Okay, let's get straight to the point. How do I feel about Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's road map? If my first instinct is to be trusted, it was well-intended, comprehensive (if everyone cooperates to implement it, that is), and we only have a potentially bloody crackdown as the other option.
I'm not in the "Never negotiate with terrorists" school. For one thing, this camp's belief can blur what the real red movement is all about. Whether or not they are funded by Thaksin's money, the majority of the red shirts are merely protesters. If the road map can get them out of harm's way, or keep them from becoming what many fear, it gets my support.
The People's Alliance for Democracy seems to think that terrorist and anti-monarchy elements are more prevalent among the reds than Abhisit may have believed. The road map, therefore, is tantamount to releasing a wounded tiger back to the jungle as far as the yellow shirts are concerned.
And there is also a feeling that Abhisit chose to compromise at the worst possible time. Having bombarded the red shirts with serious accusations and used the term "terrorism" repeatedly in his previous statements, Abhisit was having the rivals at his mercy after the Chulalongkorn Hospital invasion. Instead, he opted to dangle a carrot when an elaborate stroke of a whip could have ended it right there.
But we don't have a better choice. The other way available is to send troops into what has become a fortress in the middle of the city surrounded by key business buildings and inhabited by many women, children and elderly people. Whether or not they are "human shields" doesn't matter. The bottom line is a crackdown will put their lives in danger and leave an indelible national scar and another big one on everybody's conscience.
I agree that the road map may be too idealistic and not very practical. It seeks to address a deep-rooted problem and five or six years of grave national divide in less than seven months. But then again, the other option that we have won't even tackle the crisis. It will only make things worse.
Is there a third way? Some people said the red shirts were a pushover after the hospital debacle. Maybe instead of offering the road map - which could in fact rejuvenate the red movement - the Abhisit administration should wear down the protesters and alienate their leaders until it is safe for troops to move in without having to fire a single shot.
That will possibly clear Rajprasong, but the question will be "What's next?" Opponents of the road map themselves have admitted that the red movement has become something that is far more than meets the eye, so will a Rajprasong clearance, violent or bloodless, be a real solution?
It must have been obvious to everyone what the red movement has evolved into. It's not just about people enduring heat, rain and mosquitos at Rajprasong. We are talking about villages where some people have to wear red because of coercion, or about senior police officials who remember by heart arguments about "injustice" and "double standards".
To me, the Abhisit road map suggests his acceptance that the reds are a movement to be reckoned with, and his idea that the movement has to exist - only in a different way. No armed struggle, and elements attempting to overthrow the monarchy must be dealt with, that is.
Most importantly, that everyone is slamming the road map left and right may have told us it was not drafted with too much of vested interest in mind. Idealistic it might seem, but the road map, to me at least, reflects thinking that is not weighed down by any particular group. That is hard, especially under these circumstances.