I was part of an extraordinary event that took place last Monday in exactly the same spot a brutal murder was committed just 24 hours previous.
You know the news of the shooting outside my local temple this time a week ago.
That temple is Wat Sri Iam, a picturesque Buddhist wat wedged between monuments to unbridled capitalism such as Central Bang Na, Paradise Park and Megabangna. The temple kind of peeks out at you amid billboards for skin whiteners and concrete housing villages, two growth industries despite the political mess.
Last Sunday Wat Sri Iam became a polling booth for advance voting. Those booths all around the city were encircled by anti-government protesters barring people from casting their vote ahead of time.
Leading one such protest was Sutin Tharatin, leader of the group known as Pefot, or People's Democratic
Force to Overthrow Thaksinism.
Sutin was on the back of a pickup truck when the shooting occurred, allegedly from at least two gunmen from different sides. Witnesses said it was the work of red shirts.
The police say they don't have any evidence to link the shooting to the red shirts; clearly the cops don't watch YouTube videos, in particular one shot by a foreigner who caught the whole melee from his high balcony, in living colour.
Anyway, Sutin died right outside Wat Sri Iam, not far from the Berk Prai restaurant situated next door.
As a result, the ensuing week has been a litany of violence. This is where it escalates though it doesn't necessarily have to. As I discovered 24 hours later, it is time to rise above our differences.
I wasn't at the temple at the time of the killing. (Rather, I was sorting out my own personal financial mess, thanks to a TV shoot of mine that had to be cancelled owing to protests in Din Daeng, leaving me 30,000 baht out of pocket. I know, dear reader, my mother also told me that talking about money was common, but it hurts! It really hurts!)
While I wasn't there on the Sunday, I was back at exactly the same spot where Sutin lost his life just 24 hours later, in particular at that restaurant I just mentioned right next the temple looking out onto the site of the carnage.
I was there because I was emcee for an annual awards ceremony that pays tribute to companies, government agencies and individuals who champion the rights of the disabled.
In particular, it championed "Universal Design" or the construction of buildings paying close attention to ramps, toilets and parking spots.
Some 30 awards were given out that. Oil company PTT, for example, has made it a policy for all their gas station bathrooms around Thailand to have special bathrooms for wheelchair-bound customers. For that, PTT won an award.
I am aware that awards for the disabled may not exactly be page one fodder, so why am I telling you all this?
Here is the point; there were about 300 people attending, including former cabinet ministers, privy councillors, ambassadors from all over the world and many famous local celebrities such as singers and actors.
You had every single political ideology represented. A current acting government minister. A prominent
Democrat. A charity that supports the protesters. A red-shirt leader.
And what did they do when they all got together? Well they certainly didn't pull out guns and shoot each other dead.
They chatted. They ate together at the same table. They laughed. They sang songs. They got up and danced the ram wong. They clapped when others won awards.
And at the end of the night they all came on stage for a photo, where they all smiled and waied one another.
How is that possible? How can we have a brutal murder not 200m from the stage where opposing factions were perfectly happy to stand together just 24 hours later?
I am not wearing cute pink sunglasses with detachable blinkers purchased at Disney World, dear reader. I know the ins and outs of society and all the hues that accompany it, but to put it simply, they all rose above it, proving that indeed it is possible if we want to.
They were there for something that rose above politics; something that affected humanity and touched us way more importantly than the colour of somebody's shirt or a whistle in one's mouth.
It's the same in the South of Thailand.
We have become so desensitised to the daily violence in those three southernmost provinces that we don't even bat an eyelid when another bomb goes off, or another sniper lets loose.
Take this week as a single example. While we were reeling at the latest political events after the Sunday killing, down in Narathiwat three villagers were shot dead while riding home on motorbikes.
One of those killed was a seven-year-old girl.
Now this wasn't a bomb that can kill indiscriminately. This was a gunman who took aim at a seven-year-old girl and shot her dead.
Boy, didn't that story pass us by.
The next day a 20kg bomb was placed outside a school in Sungai Padi, Narathiwat. A school. The intention was to blow up rangers who accompanied teachers to the school, since these terrorists have worked out that by keeping the population stupid, their will has a chance of being done.
We can thank Allah that the bomber himself never made it onto Mastermind; he accidentally set off the bomb when nobody was around and nobody was hurt.
I don't know about you, but I am haunted by that seven-year-old girl who lost her life, just as I grieved for that five-year-old boy last year who happened to be standing next to the ice-cream cart when the bomb went off.
And yet, right in the middle of this environment, something intriguing occurred, not unlike last Monday night.
It happened back in December, 2012, in Yala, a province that sees violence on a daily basis.
A 200kg Bengali tiger roamed the jungles around the area of Ai Yoe Weng village, believed to be one of three, and it started attacking villagers.
At least two people were attacked in a week, and looking at their names, one was Buddhist and one was
Muslim.
It didn't matter.
In the face of this terror, what did the villagers do?
They got together.
More than a hundred villagers and authorities gathered to hunt down the tiger, roaming the jungles, arm in arm, trying to locate the beast.
Now let's get this straight; Muslims and Buddhists put down their guns and helped one another stamp out a greater menace, namely a tiger, that was threatening their village. If that doesn't flabbergast you, I don't know what does.
Those villagers rose above the petty politics and religious differences to address a very real threat. You can't touch a political or religious ideology, unlike a very real Bengali tiger or three.
There are real things we humans can do to make our lives better. We can help the disabled, for example, or we can band together to hunt down a killer tiger.
What will it take for us to rise above this mess?
What needs to happen before we stop, shake our heads in disbelief, then come together and work out a solution?
Last November, I was in Washington DC where I visited the Holocaust Museum. What an education in how a society can slip ever so slowly into a seething maelstrom of hate and murder.
I'm not equating Thailand to Nazi Germany. I'm just saying. It is my profound hope that Sutin's murder is the pinnacle to which we all take a step back, as opposed to a catalyst. But it takes all sides.
