re: "Protesters confront riot-control police" (BP, November 17, 2022)
Dear editor,
There is, I fear, a problem with the wording lauding the APEC love fest. I don't mean that minor matter of the missing "e" from the large welcuming banner advertising that famous command of English inculcated by Thailand's too amazing Ministry of Education. The language problem causing concern is more substantial than the inept orthography that some fool arrogantly deeming his wisdom above being open to correction refused to have competently proofread before a proud public exposure. The more serious error is that the people who thought up the slogan "Open. Connect. Balance." appear to fail to understand at least one of those concepts.
An open society and people who actually respected the ideal of openness would not be arresting and imprisoning those who peacefully express different ideas about inherited notions, social norms, or alleged articles of faith. To be open, to be an open society, which all the best are, means to be, well, open: open to new ideas; open to critical review of old ideas; open to new perspectives on traditional reverences; and open to competing ways to understand and live in the world.
Only such an open society, one where inherited errors can be corrected by healthy, critical interrogation, makes possible progress to a better future. That better future has for many decades been denied the Thai people, who could and should have followed the path to flourishing of Taiwan and South Korea, but were instead condemned to the retarded political, social, moral and economic malaise that is Thailand today — a far cry from South Korea and Taiwan. Perhaps Thais should study not only K-pop, but even more the South Korean history that enabled that nation's great global success. Hint: the seeds were sown in 1980. Thailand, in contrast, continued to repeat the stultifying errors that Thai law strictly bans correcting.
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 19, 2022, under the title "An 'open society'?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2441319/an-open-society-
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