Coup and cry

re: "Regime not all bad" (BP, PostBag, May 8)

Dear editor,

Clara Holzer’s reply to Voranai Vanajika’s welcome return to the Bangkok Post is instructive as much for what it does not say as for what it does. First, she does concede that the faults Voranai lists concerning the ruling politicians are real. But to suggest that he is blind to “scandals involving former governments” is wholly unsupported. Voranai was well aware of such wrongs as the awful rice pledging scheme, the vile brutality, much praised by so many from the low to the highest, of Thaksin’s war on drugs and of other Shinawatra wrongs.


However, since it is much worse than what it unjustly overthrew, an appropriate response to the current government unelected, unwanted and self-amnestied is in fact “visceral hatred.” We really should despise the worse more than the merely bad. None of the very real Pheu Thai scandals could justify a coup against the supreme rule of law of the Thai nation, its constitution. Worse, this latest coup took place immediately after it was clear that democracy was showing signs of taking root. The appallingly sleazy amnesty bill that Pheu Thai had sneaked through early one morning had been roundly condemned, and was on the way out. That sure sign of democratic progress for the better was promptly trodden underfoot to protect the traditional injustices of Thai society that sees some treated very differently by Thai law and its officers. That same undemocratic tradition is what has for decades enabled the persistent corruption and other abuses of power that are embodied in much Thai law and sacrosanct custom.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on May 10, 2018, under the title "Coup and cry" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1462029/were-not-deaf