BANGKOK -- Last week, rural adherents of the Falun Gong movement in China surreptitiously made their way from provincial towns to stage short-lived protests in the heart of Beijing's Tiananmen Square. At the same time in rural Thailand, thousands of Thai peasants boarded trains for Bangkok to take an anti-dam protest to the heart of the city in front of Thailand's Government House.
In both cases police roughed up protesters, hundreds of whom were arrested and trucked away to detention centers. In both cases, there were echoes of past student demonstrations, where a desperate "nothing left to lose" mentality reigned, leading to the defiant occupation of a symbolic location near the seat of government.
But the most remarkable thing about this youthful defiance in the two Asian capitals was the lack of student participants. Where were the young people? Falun Gong protesters that have shown themselves to date are typically middle-age or older. Unlike the Tiananmen protests in 1989, China's latest antigovernment movement is not attracting students or intellectuals. This may in part be understood by the nature of the message; Falun Gong activists are animated by a mystical creed of simplicity and self-healing that appeals to middle-age poor folk.