I was born on September 10, 1996, now a fifth year Political Science student at Chulalongkorn University. A former President of the University’s Student Council, the first sophomore to hold the position of leading the student body and one whose term was the most short lived — a mere two months– as a result of how I and seven other students staged a walk out from the University’s oath taking ceremony to express their disagreement with the existence of such a ritual. As a result I was punished by having my behavioural scores cut and could never hold any other position in the University again. This sparked a public protest and outcry from as many as eight former recipients of the Nobel Prize and well-recognized academics from around the world. But it was to no avail and I and friends went to the court; and finally in 2019 the court ruled that the university decision to remove us was illegal and returned our behavioral points.
In 2020 I could run again as the candidate for the president of the Political Science Student Union of Chulalongkorn University which I won and tried to do as much good as possible in the position. In March 2021, I was voted by students (10,324 students, more than 70 percent of the votes) to serve as the president of The Student Union of Chulalongkorn University for the 2021 academic year.
It is said that I am the first undergraduate to hold three positions in the university’s history; president of the student council; president of the faculty union and the president of the student administration/student union (the current one). It is good and satisfying to be on the record but still the most important thing for me is how these positions I have will make the most good I can do.
I am also Thailand’s first conscientious objector who opposes mandatory conscription. I have campaigned against conscription and actively called for reforms in the military which I identify as the cause for the decline of Thai democracy.
At the time when I was removed from the president of student council I think I might no longer do anything to further my cause in the University’s main political body I focused the attention instead on a printing press that I and my student colleagues set up by the name of “Sam Nak Nisit Sam Yan Publication.” (or alternately Three-Dimensional Press named after one of the phrase from Alexander Herzen, my hero) It has as its main the intention to promote critical thinking in a way that it would be a driving force in pushing for a democratic spirit through the study of publications, a printing press that studies publications, printing presses, publishing student publications, their political perspectives and translating works from foreign countries that are deemed suitable for Thais to read.
On a personal level I have written books reflecting on my personal experiences with more than five books focusing on Thai education and the university.
I have translated works that contribute towards democratic activities such as Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Vaclav Havel’s Letter to Dr. Huzek, Hannah Arendt’s Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship, Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder as well as essays by Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo and Hong kong activist Joshua Wong.
And the interesting ideas from interesting thinkers such as Peter Singer’s Why Vegan? and John Gray’s Straw Dogs among many others.
In 2018 I was invited to address the Oslo Freedom Forum. The title of his talk was on the topic of “The Student vs.the Military.”
I believe democracy isn’t something that can come easily but should be a product of education and gatherings of members of society as well as the international community.