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Published on January 27, 2008

Are we really this backward as a nation?

The potential new prime minister is a man who obviously suffers from a serious ego problem and who will be a public relations nightmare, with a history all too easily forgotten and a self-confessed allegiance to one of the most corrupt entities ever experienced in our Kingdom. A potential minister for the interior is a man who has never been able to control anything, including his own offspring. Then there's an ex-PM who should have been shelved long ago.

The Latin expression quo vadis - where are you going? - is applicable in every way.

No new blood with new ideas. No justice will prevail in past crimes, such as the extrajudicial killings of more than 2,500 of our brothers and sisters in the "war on drugs". Most likely is a whitewash for the most corrupt entities this nation has ever witnessed, and a near hero's welcome for the spouse/collaborator of one of the worst self-serving entities our nation has ever known.

Contrary to the message from our revered King, justice will never prevail as we "just haven't got it", and without justice we are lost. We are blind and actually bestow a totally misplaced hero status upon the vile entities of our recent past. We obviously haven't got the capacity to learn from past mistakes.

My poor Thailand and my poor, blind fellow citizens.

Quo vadis? Nowhere!

Noppadon

Bangkok

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Thoughts on the passing of HRH Princess Galyani

 I write as a recent Australian visitor to Thailand at the time of the passing of Her Royal Highness, Princess Galyani Vadhana.

It was evident to me from the extensive television coverage, the temporary shrines, newspaper and magazine articles and the plethora of reproduced prints reflecting her life story that she was truly loved by the people of Thailand. She was a serene and noble lady but one who reached out to ordinary people in all walks of life through her patronage of many causes.

I decided to make my way to the Royal Palace to observe first-hand the public devotion to the Princess and to share in whatever small way I could in the national spirit of mourning. I was fortunate indeed to arrive only minutes before the royal motorcade arrived to assemble national and international dignitaries in honour of Princess Galyani's passing.

The hush that had enveloped the waiting crowd greatly impressed me. When the King's car passed in the motorcade there was no obscene flashing of thousands of cameras. There was a bowed silence and then a spontaneous call of "Shong Phra Charoen!" which I have been told means " Long Live the King!"

While it was evident that this affirmation was that of people who hailed His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadei, as almost divine, a god-king; it was far deeper than that. These people were acclaiming and calling out to the King as their father - the Father of Thailand.

In many countries, past and present, this kind of behaviour would be by enforcement; indeed, I have personally experienced living in another Southeast Asian country where failure to fly the flag on national days leads to fines and possible imprisonment.

In Thailand it is clear that while King Bhumibol is seen by many as a divinely ordained ruler, the immense love and respect he is shown is well deserved, for he, like his late sister, have served, not ruled, the people throughout his exceptionally long reign.

I join the people of Thailand in paying tribute to the life of the late Princess Galyani Vadhana and in proclaiming "Shong Phra Charoen!"

Dennis Coleman

Torrensville, Australia

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Examples of corrupt local administration

 The protest against the Sahaviriya steel mill in Prachuap Khiri Khan and the destruction of mangroves in Phang Nga are two more fine examples of Thai local administrations run amok. The Unesco World Heritage Site in Ayutthaya is another.

It is well known and documented that local administrations are inefficient and corrupt. Why are the higher authorities not stepping in to investigate the validity of the steel-mill project? One life has already been lost. How many more lives must be sacrificed before the authorities responsible take over?

Will it take another life to investigate the mangrove destruction? For more than two years now a developer has been dumping sand on the mangrove forest, but local authorities turn a blind eye. My family and I vacationed for four nights in Phang Nga last June; we remember the name of the resort development and we will certainly stay away from it.

It's like the old saying "there are too many chiefs, but not enough Indians" or the new saying "there are too many doctors, but not enough patients". If the provincial governors cannot handle the local administrators, remove them and put someone in who will solve the problem. Who has the guts to say "the buck stops here"?

Manas Thananant

California

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Suvarnabhumi officials colluding in taxi scam

 I recently went to Suvarnabhumi Airport to meet my mother off a flight. We ignored the taxi touts and went to the queue for public taxis. At a desk manned by two officials, I told one that I wanted a taxi to Sukhumvit Soi 1 and he quoted me a price of Bt450. When I told him I would not pay that price and I wanted a metered taxi, he sheepishly backed down and said that would be all right. In the event, the meter fare was Bt183, plus Bt50 surcharge for an airport taxi and Bt65 for expressway tolls.

Cabbies all over the world try to cheat passengers and Thailand is no worse than many places, but I find it disappointing that officials at Bangkok's new airport should be colluding in a scam. It does not create a good first impression for visitors such as my mother.

Peter Hill

Bangkok

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Thirty-five years later, abortion is still wrong

 Tuesday marked the 35th anniversary of the Roe vs Wade court ruling in the US. Millions of anti-abortion activists in numerous cities throughout America took part in the "March for Life" to protest the US Supreme Court decision to legalise abortion. Why?

Human life begins at conception. This was established 120 years ago by Wilhelm His, the father of human embryology.

Today, in many people's consciences, the perception of the gravity of abortion has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.

On a superficial level, we may be convinced that legalised abortion has not changed much in our private lives and in society. It all takes place in the silence of an operating room, which ensures the woman's safety. It is as if the foetus never existed. But there are no small murders.

The respect for every human life is an essential condition if a societal life worthy of the name is to be possible. When man's conscience loses respect for life as something sacred, he inevitably ends by losing his own identity.

While the slogan that abortion is a woman's right to control her own body might sound reasonable to many, it is a medical fact that the human foetus is not a part of the mother's body. It is a separate, distinct and unique human person with its own heartbeat, brain waves and DNA.

Those who support abortion cannot coherently answer the question why the right of the foetus to not be killed must yield to the right of individual freedom. When the law accepts that the rights of the weakest may be violated, it also accepts that the law of the jungle prevails over the rule of law. When we begin to call even an embryonic human being a "thing", a "clump of cells" or a "blob", progress becomes blind and destructive.

Abortion violates every human instinct. It contradicts the 4th century BC Hippocratic oath, which says, "I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy". Let us not change what our most ancient ancestors knew with simplistic certainty - that abortion is evil.

We all must welcome every new life into the world, regardless of the circumstances, as if it were our own. Our lives and the lives of our unborn children are inseparable.

Paul Kokoski

Ontario, Canada

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