OPINION

Older, not wiser

Re: "Nip unholy hate speech in the bud", (Opinion, Nov 4).

Christians sometimes refer to God as "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate" (Exodus 20:5-6).

Perhaps monks with big mouths do not care about future generations of Thai Buddhists, but there are those of us who do.

We cannot condone acting in hatred, vengeance, anger or retribution, as the ultimate victims would be our own children and grandchildren.

Some monks get older and wiser while others just get old, and fiery words do not make an enlightened soul.

Guy Baker

Gareth Evans in his Nov 4 article "Southeast Asia’s forgotten genocide" is wrong to use the word "genocide" to describe the murder of half a million communists by the Indonesian military in the 1960s. The word genocide was invented in 1944 to describe the mass murder of Jews at that time. Its linguistic roots are two Latin words: geno — race or tribe, and caedere — to kill. As there was no racist motivation in the Indonesian killings that Mr Evans describes, he should have used the word massacre instead.

I was taught at a UK grammar school that clarity of English reflects clarity of thought. If so, such a simple schoolboy error gravely flaws an otherwise excellent article.

Andy Phillips

Re: "Street protest guidelines clarified", (BP, Nov 5).

Welcome to the simple and clear guidelines. Though I thought the authorities could control street protests by applying existing laws and rules, the new guidelines were clarified especially to address the issue. Now, I hope the authorities will fully implement and enforce them and protesters will respect them as well.

RH Suga

Re: "Bombs aren’t a joke", (PostBag, Nov 6).

This letter is to support and commend the flight attendant, cabin crew and captain of the Lion Air Flight recently delayed at enormous disruption to passengers and expense to the airline, due to the stupid and dangerous remarks made by a young male passenger.

I was employed by Pan American Airways (PanAm) for 30 years from 1959 until retirement in 1988 in many positions in the company. In all these years the most serious incidents in the industry were bomb threats and incidents that endanger aircraft, passengers and crew (except of course actual disasters that happened by accident or terrorist activities).

These incidents are considered severe and are treated as emergency situations. Even hoax or bogus phone calls are treated with immediate response with red, yellow and green codes which are evaluated by in-house security and senior management and handled respectively.

It would take too long to describe each type of action in this letter but be assured all are examined very seriously and responded to accordingly.

In my long career involving many of these situations I have seen politicians, lawyers, military personnel and VIPs and many people in various walks of life be restrained, arrested and dealt with very seriously. Some cases involved lengthy prison terms under US aviation codes.

The majority of these remarks were also made as "jokes" but in most cases they are never treated this way by the authorities.

Aircraft are delayed (Lion Air), cancelled and completely searched in other cases until security, FBI, police and emergency services deemed the aircraft released.

In some cases with large aircraft in service these incidents can take many hours to resolve, resulting in extreme inconvenience to passengers and crew and at extremely high cost to the airline.

To all readers, believe me do not mention the word "bomb" or make any kind of threats to flight crew in airports during security clearance, immigration or even general passenger areas, as someone like me might hear you. You could be arrested and have to bear the consequences.

Mike CraigheadFormer PanAm executive

Ignoring the law

Re: "China faces mounting pressure over maritime claims", (BP, Nov 1).

Even though China has ratified the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it has vociferously stated that it will not recognise any decisions on cases brought to the Convention’s international tribunal by the Philippines related to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

China knows full well that its aggressive claims over the South China Sea have no legal basis and its construction of artificial islands in the disputed territory does not establish sovereignty under international law.

There is no doubt that China will lose the cases brought to the international tribunal by the Philippines, so it has apparently decided it is more convenient to ignore international judicial processes.

This approach does not bode well for the future of Asia or the world. If the region’s sole superpower is unwilling to conduct itself according to established international norms and procedures, the rest of the region’s countries can expect little in the future other than confrontation or capitulation to China.

Neither is likely to be very satisfying for the region’s smaller countries.

Samanea Saman

Samanea Saman’s Nov 2 letter, "Tell it truthfully", spelled out a big fundamental point, vital to our very civilisation.

The truth is based on evidence. It is truth on which our knowledge must be based.

Political correctness, or PC, was introduced in the now defunct USSR to prevent people expressing views contrary to the Communist Party line. PC is totalitarian and intended to kill freedom of expression and cause people to be fearful of expressing the truth. Its introduction into the free world heralds the return of Marxism and the end of democratic freedom.

However, the function of PC is not political but racial and religious. It is used to prevent people being outspoken about Islam, ethnicity and colour. Police and welfare authorities in the UK turned a blind eye to the mass sexual abuse of minors in Rotherham for fear of being charged with racism. The men involved were predominantly Muslims of Pakistani origin. Their victims, mainly young teenage girls, suffered years of abuse before the truth was revealed.

