5.2. Green shirts
The people of Bo Nok were the first to wear Green Shirts in
Thailand, which are now widely used by other social and environmental
movements throughout this country. This illustrates how
such a material artefact became connected with contestation processes
and social movements, and how they contribute to the process
of place-making. The texts on some of the shirts capture the
deliberate attempt to remake Bo Nok beyond the violent protests.
One of the many versions of the Green Shirts says: ‘‘One has died,
but hundreds of thousands will be born; only the body has been
killed, the spirit and ideals remain; hundreds of thousands of
Charoens will be born across Thailand’’ (Haberkorn, 2006).
Many interviewees mentioned that they had one or more Green
Shirts at home, some hanging on the walls of their houses for decoration.
An article in the Bangkok Post also highlights the significance
of these shirts: ‘‘Green, the colour of choice of the early
generations of protesters at Bo Nok and Ban Krud, has been
adopted by the other Prachuap Khiri Khan conservationists. The
colour is deemed sacred . . . The hue is like a talisman that commands
the respect of even the authorities’’ (Bangkok Post
(Vasana Chinvarakorn), 2009).