Victory Monument (Bangkok)

The monument is entirely Western in design. This is in contrast with another prominent monument of Bangkok, the Democracy Monument, which uses indigenous Thai forms and symbols. The central obelisk, although originally Egyptian, has been frequently used in Europe and the US for national and military memorials, its shape suggesting both a sword and masculine potency. Here it is executed in the shape of five bayonets clasped together. Five statues, representing the army, navy, air force, police, and civilian population, are depicted in Western "heroic" style, familiar in the 1940s in both fascist and communist states. They were created by the Italian sculptor Corrado Feroci, who worked under the Thai name Silpa Bhirasri. The sculptor did not like the combination of his work with the obelisk, and referred to the monument as "the victory of embarrassment". ==History==

In 1940–1941, Thailand fought a brief conflict against the Vichy French colonial authorities in French Indochina, this conflict was called the Franco-Thai War, which resulted in Thailand annexing some territories in western Cambodia and northern and southern Laos. These were among the territories which the Kingdom of Siam had ceded to France in 1893 and 1904, and nationalist Thais considered them to belong to Thailand. protestors gathering around the Victory Monument in 2009 Protests During the 2020-2021 Thai Protests, protestors regularly battled with police around Bangkok including at the Victory Monument. In October 2020, around 10,000 protestors gathered at the monument and blocked local traffic. On August 7, 2021, a road near the monument was sealed off to prevent protestors from reaching the monument by police by using containers, although protestors had to be forced back with teargas. On August 11, another protest this time organized by Thalufa (also known as Tha Lu Fa) ended with a battle between protestors trying to march on the Prime-minister's residence and police: with the police responding with rubber bullets and teargas, and protestors by setting a police truck on fire and also throwing fireworks which injured 8 officers. After the Thai Constitutional Court ruled that Prime-minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had not reached his term limit of 8 years in October 2022, the activist group Thalufah organized a protest at the Victory Monument with around 500 protesters attending. == See also ==