin, this is for democracy.' Many carried pictures of Thaksin, or wore T-shirts with Thaksin's face on the front.
A 50-year-old woman from Bangkok said she was not a Thaksin supporter but had decided to donate her blood to show solidarity for the movement.
I probed for any symbolism to the strongly ritualistic act of pouring the blood, and UDD spokesman Sean Boonpracong admitted there was something 'primal' about it.
Clearly the process does involve a kind of ritualistic bonding, and in a country where superstition is rife, pouring blood out on the street at Government House may resonate in some manner. But the primary intent seems not to tap into superstition, but to manufacture political symbolism.
Having blood drawn in the tent
There is some debate over whether most of the red shirts have left Bangkok, and how long the UDD can sustain this gathering. Last night the crowd was slightly thinner, eyewitnesses there reported. This morning there were probably around 4-5,000 people in front of and around the main stage. I did not check the surrounds, where many have been camping out these past few nights. The morning is not the best time to judge these things, because activity at rallies of this sort usually peaks in the evenings.
Meanwhile some analysts are saying the symbolic act of pouring out the blood is the UDD's exit strategy, since the government is clearly holding together and not giving an inch. Today's joint session of the House and Senate predictably fell short of a quorum with Democrat Party and many coalition members and conservative Senators deciding to skip it - scuttling talk of the session being set up to somehow embarrass the ruling party.
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Blood protest