Teaching the silent majority

Looking back at my childhood, the seeds for the current mess in Thai society were there all along, it only took a crisis to make the rift visible.

The incident happened probably in Mor two if I remember correctly. One of the class bullies (who had a rather elite surname come to think of it) was bullying someone. I stepped in to try and stop them and a minor fight ensued where I ended up being pushed against a window and breaking it. No lasting physical harm done, at least in terms of cuts and bruises.

However, the emotional damage from that event remains with me until this day. The teachers were called and I found myself in trouble for the fight. No, the guy who was bullied was not even involved as it was, in the teacher's eyes, a problem between me and that guy with the elite surname. Worse, we had to share the cost of the repairs to the window.

Even today, decades after it happened, I remember my anger and disgust at the incident, or rather at the teachers who doled out the punishment. It was not about the bullying, but the fact that they would not listen to reason and the fact that I stopped someone from being bullied in no way mitigated my cardinal sin of fighting in school. They did not care who started it, who was involved or why I got involved. All that mattered to them was the end result: That I was in a fight and I broke a window, thus I had to pay for the damage.

That said, even if I were to be in the Thai "Mai Pen Rai" mindset, I would have gone for the reprimand but not so much the financial costs involved in replacing the window? Does the school not have insurance? Guess not.

A reasonable person with common sense should have looked at the why, not just the what. Maybe I was not to be totally vindicated, but at least more blame should have been put on the person who started it rather than it being split down the middle. I stepped in to help someone else, got hurt and suddenly I was in the wrong and it was half my fault. That incident in school taught me that the only thing Thai society wants is for people to turn a blind eye and mind your own business.

Sounds very much like the Whiteshirt movement now that stands against both the pro and anti-Thaksin sides in the argument, telling both the Yellow and the Red to stop hurting Thailand.

Turning a blind eye is what Thailand is good at and it is what most of the people at all levels of society (the, ahem, majority) seem to like. It does not make it the right thing to do.