Due for a poll

re: "Sympathy, but little support for protest" (BP, Opinion, February 6, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It would be hard to disagree with Veera Prateepchaikul, following exiled former Thammasat University lecturer Somsak Jeamteerasakul, that "the young pro-democracy activists Tantawan 'Tawan' Tuatulanon and Orawan 'Bam' Phuphong", who have suffered so much "should be commended for their steely hearts and resolve for their cause." And having brought the injustice, the rejection of compassion, and the refusal to allow the pursuit of right understanding, those most unBuddhist principles enshrined in its law, to the notice of the Thai nation, these courageous young women can now gracefully and with honour end their hunger strike for the sake of their nation. 

It is less clear, is down right murky in fact, whether Veera is right that support for their cause has in fact dwindled among the Thai people. The only way to reliably make any statement about what a people might support, revere, have faith in, or believe about anything, whether an issue, an institution, a cause, or a person, is to run a few well-designed and properly conducted polls to measure public opinion. That is why politicians care very much about polls. For all their imperfections and weaknesses, opinion polls remain the only reliable indicator of how a nation or any demographic within it feels. In the absence of such solid statistical evidence that puts explicit percentages on the ranges of opinion, any claim about what the Thai people feel about anything is at best uninformed wishful thinking that likely reflects nothing so much as the agenda of the people making such claims absent validly obtained percentages.

Veera cited not a single poll or lower percentage for his claims about the extent of public support for the cause for which the equally patriotic Tantawan Tuatulanon and Orawan Phuphong have followed the example set by Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela among others in using hunger strikes and willingly embracing unjust imprisonment in strict accord with bad law. That people might not turn out for a protest because of rising costs of living or less media notice, does not entail that there does not also exist a large groundswell of solid support. Whatever the percentages might be, the Thai people deserve to know what they themselves think. Policy makers should care very much to know what the nation feels to a percentage point.

If it is to be claimed, as Veera does, that support has dwindled, at the very least two opinion polls on the issue must have been done: an earlier one and a later one. To dispel the prevailing unknowing on too many matters of national importance, not least how the Thai nation feels about the intimately related causes for which these young women and the 1,890 other persecuted Thais who "have faced charges for political participation and expression since the beginning of the Free Youth pro-democracy protests in July 2020", a series of polls is urgently needed. 

Will those polls be done to shed some much needed light, or will forced darkness continue to rule?

 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 February 8, 2023, under the title "Due for a poll" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2501546/due-for-a-poll