OMG.  I have only just realized.  The insurrection on the streets, the slowly sinking economy, the political polarization that allows no dialogue … it’s all my fault.

At first I thought that Suthep and his fellow demagogues were just doing the normal rabble-rousing, picking on the Cambodians as the bogeyman du jour. 

At the Din Daeng candidate registration, half the police (suspiciously wearing black, you will have noticed, nudge, nudge, wink, wink) were Cambodian, or so it was claimed.  This was proved by the fact that they were paid in Cambodian money. 

(And can you imagine a Cambodian coming to Thailand to impersonate a Thai police officer and wanting payment in riel?  They must be as stupid as they are evil.)

And the brave defenders of democracy and blockers of ballots swarmed to Bueng Kum District Office last Sunday in response to reports that Cambodians without ID cards were attempting to vote.

And what a dastardly plan that was, getting illegal votes from filthy foreigners whose names could not be on the electoral register and who had no ID.  What will they do next?  Give them fake IDs so that their vile plot might have even a remote chance of working?

But no, it’s not just Cambodian foreigners who are creating mayhem in Bangkok. 

‘PDRC key member’ Anek Nakabut is quoted by the Nation as ‘blam[ing] foreign powers for being behind the ills of Thai politics’.  This came right before he ‘choked with emotion’ after declaring his love for Thailand and the King.

And those foreign powers, gulp, must include me.

I didn’t mean it, honest.  I’ve been racking my brains about when I started subverting the Thai state.  It must have been when I was working for the Thai government, paying my taxes without complaint.  Then I was asked to do a bit of special work.  It didn’t involve overtime, but, along with my Thai colleagues, I got paid extra for it.  

Now I did make a point of asking why this income was not included on the forms that my office gave me for filing my tax returns.  But maybe I should have risked the wrath of my workmates and kept up my demands to pay a few extra baht in tax. 

But, and I hang my head in shame at the memory, I did not do this and quietly pocketed the untaxed income that the government had given me.

I had not heard the name of Thaksin at the time.  I don’t think anyone had.  But clearly I was setting an example that somehow he heard about.  Encouraged by the scofflaw behaviour of a foreigner, his sordid career in corruption must have started from this.

Of course I know recognize that there was no corruption in Thailand until the farangs started it.  That’s why the Thais have no word for it and have had to borrow ‘kho-rap-chan’ into their language. 

But my machinations against Thailand did not stop there.  At one time I was a teacher and, to my everlasting shame, I tried to expose those tender young Thai minds to such mischievous concepts as thinking for yourself, and not necessarily believing what’s in the textbook, and basing an opinion on an analysis of the facts. 

It didn’t work, they ignored all my best efforts, but perhaps, unwittingly, I had started the collapse of the Thai education system into the undisciplined chaos in the classroom that teachers face today. 

Then there was the time I witnessed a minor traffic accident involving a foreign driver.  I offered my services as an interpreter at the scene so that the two drivers could sort out the bodywork scratches. 

But then the police arrived and asked me to accompany both parties to the local police station to facilitate the taking of statements.  It pains me to admit it now, but I agreed to this.

I didn’t know that I was aiding and abetting a deeply corrupt organization.  I’d heard rumours of police corruption, of course, but this was just a traffic accident.  I didn’t have Khun Suthep’s advantages of 3 years of chairing the Police Commission where he must have become aware of the need to reform this dysfunctional organization (which he was clever enough not to bring up while he was in charge – much wiser to wait until he could use this in the current protests and blame the current government).

I hope it is not too late to make amends.  Let me do all I can to assist the people of Thailand in fighting off the insidious plots of ignorant foreigners.  I recall the scare-mongering after October 6.  Let me help re-start campaigns against Vietnamese oranges that shrink your willy, or the seditious communist tunnel that was dug all the way from Thammasat University to Chitlada Palace. 

Please, good people of Thailand, forgive me my past sins and errors.  I’ve learned my bitter lesson.  Let me help build the new Thailand based on ignorance, antipathy and xenophobia.

About author:  Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).