Published on August 27, 2005
Peaceful majority of Muslims are in the best position to weed out the extremists
In regard to the violence in the South and other extremist Islamic activity, it appears that in Thailand, as in Afghanistan with the destruction of the giant Buddhas, that extremist Muslims have declared war on Buddhism. In Israel they have declared war on Jews. In India they frequently do battle with Hindus, who also have to worry about their Muslim neighbours in Pakistan. In New York, Madrid and London they seem to have declared war on Christians. I suspect that if their own people continue to do little or nothing to stop these people, then they will soon find themselves all over the world under a state of siege or outright war.
It’s time Muslims everywhere started to object and put a stop to these people, or else they will get little or no sympathy when the gloves come off and they reap the inevitable backlash: their silence will have been viewed as tacit approval. I urge Muslims everywhere to take a hard look at what is going on in your own communities as well as around the world and ask yourselves are you really ready and wanting a war with the whole world? Please, please think what you can do to stop this before it’s too late. The world is big enough for us all to live with our own beliefs. Things will be a lot less ugly if you stop them first. A believer in tolerance and understanding Bangkok ------------------------------------------------ Justifications always fall flat for two-tiered pricing In reply to Bill Cymbalsky’s letter regarding “Cheap Charlies” (“If you can’t afford tourist prices, why not leave?” August 10), I would suggest that we throw out the two-tiered pricing and make it three-tiered pricing instead. First we have the Thai price (normal), followed by the tourist price (around double), and then we have the Cymbalsky price (any price at all – I’m rich, and I can afford it). I would also suggest that the Thai residents of Chon Buri make Bill put his money where his mouth is. Yes, tourists all over the world pay over and above the local accepted rate, but that doesn’t make it right. Do you really accept being fleeced with a smile? I somehow doubt it. It doesn’t take much common sense to know that if you accept double the price today, it will be triple the price tomorrow, and so on. Chiang Mai Mike Chiang Mai ------------------------------------------------ You don’t have to be white to be able to teach English Re: “Better English-teaching needed”, Editorial, August 15. I believe the low test scores are indicative of the overall emphasis on the Thai language in everyday life in Thailand and the desire to hire “native” English-teachers. I travel quite extensively in Thailand, and all I see is Thai on all your billboards and signage and all I hear in your television broadcasts. The emphasis is not there to learn another language. All your television programmes are in Thai (dubbed in Thai). I believe you should broadcast more programmes in English, so the people can hear and hopefully learn another language. Second, there is a deliberate effort to hire “native” English-teachers regardless of qualifications or whether the teacher is willing to stay in Thailand to give continuity to the teacher-student relationship. Being English or American should not be an essential criterion in hiring your teachers. You do not have to be “white” to be qualified. Good Asian English-teachers can be hired for these very important teaching jobs. The candidate teacher must be qualified in terms of education and teaching experience. And teacher-student bonding is also important. You cannot learn from your teacher if you are afraid of them. This superior-white/Asian relationship must not be present. Thomas Tan Malaysia ------------------------------------------------ A simple solution that will encourage language-learning Thai students’ abilities in English would improve a lot if the movie industry in Thailand stopped dubbing movies into Thai that have an English soundtrack and used Thai subtitles instead. Bent Jensen Bangkok ------------------------------------------------ Hire foreigners who are legitimately qualified Re: “Better English-teaching needed”, Letters, August 15. As long as schools in Thailand refuse to hire qualified foreign teachers, either because of age or length of contract requested, there will be little advancement in the learning of English. The Thai elementary student is often not interested in learning a new language and is there because the parents want the best for their child. Unfortunately, there are no demands placed on the students to apply themselves, since they will be given a pass mark anyway. The attitude of schools is often based on the students liking the course, and having the pupils work for their grade is not the way, in Thailand, of getting student approval. Success is measured by how many books are covered, not how well the student is able to handle the language. Thailand will not change, because many Thai teachers of English are unwilling to learn from a foreign teacher. In some cases, this is reasonable, because the foreign teacher is often not qualified to teach, but even if he or she is, there is little cooperation. Oliver Berrigan Bangkok ------------------------------------------------ Reading Thai is challenging even for native speakers Re: “LackofspacinginwrittenThai makes it difficult to read”, Letters, August 9. The lack of spaces between words is but one of many problems with the written Thai language. Thai lacks grammatical rules. It is free-style writing – do as you please. It’s okay for a sentence to have no subject. Sentence fragments and incomplete sentences are common. Since Thai has no punctuation marks, you have no idea where you should pause or where a sentence should end. Wordiness and redundancy are common. It’s fine to write: “Thai boxing is a dangerous sport because it’s not safe.” Unclear sentences are everywhere, especially in news reports: “A man sentenced to prison for raping a woman for 20 years”; “A rock group announced it would hold a concert at a press conference”. You see what I mean? I am Thai, but I have difficulty understanding Thai newspapers and many times have to guess who’s doing what and where. M Burapa Chiang Mai ------------------------------------------------ Simplified Chinese serves as an example for written Thai It is miserable to read those ill-reasoned replies to my earlier letter (“LackofspacinginwrittenThai makes it difficult to read”, August 9), disguised by improper, unnecessarily expressed nationalism (“Are they Thai?”) and conservatism, which is short-sighted and not constructive. I am a Chinese-educated Malaysian. Not long ago, I came across an old Chinese novel that was printed from top to bottom, from right to left, without any interval between sentences and made no use of punctuation. The readability was so low that I suddenly realised how crucial the language modernisation movement in the early 20th century in mainland China was and that we are obviously the beneficiaries of such effort. This is what inspired me to make my bold suggestion, despite in no way being a language expert. The modification of Chinese writing continues. Another example is the simplification of written Chinese; it may spoil the “beauty” of the original (?) script, but the change that was introduced in the mid-1950s has tremendously fostered interest (or I should say a willingness) in learning Chinese among the younger generation. If a writing system with more than 3,000 years of history can still change for the sake of simplicity, tell me why the Thai language can’t do the same. BC Heng Bangkok ------------------------------------------------ Transparency a must in selecting anti-graft board In a typical business organisation, the appointment of any working committee will always be followed by a performance evaluation of the committee itself. It will be a very interesting performance evaluation if the Thaksin government does evaluate the work record and accomplishments of the past anti-graft board, whose few members are well known to have a close relationship with PM Thaksin. I understand there were thousands of cases pending while the board was in power, unable to make any decision to protect the national interest. I also have yet to witness any major corruption cases that the past anti-graft board put a transparency judgement to. Now we are witnessing the same process of anti-graft-board selection and appointment we once saw before. While the Thaksin government stated that it is not interfering in the process, I simply do not think many people in Thailand believe the government. If the past selection process resulted in an anti-graft board that was ineffective in solving the nation’s chronic corruption problems, what is the assurance that the coming one will be able to do any better? Thailand is getting a reputation as one of the more corrupt countries in Asia. Without an effective auditing process by the Auditor-General’s Office and an effective justice-and-punishment process by the anti-graft board, the national reputation of Thailand will only get worse, not counting the billions of baht that have disappeared into secret bank accounts of powerful politicians and their cronies. CN Bangkok
Post your comment to this story here