re: "Where to start Thai reform and change?" (BP, Opinion, October 2, 2020)
Dear editor,
Surely Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak has not forgot that its traditional religion, no less than hallowed academic principle, offers solutions to those who truly, honestly seek to move forward? Thailand is a Buddhist nation, is it not? And are not both truth seeking and speaking basic principles taught by Buddhism to those on the journey to right understanding of the self and the world?
One path to the much desired and desirable reform for the Thai nation would therefore seem to be respecting the Buddha's wise emphasis on right understanding, from which surely no Thai or Thai institution or Thai law would dissent. Start telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Thai affairs and institutions, precisely as those good students have now taught. Could any of the good Thai persons of the Thai nation oppose truth seeking and speaking? And do not Thai culture, tradition and institutions respect truth, honesty and truth speaking in all things?
So start with truthfulness in all things. Speak out who is doing what where when why how and with whom. That would be a gracious start, one comporting perfectly with Thailand's well known reverence for the teachings of the Buddha, would it not? And unobjectionable, therefore, to any Thai. Unless I'm wrong and the institutions of Thainess inexplicably despise, fear or abhor truth seeking and speaking. But surely that could not be, could it? Could a Thai official wanting Thai people not to seek, not to know or not to speak truths about Thai affairs or Thai institutions be imagined? Could Thai law be imagined opposing the speaking of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? It is not to be imagined. Let truth, that casts out darkness, be a guide to the light.
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 October 3, 2020, under the title "Buddhism can save us" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1995879/buddhism-can-save-us
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