Coming to grips with chaos
I received a press release that was meant for electric train passengers. It said if you have long hair, ensure that it doesn’t fly into other people's faces.
I don't think that is funny. Thai women generally tie their hair into a pigtail or a bun, similar to female football players around the world. I can understand the reason behind such a cautionary note. There was probably a case of someone’s lose, long hair hurting another passenger, which probably led to cursing or quarrelling, or some seemingly trivial conflict like this.
Due to new global trends, we see the etiquette even in Thai society undergoing change. I rarely see people dressed neatly as in the past when I was a kid. People who wear suits and ties used to get talked about.
Today, T-shirts are the norm, and their look varies with the setting, whether it’s banks, oil companies, schools, universities, teachers. I don't believe that dressing well makes one a good person. I once asked the people of my generation when I was a teenager: “The kind of hairstyle you wear on your head — is it also about wisdom and knowledge at all?”
When I became a university professor, I used to think about answering the questions. Because I used to think the same way as my colleagues. When students come to "challenge" us, how should we deal with them? People only focus on taking things easy, enjoying freedom. However, one has to bear in the mind the consequent chaos and disarray in the country and society at large. Our society is already struggling with high pressure or stress as reflected by the number of people committing suicide.
Meanwhile, the world seems to be in disarray. Gaza has become a killing ground, with the support of the United States and its allies. The Israeli troops are currently cracking down on the Hamas group and Palestinians who earlier broke through the border wall and fired missiles into Israel on a Jewish religious holiday and left more than 1,200 Jews and foreigners killed or maimed.
I agree with Macron, the relatively young president of France, who condemned the raids and killings of Jews and people working for Israel, such as Thai workers, as barbarians and terrorists. This kind of behaviour deserves to be condemned. But we must also condemn Israel, which attacks refugee camps and hospitals, and simply cannot wait for the right time to execute its tasks. They see it as an opportunity to eliminate terrorists who use innocent people as shields. Maybe their actions are triggered by anger, hatred, or any other reason. It is not possible to devise a way to eliminate terrorists by filtering out unrelated people. Currently, the 10,000-plus death toll includes a huge number of children who are not militants. Some may not think much of the death toll when there is a state of war.
But from this writer's point of view, people who remain silent, and do not express their thoughts or feelings about these tragic events are as brutal and culpable. Even though Thailand follows a non-confrontationist foreign policy, it’s hard to ignore that more than 30 Thai workers, who went to work in Israel for a better standard of living, lost their lives. The government has not been able to do much, other than some token compensation.
The cycle of hate in the Middle East is unlikely to end anytime soon, because killings lead to only more reprisals. There are whole Palestinian families that have got wiped out, leaving a child or children as survivors. With the brutal memories that they will carry through their lives, it is possible to imagine some of them picking up a weapon and seeking revenge. Israel, no doubt, has a strong military, supported by Europe and America. Although Israel may successfully conduct ground military operations and seize all the land in the Gaza Strip, this will only be a short-term solution. Terrorist operations that have been dormant for a long time might revive again, spinning the wheel of violence and hate.
Chasing money
Sometimes trivial things can mushroom into catastrophic events. For instance, people's hair buns, loud talking and disturbing conversations with the people on public transportation, and driving using high beams unnecessarily like the news of a BMW crashing into a Honda car near Chatuchak recently. The way some people drive on the expressway can lead to violence, quarrel and unnecessary dangerous situations. It's often called by Thais as “One drop of honey”, because it spreads and causes damage in the vicinity. Human grievances have in them the seed of destruction.
Dr. Amorn Wanichawiwat D.Phil. (Oxon)
