These included direct confrontation between Thai and Burmese soldiers, the Chiang Rai workshop fingerpointing Burma's Wa-controlled area as a drug production base, and Bangrajan , a patriotic film, getting an airing in schools and military camps along the border. The Burmese government was reviving a spirit of courage against western powers promoted by King Alaungphaya in the 18th century by having historians take up themes of Burmese unity, western imperialism and Burma's struggle for independence, he said. A supplement to the fourth grade history book compared their self-reliant king to Thai kings whom they accused of yielding to western powers. The textbook marked a turning point as Thais previously had not been villains in the eyes of Burmese people but had been regarded with a positive attitude. Charnvit Kasetsiri, history professor at Thammasat University, said a description of Thai people as servile and lazy showed Burmese contempt for Thais.
Thai textbooks do the same.
At the Foreign Ministry, spokesman Norachit Sinhaseni said the textbook was not conducive to good relations with Thailand or efforts to develop bilateral relations. Oum Maolanon, the Thai ambassador to Burma, had found two textbooks, one for students in the ninth grade that did not contain much about Thailand, and a 12-page supplement to the regular history book for fourth graders, which was critical of Thai foreign policy and past kings. In use since June 1, and sold only in schools, the textbook said Thailand applied a policy that bent with the wind, and claimed Thai kings had yielded to the West in order to keep their kingdoms. Mr Norachit said Thailand would not lodge a protest with Burma as the Foreign Ministry had protested about the same thing in articles published in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar last month. Four sub-chapters move from the birth of the Ayutthaya kingdom after the fall of Sukhothai, up to the present.