BRAVO, YOUNG ONE
Written by changthai11 on Sunday, September 21st, 2008
LETTERS
BRAVO, YOUNG ONE
136 Na Ranong Road, Klong Toey, Bangkok 10110Fax: 022403666email: sundaypost@bangkokpost.co.th
As an avid fan of Postbag, I have seen one of the most encouraging and intelligent letters in a long time, from Khun Ranita Boonpoapichart (”Generation XYZ on Democracy”, Sept 14, 2008).
Why such feelings of encouragement? The answer lies in the fact that Khun Ranita is actually thinking about the issues openly and intelligently, and hits the nail square on the head in my opinion in many ways.
I agree that it is indeed time to give the “new blood” referred to a chance to take over the political reins of power and effect change to enable a real democracy to develop and flourish in Thailand.
The only issue I would raise is in the apparent belief that the electorates in the UK and America are different than in Thailand, where “the numbers of poor, uneducated people are much greater than the number of educated people”.
After all, Boris Johnson was elected mayor of London, and the hope for a new direction in American politics is unlikely to materialise if the polls are to be believed. The USA cannot bring itself to vote for a black man, even though he offers a real vision for the nation, especially in the eyes of the young and aspiring, if not in those of the self-serving old guard.
Bernardino
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THE PPP ARE NICER THAN THE JUNTA
It’s interesting to note the currently different concepts of activism in Thailand and Burma. In Burma, activists spend protracted periods imprisoned, often suffering torture at the hands of the military regime. In Thailand, the police are forewarned not to lay hands on the “activists”, and they are funded by firmly entrenched members of the ruling elite. In Burma, activists risk public beatings by openly staging demonstrations, whilst in Thailand, activists occupy government property without fear of prosecution or justifiable arrest. In Burma, activists are struggling to attain a representative government for the people, whilst in Thailand activists are openly proposing disenfranchising the poor and “uneducated”. Many of them have benefitted from maintaining an impoverished class and the unequal distribution of wealth it entails. So who are the real activists? Please enlighten me, Thai readers.
Lee Davies
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UAE DIVERSIFICATION IS SMART MOVE
In regard to “The new gulf war”, Spectrum, Sept 14, 2008, nations get rich not by exporting energy but by consuming it. As well, economies that depend on exporting a single exhaustible resource face higher risk, higher cost of capital, and an uncertain future. It is therefore imperative for resource-based economies to use their export earnings to develop and diversify, instead of holding financial assets for the developed countries, a strategy that serves only to provide even more capital and more economic development for the rich to get even richer. The recent movement in the UAE to move along these lines, by investing in infrastructure to develop tourism, real estate, sports, transportation and communication hubs and using their unique geographical advantage should be seen in this light and applauded. The sneering and deprecating article in the Bangkok Post that pokes fun at these countries for investing their oil revenues at home instead of holding American financial securities is self serving and likely derives from a colonialism mentality.
Cha-am Jamal
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MORE NEWS, PLEASE
There are many people having their say about the new Sunday Bangkok Post and its new price. I would like to propose an idea or two. Every day my paper arrives like a UK Sunday paper. Today (18th) there are 5 supplements. The one thing that is always lacking is the news. There is brief local and international news, then the rest of the paper is made up of supplements. Would it not be more cost effective to make just one paper, and have the individual supplements in their own section? Sometimes the main paper is so thin on news I find myself having to go online to find out what is happening in the world. There is a lot of local Thai news missed.
A Sunday paper should provide significant amounts of reading material There are times it may take all week to read. If these ideas were followed I think the quality of the paper would be improved. As a last thought; how about changing to tabloid format as most of the broad sheets in the UK are doing?
Avid Reader
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PUTTING A NAME ON THE THAI SYSTEM
During this time of political crisis in Thailand, many groups are bandying the word democracy about. Samak is a defender of democracy, the PAD is an alliance for democracy, and various groups (and contributors to the letters section) state that Thailand’s democracy has been superseded by the current political troubles. Unfortunately, no one seems to know what “democracy” means. Ancient democracy was a governmental system through which everyone voted on everything. Modern democracy is characterised as a government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system (and we all know how much Thai politicians pay for their votes. Nothing is free in Thai elections). It is also a state of society characterised by formal equality of rights and privileges (where Mercedes Benz drivers cannot mow over people and be let off without even a slap on the wrist). Under both the ancient and modern definitions, Thailand cannot be said to have democracy.
If I was to nitpick and put a proper name on the form of government Thailand has, based on Thailand’s performance of democracy over the past 75 years, I would call it a “timocracy”, which can be defined as a form of government in which ambition for power and glory motivates the rulers, and which political power is in direct proportion to property ownership.
Douglas Brown
