Are you serious?

re: "Thanathorn should learn to listen" (BP, Opinion, November 4, 2019) 

Dear editor,

Posing as a moderate, it is rich of Veera Prateepchaikul to suggest that Future Forward's leader Thanatorn Juangroongruangkit should follow Buddhist principles. The PM who forced himself on the unwilling Thai nation, meanwhile, follows the long line of his predecessors, who have never shown respect for the wise teachings of the Buddha: Thai law criminalizes the free speech essential to right understanding; Thai law made up at the behest of military men enshrines injustice that allows the rich and hi-so to take advantage of the powerless; and Thai law rejects compassion to the point of ordaining the killing of Thai citizens. Whatever the conservative Thai tradition forged by a long history of coups against the good morals of democracy might be, it is not Buddhist. 

Veera is also wrong that the constitution is not fundamental. It is the founding rule of law that determines the form of society and government, including the nation's economic health. The latest morally challenged permanent constitution was made up to hobble democracy that might offer a path to justice, to fairness, to equality and to the transparency that might greatly reduce Thailand's endemic corruption of many decades. The conservative Thai mindset embodied in the latest supreme legal pillar of the nation is, as usual, blessed by the religion known as Thai Buddhism, ever loyally allied to the conservative tradition of authoritarianism in Thai politics that has contaminated traditional Thai society as exemplified in the militaristic uniforms not only of civil servants, but even of school teachers and the very politicians elected to serve the people in parliament.

Future Forward with its intelligent, educated and morally aware members is the best hope the Thai nation has had in many decades of moving past the anti-democratic mindset of conservative Thai tradition and the systemic failures that the most cursory review of Thai history proves that tradition to have wrought. This fact was recognized when intelligent, educated and morally aware Thais sensibly gave Future Forward a solid thumbs up in the last election.

 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 November 5, 2019, under the title "Are you serious?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1787419/are-you-serious-