From: mptj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Re; Child problems too big for government
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:22:43 EST
Distribution: soc
Organization: Cornell University

I don't think that children's problems might be too big for the government.
I think it takes the cooperation and devotion of both politicians and the 
common people to help raise the status of the individual adn secure human
rights. There is no reason why a Chinese, who cannot speak a word in Thai,
would have to "save" a girl from a brothel by "buying" her off, when every
day that girl meets with hundreds of Thais who know the situation she is in.
Their indifference to her problem is just an example of the indifference that 
people in Thailand today have towards each other, that is when they are not
trying to benefit from another person's trouble. Let me give an example:

I know of a few turists who traveled in Thailand (in the north, I think)
last year. While they were driving down the road they saw a car badly hit
in an accident, and a few dead and injured people in it. They stopped to
help, as no other vehicle did, inspite of their efforts to tell somebody 
to stop and get an ambulance. Eventually they took the wounded people in 
their rented car to the nearest village, where they tried to have someone
call the police. When the police came they arrested the turists and charged 
them with causing the accident. "If you didn't cause the accident, you 
wouldn't have helped them", the policemen said. The turistshad to give all
their money (a few thousand dollars) to the police "to help support the 
victims' families", but they were not given any proof of this "payment".
They had to go back to Bangkok and leave Thailand immediately, both because
they didn't have any money left, and because they did not feel safe anymore
(not to talk about how bad they felt). 

When I tell this story to Thais, they are not moved at all. They say there
are events like this all the time. Take, for example, the story of the 
artist Triam Chachumporn, who was hit by a car (in Bangkok, I think), and 
the first people who got to him, instead of helping him, emptied his pockets
while he was dying in thier arms.

You cannot attribute such behavior to poverty, nor to police corruption. 
These are only secondary factors. There is no value to life in the eyes
of every person who drives his car by the accident and just keeps on going 
without offering help. If all the drivers in the road who stop and help,
would all of them be arrested by the police? Would so many drivers not be
able to help each other if the police misused their authority? The Thai people
have shown that they can stand up to police and military and make sacrifices.
Can they not stop and spend a few hours and get their car seat stained in 
an effort to help a fellow countryman who happens to be unfortunate, just as
they themselves might be after the next curve in the road? How would they like
to be treated when that happens? Would they like someone to help their child
if the child is in some kind of trouble (brothel, kidnapping, abuse in school,
etc.)? Are they willing to step out of their way to help somebody else's child?

If not (and it seems that the answer is more usually "not" than "yes"), then 
something has gone terribly rotten in modern Thai society, that is in every
second person on the street. What can be done to fix it?

Abi

 
 

Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai