A Short History of the Long Memory of the Thai Nation

Thongchai Winichakul

Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It is a cliché that Siam was never colonized by a European power in the 19th c. But it has never been taken seriously that it was a crypto-colony (or an indirect colony) and how this crypto-colonial condition shaped its history in the past hundred years. Nationalism in Siam emerged and operated under this condition and its legacies. Modern historiography in Siam was formulated during 1880s-1910s, the same period that the country experienced the most serious threat from the European colonial powers and emerged as an independent country. The master narrative of Thai history that was formulated in the mid-1910s reflected the view of the royal elite on that tumultuous moment and established a historical ideology that represents the nationalist spirit of the royal elite. This powerful ideology how the royal Thai ancestors saved the country commands how the past of Siam since the alleged birth of the nation a thousand years ago should be understood. The historical ideology, then, has shaped public views on the country’s situations and development in various phases during the 20th century including the WWII, the Cold War and the current impact of globalization. Upon a closer examination, however, the royal-nationalist history of a non-colonized country bears several peculiar elements that reflect the crypto-colonial condition of Siam since it became a modern nation.