By Harrison George |
<p>There are these tricky problems with translating Thai to English. Take, for example, the common or garden words phi (falling tone, not the ghostly rising tone) or nong. Because, some say, Thais regard age as more important than sex, these words tell you whether you are dealing with an older or younger sibling. But not if it is a sister or brother. Which is what the English reader expects to be told.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The recent proposal which was endorsed by Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat, to send violent students to the troubled South to do community work, continues a long tradition in the thinking of the Thai mainstream.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The scale of the flooding in Pakistan is difficult to grasp. An area equal to that of the United Kingdom has disappeared under water. Mercifully the number of fatalities (estimated at over 200,000 and still rising, with the threat of epidemics and starvation on the horizon) is so far lower than other recent disasters. But the number of people made homeless, and consequently more or less resource-less, is already greater than that of the 2004 tsunami and the earthquakes in Kashmir in 2005 and Haiti earlier this year, combined. Estimates of the damage to infrastructure – bridges, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and other public services – run to over $4 billion. The cost in lost output, crucially including food crops, is still too large to count.</p>
By Pornpen Khongkachonkiet |
<p>I first joined the Pattani Peace Walk on 26 July 2010, and covered a distance of 28 kilometers from Prachuab Khiri Khan town to Tab-sakae district over the course of one day. I surprised myself with how much I could actually walk in a day. Life in Bangkok is different. I leave home every morning with my car key to start the engine. Then, after driving to work, I walk not even 20 steps to my office from the car.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>This week’s prize for twisted logic goes to Nipon Poapongsakorn, President of the Thailand Development Research Institute think-tank and member of the Prawase Reform Committee. The committee, tasked with reducing injustice and inequity in the wake of the red shirt protests, is looking at the tax system.</p>
<p>And that is a jolly good place to look.</p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk |
<p><strong>The Promises</strong></p>
<p>Despite the continuing state crackdown on some political websites and on-line political posters, the internet has become the most open public space for political debate and discussion about the institution of the monarchy in Thailand. The mainstream print media, often regarded as more open and independent compared to the broadcast media, pale by comparison with the nascent internet news websites, blogs and online political-posting. Increasingly, the hegemonic control by the state and the mainstream media over the idealized portrayal and discourse of the monarchy is slipping and no longer tenable due to the differing portrayals and critical discussions online that simply by-pass traditional media outlets.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>“Govt unveils new steps to ease poverty” reads the Bangkok Post headline, with the kicker “Democrats flesh out ‘people’s agenda’ with skills training, loans, debt relief”.</p>
By Pravit Rojanaphruk |
<p><em>Writer's note: Although the paper was finished in December 2009 and many things have occured since, especially the massive blocking of political websites by the ICT Ministry under the Emergency Decree and the decision by Prachatai to cease to operate its web board after much legal and political pressure, many critical discussions about the Thai monarchy institution continue on-line, although with increasing level of fear for posters' own safety and security.</em></p>
By Harrison George |
<p>Dramatis Personae<br />
Deputy Rector for Student Affairs<br />
Faculty Advisor to Student Drama Society<br />
Student Director</p>
<p>Act One, Scene One<br />
Office of the Deputy Rector for Student Affairs</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The National Reform Committee has made a dramatic start in its work toward national reconciliation by seeking to eliminate the problem of ‘double standards’. In a move that took most observers by complete surprise – and shocked the government to its core – it ordered Maj Gen Chamlong Srimuang, one of the five leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, to report for psychological testing.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>They managed to cling on to their terraced house through the Great Depression and got through World War 2 with all their children surviving. They saw them all married off bar one, and at war’s end, through the kind of thrift that borders on miserliness, they had scraped enough together to move two doors down into ‘The Shop’.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>It has been pointed out that the political messages from both sides of polarized Thailand, even when they are in English, are very much oriented to a Thai audience. They therefore use a Thai discourse which either looks deceptively familiar to non-Thais (and so is almost certainly going to be misinterpreted), or they sound a bit off.</p>