Thanks for shedding light on darkness

Every time I read an article in The Nation by Pornpimol Kanchanalak I want to write a letter thanking her for having so enriched my understanding of both local politics and the human condition. High points for me on the latter have been her articles on the passing of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and the New Year, and her current article is right up there with the best of them on Thai politics right now. Yet that same article is even more H-C than usual, indeed right out there in space. Which is precisely what makes her political commentary so astute, so positive and so applicable. For those who can hear.

The reason I don't write to thank her is that she simply doesn’t ask to be thanked, and that’s truly remarkable. She’s that rare thing, an open-minded, generous, highly-experienced journalist who sticks her neck out anyway and doesn’t need praise. Indeed, in so far as a journalist can ever write polemic selflessly it’s Pornpimol Kanchanalak, which places her right up there with George Orwell and the recently deceased, alas, Vaclav Havel – and of course with Aung San Suu Kyi, and what a blessing it is that we’re getting the chance to hear The Lady at last and not just think about what she stands for in silence.

Imagine commenting on the political situation in Thailand by writing a serious article about dark matter, the Big Chill and Robert Frost? I’m a full-time poet as well as an amateur physicist, yet I learned more about physics and that poem in her one short article than I have in my reading for years. Yes, and I learned that the dark matter of Thai politics may very well be in here but that I’m still out there as well, and to be both mindful and thankful that none of it matters!

Lung Kip

Chiang Mai