Nothing but fairy tales

re: "'Thainess' needs rethink" (BP, Editorial, December 1, 2022) 

Dear editor,

"Inspired by real events" is the forthright disclaimer for NetFlix's highly popular series "The Crown". That is honest. George Orwell's enduringly renowned "Animal Farm" was originally subtitled "A Fairy Story". That is honest. Children's fairy tales, "Beauty and the Beast" and its gorgeously varied bed mates, do not pretend to be factual history in their "happily ever after" conclusions. That, too, is honest.  

And then there is Thai history, something apparently not to be taught in Thai schools under the sway of the Ministry of Education following the commands issued by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, as reported in the Bangkok Post's "'Thainess' needs rethink".

The Education Ministry's suggestion to teach Thai history "as an individual subject ... in school curricula" in fact strikes me as an excellent idea. If only it were true. If only it were possible. To genuinely study history, especially your own nation's, as opposed to choking down saccharine fairy tales, is to be sometimes shocked at what your nation has done; to be sometimes horrified at the baseness and unchecked incompetence often shown by your national heroes; to be disgusted at the means sometimes used to gain and abuse power. If you read only stories of pure courage, niceness, and unfailing moral excellence, that's a fairy tale pretending to be history. Children's fairy tales are more honest than such childish half truths pretending to be history. 

Thais deserve to be able to study and argue about their nation's history in all its splendour and ugliness, its successes and failures, its insights and silliness, and its merits and rottenness. How else is anything of mature worth to be learned for a sound understanding of what made Thailand what it is today, let alone of how to move their nation forward to a better future for all Thais? Is honest history really so dangerous that it must be suppressed by law that actually imprisons those who peacefully call for that openness to dissenting ideas that alone protects any society from perpetuating venerated errors? 

Both history and fairy tales tell us stories that can entertain, elevate and educate, but they are not the same thing. It is childish bullying to dictate the rank dishonesty that fairy tales be accepted as incontestable history. 

 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 December 3, 2022, under the title "Nothing but fairy tales" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2452159/whats-the-incentive-