re: "FFP makes waves for better and worse" (Opinion, April 1)
Dear editor,
Whilst professing otherwise, Veera nonetheless seemingly fails to understand that better educated, more thoughtful young Thais today understand very well that it is the bad old ways of bad old people who have brought Thai society, politics and morals to the dire state that they have been in for decades. It is all very well to complain about the young not respecting the old as tradition dictates, but that something is dictated by hoary tradition does not and cannot make any tradition good enough to deserve respect. Respect must be constantly earned.
The youth of Thailand see better, both factually and morally, than the old. The youth are right to look to long overdue reform of bad ways, whatever might once have been uncritically accepted by many. Nor is Veera right to equate stating a different opinion, even an offensive one, with disrespect. I might disagree with my aged mother about whether she should continue living at home alone or move into assisted living, but this is not because I don't respect her. On the contrary, to let her continue holding bad beliefs that lead to bad decisions is the true failure to show respect.
But does Veera even have any good evidence to support his claim that an idea he attributes to Future Forward's party secretary "is both unacceptable and deplorable to many Thais"? He certainly failed to cite the relevant statistics needed to back up such an assertion. Others might as reasonably assert the exact opposite, and in the absence of actual evidence that tells us the percentages, both claims are equally well-informed, which is to say equally uninformed. As a competent, professional journalist of many years, Veera certainly knows that if you make bold claims about what a population thinks, those claims need to be backed up by citing the relevant polls of public opinion.
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 April 2, 2019, under the title "Out with the old" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1655056/out-with-the-old
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