re: "Restore faith in sports" (BP, Editorial, March 20, 2023)
Dear editor,
As they have for generations past, sport and devotion to it remain pillars of many Thai lives. In daily articles and an entire section devoted to it, the Bangkok Post itself reflects the widespread (surely universal) reverence for this ritualized element intrinsic to Thai identity, most recently evidenced in the firm rebuff to Cambodia's attempt to muscle in on a pure manifestation of Thainess. Like the Thai nation, Muay Thai stood erect against the attack.
If faith in the Thai nurturing institution known as The National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) is indeed waning as alleged, or if, the heavens forfend, there is a suspected deviation from the proper perfection of implicit trust in that institution's handling of its relatively modest budget of 5.5 billion Baht, there is a simple, well-proved remedy to hand. The root of the problem is obviously all those "complaints about its operations, including allegations of a conflict of interest, inefficiency and discrimination in budget allocations." The solution is to criminalize all complaints, and threaten those voicing them with appropriate prison time. In this regard, the Post's suggestion that the institution itself, no less, "must listen to criticism and take it into account" is most improper, presuming as it does that there could actually be reasonable grounds for some criticism. Is this really the kind of precedent to be advocating?
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 March 21, 2023, under the title "Handling criticism" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2532681/neighbour-beware
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