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Thai appetite
by Thanos Kalamidas
2008-10-11 11:00:53 |
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I know it sounds like a stupid question but what’s the first thing coming in mind when anybody says …Thailand? To most it means endless golden seaside, paradise holidays and exotic food. But do you ever wonder what it means for the people who actually live there? And the ones of you who have visited this beautiful land, have you ever wondered where the people who serve you day and night where they actually return?
Most of these people return every night to the total misery of little food and a questionable future from a work that often reminds slavery and all that in a country where corruption actually governs in every single level. And the people reaching the point that they have enough and it happened the other day in Bangkok leaving behind over 350 wounded in street fights between demonstrators and the police joined by the security forces from the army.
The vice president of the Thai government had the dignity to resign after she heard that the number of wounded had had already gone over 120 people with some of them seriously in the hospital. In her resignation letter she mentions that she cannot take the responsibility of so many victims especially since their demands were fair according to what the Prime Minister Somchai had promised just a few weeks before.
The very same evening demonstrators stopped the prime minister from entering the Thai parliament with the police once more taking over to clear the entrance of the parliament and leading more demonstrators to the hospital. Prime Minister Somchai is working from the airport of Bangkok from the 25th August since demonstrators took over his office and locked themselves inside. It sounds crazy but is totally the truth and think of it, the Prime Minister Somchai is the brother-in-law of the former prime minister and wanted by the Thai law for corruption. Amazing!
What do these people ask? To bring an end to the corruption and make Thai democracy actually work for the good of the people. What’s the simplest demand? The people after so long inside state corruption know well that nothing can work and in the end of the day the poor get poorer and only few rich survive, you see in a state so corrupted as the Thai nobody is safe, there is always somebody who can give more!
Of course there is another worrying element that makes people worry and this element has shown its teeth often in the area, the army. The army till now behaves mainly supporting the police in their brutal work but no signs of an ambitious dictator yet. But then again is it my idea but a corrupted country like Thailand is not close at all to a democracy and the unaccepted force the government uses doesn’t make them much different from dictators.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej is naturally living in his palace with his servants and luxuries intentionally probably not seeing anything after all his role is ceremonial and he seems very comfortable with that secretly waiting for the day the parliament will ask him to be the savior, you see monarchs have weird dreams like that everywhere in the world.
In the meantime the simple work needing state’s assistance for a Thai is a mountain of bribes and waiting with questionable expectations. So the next time you think of Thailand, remember that the food is fantastic and the beaches paradise but the locals are hungry living in hell!
Thailand Poverty human-rights Ovi_magazine Thanos_Kalamidas Ovi |
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