Pythagoras who?

re: "Maths lags in innovation race" (BP, July 29)

Dear editor,

Enough of the complaining from pesky academics of failures in traditional Thai education! It has already been dictated that 2+2=5. Combined with the 12 Virtues of Thainess, these incontestable truths of the uniquely Thai way suffice to ensure a properly educated mass of menial workers for the slightly more equal class of people, all in strict accord with Thai tradition, whereby the sons and daughters of the best type are sent overseas for a few extra educational trimmings not available to the captive domestic masses.

Sadly, the Internet and rising literacy in English is undermining those best traditions of Thainess, even threatening the ancient tradition that 2+2=5, the cornerstone of Thai mathematics, whose sovereign independence from Western imperialism has been rigorously defended by selfless army politicians these many decades past to make Thailand the nation it is today. 

Who needs Pythagoras or Euclid when you have home-grown luminaries oozing ineffable truths?

 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 July 30, 2019, under the title "Pythagoras who?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1721171/unacceptable-attitude
  

What is it to be Thai?

re: "Political rifts 'haven't faded'" (BP, July 27)

Dear editor,

Yes, the Thai nation is divided; but that reality check is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, look on the rifts as a gift, for which the ruthlessly self-serving politicians self-elected of the past five years should be thanked for helping to clarity. Five years of their failures have proven the old stories no longer able to unite the nation: however loudly the dictators of tradition chant their mythic mantras, for too many those incantations now no longer work their magic to legitimate a twentieth-century status quo that allowed a minority the political means to greedily raid the national coffers.

The divides between the old and the new, between the better educated and the traditionally educated, between democracy and dictatorship, between the old men's parties and the rising groundswell for a progressive future, will not be bridged by any outworn myths. This realization dictates that new ideals be forged to unite the Thai nation for the future, to embrace deeply overdue reforms to defining what it means to be Thai. In the now not so early 21st century, what is it to be Thai? This is a healthy discussion.

Nor is there anything uniquely Thai about this need to re-evaluate national identity: as the Trump presidency and Brexit show, the US and UK among others are going through similarly rough transitions in the ever evolving understanding of what makes their nations. Painful though it be, such change is a symptom of a living nation, one that is not a dead museum exhibit. And that's a good thing.

 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 July 29, 2019, under the title "What is it to be Thai?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1720583/a-taxing-matter
  

2+2=5

re: "NCPO mission over" (PostBag, July 18)

Dear editor,

RH Suga, the PM general's National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is indeed now gone. It has been legally replaced by the PM general's loyal senate, his PPRP political party (complete with the worst of the worst from Thaksin's old parties), and his duly appointed "independent" bodies.

The shiny new rule of the same old has been whitewashed with a legal veneer of democratic form that is as close to democracy as the PM general's true hair colour likely is to the jet black he boldly sports. Fakery deemed true by obedient law is the name of the game, as it ever has been by dictators everywhere, whose golden rule propagated by the Ministry of Truth loyally serving the Ministry of Peace is that 2+2=5, under pain of an invite to the Ministry of Love.

 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 July 19, 2019, under the title "2+2=5" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1715060/2-2-5
  

Militaristically uncivil

re: "Dress code a non-issue" (Editorial, July 12)

Dear editor,

The only bad dress ever seen in Thailand's parliament is those shameful pseudo-military uniforms that epitomize all that is most rotten in Thai politics and society. The wearing of anything that looks so militaristically uncivil should certainly be banned.

Anything that would get you into brunch at a decent hotel is perfectly OK to wear in parliament, whatever the regressive anti-reformists of the pro-dictatorship lobby might screech in their usual worship of the bad old ways of the bad old men who think themselves the height of all things wonderful. It is especially sad to see women MPs duped into the ugly ideology of militarism against civil manners.

 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 July 14, 2019, under the title "Militaristically uncivil" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1712224/pprp-earn-our-trust
  

Army stunts nation

re: "Not a class thing" (PostBag, July 9)

Dear editor,

Vint Chavala should look to the democracies of New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries, which are all doing nicely. And if he truly thinks that there is nothing more to human life than economics, technology and state education, more accurately known as propaganda, he has a sadly impoverished view of what it is to be a human person.

Those things are certainly important, but once a full stomach is provided, most people think that other things matter a lot, like being respected as individuals with hopes, plans, self-awareness and the like: even Chinese aspire to such. It is respect for these aspects of being a person that make democracy the best of all forms of government, however imperfect, fragile and dependent on constant vigilance.

Thailand has failed for decades because its army generals plotting unearned political careers abhor those good morals that found democracy. The collateral damage of the repeated coups has not only stunted Thailand's political growth, but has retarded economic growth, prevented effective education, and nurtured the pervasive corruption and violence that are the goals and examples set by coups.

 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 July 10, 2019, under the title "Army stunts nation" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1709775/pms-moves-a-concern 
  

Good people bad laws

re: "Court to rule on PM's eligibility" (BP, July 6)

Dear editor,

Whilst true as Jade Donavanik, former adviser to the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), says in "Court to rule on PM's eligibility" (Bangkok Post, July 6) that "the Constitutional Court ruling will be binding" legally, it is important to remember that such a legal precedent is subject to the caveat that applies to all law: merely being legal confers neither rightness nor justice.

If the law itself is corrupt and unjust, then rulings correctly made in strict accord with that law inherit the underlying moral corruption and injustice. It is because they know this that good people seek to reform bad law.

 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 July 7, 2019, under the title "Good people bad laws" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1708218/good-people-bad-laws