Rich people fight, poor people die

Rich people fight, poor people die

Two mornings in a row I drove out of my soi in the Lumpini area only to find ambulances parked in front of Lumpini Park, where more people had been shot or bombed.

Every death, every injury, that’s one more too many. It doesn’t matter which colour shirt he or she wears.

Then I arrived at the office and turned the computer on, and tragedy turned to disgust. 

From scrolling down Facebook status updates, tweets and forum posts, to listening to the rhetoric of some of the leaders from both sides in video clips. So many people simply refusing to accept anything less than the total defeat of the other side, even if this means war, or civil war. 

PDRC demonstrators light candles and pay tribute on Feb 26, 2014 to a five-year-old girl, Natchaya "Nong Khim" Rorsungnoen, who was shot dead near an anti-government protest site in Trat. (Bangkok Post photo)

So allow me to ask you this, if you are willing for there to be blood and war, are you also willing to fight and die, to kill and be killed? 

It is all too easy to speak tough through a Wi-Fi connection from the safety of your home, or from the stage surrounded by personal bodyguards. Keyboard warriors and microphone-mongers are a dime a dozen. 

Meanwhile, people die, poor people, who likely do not have a Wi-Fi connection or get to speak into a microphone from the stage. This is true today. This was true of the red-shirts in 2010. 

When there’s chaos and anarchy in the streets, the authorities must regain control. Otherwise society falls apart. Peaceful protests are encouraged. Violent uprising ought to be put down. That’s the rule of society. 

What's disgusting is that violent uprising, blood and death, are usually called for by people who are not willing to put themselves on the line, people who are not willing to risk their own lives. Instead, they risk the lives of other people, especially poor people, to fight on their behalf. 

The press, international and local, likes to paint the anti-government protest as middle class, or even wealthy elite. Conversely, they paint the pro-government red-shirt movement as grassroots. Both are at the same time true and false. 

The anti-government protesters battling riot police during their attempts to seize various government buildings were generally not your middle or upper class Bangkokians. Nor were those who have been bombed or shot at. 

Count the victims of injury and the death, and you’ll see that they are pretty much all working class people. And,  of course, move on up and the leadership and backers of the movement are the country’s elite.    

Much the same for the red-shirts. The Shinawatra family and its network alliance is economically wealthy and politically powerful. The movement’s leadership is well off and well compensated. Take a look at Arisman Pongruangrong and his wife.  

Some of the most prominent red-shirts are business tycoons, well-known academics and urban professionals. 

In the last Bangkok governor election, the Pheu Thai candidate won a little over a million votes, to the Democrat's 1.2 million votes. That's almost half and half; not exactly Bangkok versus upcountry either. 

Basically the two sides have a similar makeup, the elite at the top, varying degrees of wealth and influence in the middle, and poor people lying dead in the streets. 

This is nothing new however. Since time immemorial, rich people like to start fights, but by an large it’s the poor people who end up dead. That is never going to change.  

Then there’s the cheerleaders, keyboard warriors fanning the flame of anger and hatred. 

This column would like to take those keyboard warriors and microphone-mongers to task. You talk the talk, but how many of you are willing to walk the walk? 

It is the poor people with no Wi-Fi and no personal bodyguards who will lie dead in the streets through your righteous fervour. 

Social media and the microphone are both wonderful and terrible inventions. On the terrible side, they perpetuate anger and hatred, increase it and spur it on. These things eventually lead to acts of violence. 

But of course the Wi-Fi and the stage pretend to be all righteous and innocent. Underneath all the anger and hatred, is there a thread of conscience? 

Voranai Vanijaka

Bangkok Post columnist

Voranai Vanijaka is a columnist, Bangkok Post.

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