If the truth, backed with evidence, is expressed in any way, then it should be published. If it proves embarrassing to some then they have the right to refute the evidence. If they are unable to do that then they must accept the truth regardless. Failing this, society will descend into a totalitarian culture of lies and make-believe.

It is for this very reason that religious belief, for which there is no evidence, should play no part in state affairs. Having said that, teachings and philosophies which are erroneously called religions should not be so isolated.

The greatest threat to the free world is the totalitarian political organisation claiming to be a religion. This together with Marxist PC, preventing freedom of expression, could cause the demise of democratic government unless the truth is recognised and openly declared.

JC Wilcox

My compliments to the insightful commentary written by Frank Bruni (Opinion, Nov 4). I believe it strongly resonates with the Thai religious condition, also in regard to the extraordinary privilege and protection the institute enjoys in avoiding even reasonable levels of transparency and prosecution. The continuous but muted stream of child abuse accusations emanating from the temples of religion here and the lack of resulting prosecution therefrom implicates every one of us, I am afraid.

As he pointedly quotes from the film Spotlight: "If it takes a village to raise a child it takes a village to abuse one".

Turning a blind eye to these commonly reported illegal abuses purely because of the reverence their residence and clothing affords them is surely not the basis on which to build a child-nurturing society?

Thinker

Re: "Forget about Yingluck", (PostBag, Nov 5).

Jack Gilead needs to check his eyesight. Khun Burin did not state in his letter that we face a civil war, but that we had faced a civil war, presumably a reference to the period in late 2014 and early 2015 when the PDRC engaged in their demonstrations. Nor did Khun Burin say that we should "get involved in Yingluck’s affairs".

One of the fundamental divisive factors in Thailand is the perception held by many, and not without compelling evidence, that justice is not always applied fairly and impartially. Removing that perception will be a major step towards real national reconciliation.

One does not need to be a supporter of Ms Yingluck, or a Pheu Thai Party member, to fervently hope that she is treated with scrupulous fairness during the forthcoming legal proceedings, and that the same would apply to everyone else, no matter what their political affiliation, or how powerful and influential they may be.

Robin Grant

How will history rate President Obama? If readers Google "Historical Rankings of Presidents of the United States", they’ll see that of the 43 men who have been president, the historians rank Mr Obama as the 18th best. And if you Google "How Has the Economy Performed Under Barack Obama" you’ll get a fair and balanced analysis that is generally favourable to the president.

Of course these evaluations are open to interpretation and can change dramatically over time. But it’s still interesting to compare the opinions of some PostBag writers who continuously denigrate and disrespect the president without backing up anything they write with facts or evidence.

Eric Bahrt

Can I politely inquire how many hours a week the president of THAI spends in his office actually working, and what it is exactly that he does, to merit a salary of 900,000 baht a month? And, furthermore, why does the president of THAI need a foreign adviser at 10.5 million baht for a six-month period?

Joob-Joob

Re: "Why Thailand must protect its international reserves", (Opinion, Nov 4).

I join Sawai Boonma in his call for the government’s political leaders and bureaucrats tasked with taking care of financial affairs not to put the country’s international reserves at risk.

National financial managers should look for ways to protect or increase the money in the country’s coffers, or both — not try to put it at risk, especially through market speculation.

The country’s international reserves are like money in a piggy bank. They belong to all the Thai people.

Those who insist on going the risky way should be told: "If you want to gamble — do it with your own money!"

Vint Chavala

Since the publishing of the WHO report, there have been many articles written concerning the cost to human health of eating bacon, sausages, etc. "Chicken, ham — what else isn’t 'safe'?", (BP, Nov 6).

But what about the cost to the pig?

Sadly we have been conditioned to viewing the lives of farmed animals as unimportant, but the fact is, they have feelings just like us and they suffer just like us.

Breeding sows endure lives of torture inside body-hugging metal crates and they, quite literally, go mad.

Their piglets are subjected to agonising mutilations and imprisoned in small, barren pens.

They are deprived of sunshine, fresh air and all semblance of a natural life.

Is it fair to condemn intelligent, sensitive animals to this agony just so we can enjoy the taste of their flesh?

Please open your eyes — and your hearts. The fear of cancer shouldn’t be the only reason to eliminate bacon — or any other meat — from our diets.

Jenny Moxham

Re: "Get your teeth into it", (PostBag, Nov 6).

It’s not often I come out on the side of Eric Baht but Tbone’s arguments are very flawed.

He accuses Eric of "smoke and mirror" arguments then says we must be meat eaters because we have canine teeth.

Never mind looking in the mirror, look at the faces of our closest relatives, the primates, and you will see they all have large canines, yet they all eat very little or no meat.

These canines are mostly used for male aggression. Perhaps then, by Tbone’s arguments, we should condone violent behaviour as it’s "in our canines"?

Ken Sowton

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