Phibunsonggram (03)
It was symptomatic of such use of nationalist feeling, which had been aroused from 1932 onwards that proposal was made in June 1939 to change the name of the country from Siam to Thailand and of the people from Siamese to Thai.
Phibunsonggram and his wife
The implication of Phibunsonggram’s intention were evident. “Thai” or T’ai” is the word employed for the indigenous people of Siam but it is also the term applied to the whole T’ai family of peoples, about one half of whom lived outside the borders of Thailand.
The Thai government, however, tried to explain this change in the name of the country and the people on ethological grounded by announcing that since the people generally called themselves “Thai” and their country “Muang Thai”, the government “deemed it expedient to establish the official name of the country to correspond with the name of the race and to meet the desire of the people.”
However, contemporary Western observers interpreted this change of terminology as “the revival of an age-old dream of the Kingdom of the White Elephant to dominion over all the Thai peoples, now scattered under the flags of China, France and Great Britain”
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