Photographic realism and communism: the twin spectres in the image of the student skit in Dao Sayam

The violent crackdown at Thammasat University on 6 October 1976 was one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of modern Thailand. The incident has never been fully investigated or resolved, despite many attempts by scholars and activists to recover memories and re-examine the incident. This article analyses the role of a photograph on the front page of a right-wing royalist newspaper, Dao Sayam – showing a student skit at the university – in the lead-up to the massacre. It examines the entanglement between the discourses of photography, the performativity of photographic image and the spectral image of communism made by the royalist-military propaganda. The article argues that the facial resemblance between the performer and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, which was central to the debate around the photograph, is a phantasma: a delusive appearance of communism as a spectre called up by imagination. It elaborates on how this picture transformed from a photograph of the skit into a haunting image by which the spectre of communism became representational, and how it worked in arousing rage among the Right wing. The skit photograph turned into an offensive image and contributed to the nightmarish event on the morning of 6 October 1976.