Pragmatic From “Ritual” to “Public Holiday” The Origins of the “National Commemoration Days” of Thai State

Abstract

This article discusses the origins of Thai state’s “National Commemoration Days” by using socio-economic changes of the post-Bowring Treaty as a turning point to trace the birth of the National Commemoration Days. This change made a significant impact on date reckoning technology of the Thai state as it introduced the Solar calendar concept. As a result, the state can integrate citizens into a same temporal space i.e. “same day” in the sense that the citizens would be able to perceive the day publicly and passed each year as precise mechanism. This change led to the “Realization of Today in the past” which increasingly expanded and internalized in both state and individual levels. However, it was state who come to define the direction of this realization by transferring the rituals that once underpinned the structure of power relations defined by the Absolute monarchy. These rituals were included in the old calendar system, which became irrelevant to the society in modern times. Thus, they need to be transferred into the new calendar system in the form of “Public Holidays” which are the first kind of National Commemoration Days. This process facilitated the “Realization of National Memory” through calendar”. However, the creation of “Public Holidays” by the absolute monarchy state in the first phase was not successful as it was expected since the process could not led to the effective “Realization of National Memory” through calendar”.