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Published on September 3, 2007

 I submit the only people getting angry are power brokers in Bangkok who don't want any interference in business as usual. Oh, almost forgot, there's another big power broker in London who might not like election monitors. But I think regular folk wouldn't mind steps that move Thailand towards free and fair elections.

Sunshine is a disinfectant. Let a little sun shine on the election in Thailand. The EU observers are not the baddies. The only people who are scared of observers are manipulators who have things to hide. Perhaps Thailand may get its national pride bruised a bit - if reports from objective outsiders indicate that the election was tainted - but sometimes it takes some pain to begin the healing process.

Thailand's bosses should welcome objective outside observers and should also enact an education process for Thais that explains what an election is and why it is against their best interests to accept money for votes. I'd like to see common folk accept payment and then go ahead and vote for their favourite candidates, regardless of who they are bribed to vote for. That way, the manipulators will never be sure if their pay-offs will work as planned.

Ken Albertsen

Chiang Rai

Politicians need more education, not people

Reading the article about former PM Chuan Leekpai urging the government to teach people about the detrimental effects of money politics, my attention was drawn to the link "Pak Mun Watch". As a recently-arrived expat, I did not know anything about the events around the dam but what I read in your article. Putting the information of the two together, there seems to be a more urgent task than educating the people.

My suggestion would be to educate politicians that they are representatives of the people and are only justified in their jobs as long as they serve the people. So, teach politicians about their duty to listen, to serve and to act as representatives. Remind them that they hold power because the people deemed them worthy to serve them. They don't hold power because of themselves. And they must know that this power is not their own but that they were given it to act on behalf of the people. And that it is their responsibility to use this gift, temporarily given, in the name of those who gave it to them.

Thailand says it is a democracy. The word means "governed by the people" and it is not just decoration. The sad and other side of this argument is that people get the government they deserve. At least, if you presume a basic level of autonomy for the individual is possible. That's why Chuan is right as well. In Thailand's neighbour Burma, freedom to choose or to voice opinion is not given. But still people fight for it.

Charlotte

Bangkok

Teaching methods stifle creativity

As a retired English teacher, I have followed the spate of articles and letters about Thai students' poor English performance with interest. Of the reasons put forward for this dismal performance, large teacher-student ratios seem the most likely cause. Below the surface, however, there are three other less apparent causes.

In the Middle East, where I taught for over a decade, English was actually seen as a threat to the Arab culture. There was a "needle" in every class, a student to report back to supervisors on anything remotely construed as culturally insensitive. As a result, students either backed away from learning or became confrontational. In either case, language acquisition stopped.

I don't believe Thailand has this problem, but there is not much pull toward English learning either. Part of the reason for this is that English has no geographical centre as, say, French or German does. English is the language of the Internet, so it is everywhere, but nowhere does it feel like home to the student.

ESL methodology also presents problems. There is a lot of hand holding when we first begin teaching English out of necessity. Push the clock ahead 10 years, however, and teachers are still talking down to students as if they were eight-year-olds. Part of the reason for this is a desire by textbook publishers to be politically correct and part of it is the difficulty in breaking the mother-and-child, nurturing mentality of the teacher.

But, by and large, the problem is due to the communicative approach to language acquisition, which does not challenge the student. Writing, the most difficult facet to master, is withheld until the student is ready for college, and by that time it is too late for all but the very brightest of students.

Students learn best when they can transfer what they have learned in one class to another. There should be a linkage between science, maths and history classes and English class. Short biographies, explanations and literature can all reinforce what is being taught elsewhere in the building. Unfortunately, English textbooks run on their own tracks to their own destination and there is no linkage.

Finally, it is difficult for me to believe that Thai English classes are inferior to other disciplines. Education is like water that seeks its own level. No matter how good or bad the English programme is, my guess is other programmes are at about the same level. Still, if English acquisition is to improve, an understanding of how culture, methodology and linkage impact learning is essential.

Forrest Greenwood

Bangkok

Corruption 101 lessons start early in local schools

Thai students are inadvertently learning how corruption works. I've been teaching English here for six years and I was surprised to learn that expensive private schools pay Thai teachers far less than government schools. Why? Perhaps those who have the money and power want to keep it that way.

Many Thai teachers are coerced into signing contracts saying they make more than what they receive; putting up a bond for the privilege of working seven days a week; buying all teaching supplies with their own money; living and working with a system of fines meant to steal back some of their meagre earnings. The rich kids who go to these schools have eyes and ears. They see teachers crying and hear them talking. I worked at a school and the fine was Bt300 for turning on the air-con before lunch.

It's about time and long overdue for the Thai government to start supporting all teachers - and preventing students at many private schools learning about corruption at such an early age.

Don

Hat Yai

The Internet still subject to clever censorship

Re: "Learn a lesson in free speech with YouTube", Opinion, September 1.

Veena Thoopkrajae's account of free speech in relation to the YouTube controversy is filled with questionable statements about freedom, responsibility, politics and philosophy. Let me make just two points, one about law and one about politics:

Veena writes: "YouTube was forced to weigh the rights of one person to free expression and the rights of millions of Thais. Insulting anyone - not necessarily a prophet, pope or a country's leader - or making false accusations against them does not fall under free speech by any country's legal standard." It is wrong to conflate insulting someone with making a false accusation against them. The second is indeed protected under many legal systems, but on the contrary merely to insult someone (as opposed to inciting violence against them or making racially hateful statements about them) is legal and happens every day in most newspapers in the world.

To test a right by measuring the feeling of insult in a counter-party would lead to a world without rights because there is always someone whose skin is so thin they are insulted by anything said about them. On the contrary, speech rights are precisely measured by the ability of people to say to other people things they don't want to hear, indeed things they despise.

Secondly, Veena writes that she watched things on YouTube "to celebrate its return" - but of course it hasn't returned. Simply the censorship mechanism has become more sophisticated, so that most users will not be aware that it is being censored.

So I ask you, which is better in the heatening struggle for democracy in Thailand, a crudely censored YouTube as we had before or a cleverly censored one as we have now?

Richard Sproat

Bangkok