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Cry, my beloved country
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นอนไม่หลับครับ คนไทยฆ่าคนไทยด้วยกันให้เห็น ก็เลยนั่งเขียนบทรำพึงรำพันเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ นึกขึ้นได้ว่ามีคนชวนมาเสวนาภาษาอังกฤษกันเป็นการฝึก ก็เลยขอเอามาฝาก
I cannot go to sleep.
Thais are killing each other once more. It's getting to be a business-as-usual kind of thing with us, unfortunately.
Now it's time for pointing fingers.
I hate to say "I told you so." Hindsight is almost always right, of course, but in this case there are precedents which should have alerted those in authority to the possibilty of this mayhem occurring. We never learn, do we?
What can you expect when you put two groups of people with opposite motives into a confrontative situation? And the weather is darn hot, too. Tempers are bound to flare. It's only a question of time.
One group is the Red Shirts. They were led here with the objective of forcing the government to dissolve parliament so that the Thai people can show their preference in an election. Democracy in action, you might say. Unfortunately the leadership of the demonstrators chose to pursue a confrontative stance by extending their demonstration to places beyond the original site at Pan Fa, with forays to places where they believed would aggravate the government. As time went by, their mood grew darker moment by moment.
The other group is the security force, the police and the military. The military has been legalised to be an anti-riot force by the Emergency Decree and later on by the Declaration of an Emergency State. This is like putting a lit match close to a can of petrol. Soldiers have been taught to fight and kill if necessary and to survive the enemy's worst attempts to put them out of action. They are killing machines. We have designed them to be so, and it's desirable that they be so. They cannot otherwise perform their expected duty of being defenders of the realm. They have been taught to react extremely fast with extreme prejudice to any threats until it is instinctive. Remember those repetitive drills? They are designed to turn people into unthinking machines who react at unconscious levels to threats. This obviously is of great survival value in the battlefield. Unfortunately this trait is also extremely dangerous when you put them into confrontative and antagonistic position with the other side. The soldiers have not been trained to use restraint when dealing with the enemy. They are expected to duck fast and shoot fast to kill, period. This reflex cannot be overridden so easily despite their additional training as riot police. Whoever use them as riot police should be aware of this fact and they should be responsible for any mishaps that occur.
I hold the leadership of both sides responsible for this tragedy. Stand up and be accountable!
As a medical professional, I am used to the sight of spilt blood and guts, of limbs severed from their owners, even of dead bodies in various gory manifestations. I have to keep my objectivity when dealing with those things otherwise I would be remiss in my professional capacity. However, it's hard to be objective over yesterday's senseless and needless injuries and deaths. They are Thais, my fellow Thais who have been turned into savages tearing each other apart. They are my brothers and sisters, the people who I've sworn to serve and protect.
Why this tragedy? And what should we do about it?
We should not let the answer go wafting about in the wind but it's time that we put some sense into our society about how to resolve conflicts peacefully like the civilized people that we purport to be. It's time to put to rest the adage that some wit has uttered "Thailand is a good country. The only problem with Thailand is the Thai people."
Cry, my beloved country.
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แอ๊ด ปากเกร็ด  
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11 เม.ย. 53 02:54:30
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