Building a modern Thailand

The PM set up a so-called reconciliation initiative purely as a tactic to soften up the environment for the blanket amnesty Trojan Horse. It’s ironic because a true reconciliation would mean the irrelevancy of the Shinawatra clan in Thailand’s future.

Everyone is wondering: how do we get off the carousel? How about acting as if the Shinawatra family is already irrelevant? Rather than protesting that family or defending them, let’s ask what would take Thailand into the brighter future that we all deserve? I propose a movement I’ll call “Modern Thailand.” What would be the features of a modern Thailand?

A serious initiative to totally transform the education system. As a first step, let’s put an emphasis on primary schools outside Bangkok. The big goal is to improve social mobility and unleash the talents of Thailand’s people everywhere. The measure of a social system is whether the talents and imagination of its people are not predetermined by family name or parents’ mode of work. This program could include something like a “Peace Corps” model. Thai college graduates could teach in the provinces for five years after graduation. Foreigners could be invited on special visas to teach foreign languages – and also to educate in a variety of more specialized academic and vocational domains.

A people’s anti-corruption network that includes big and small businesspeople, shopkeepers, housekeepers, domestic workers, academics and students. This anti-corruption network would have an anonymous website where everyday people can report corruption without fearing identification. (And of course, we would want journalists to broadcast examples of the corruption.) People are resigned to corruption because the past has taught us that it’s part of the fabric. Well let’s put on a new shirt with a new fabric!

A vibrant consumer movement. Every baht is precious. So why shouldn’t villagers and city people alike expect higher responsiveness from retailers and manufacturers? This movement would insist on higher quality and proven safety for food and other merchandise. And reasonable prices. How about cooperatives depending largely on volunteer labor from the members? Food cooperatives, yes. But also washing machines, refrigerators and mobile phones. Nothing will get the attention of today’s retailers like price and service competition.

Solutions for sustainable agriculture. Sustainable in every sense: providing a good living for the everyday farming family. And good for our health and environment. No more cynical political schemes that enrich politicians and wholesalers. Thai farmers made this country the world’s rice bowl in the past. Let’s not only make that true in the modern Thailand; let’s make farming a rewarding way to make a life and to build a future. Let the universities directly lead the way instead of greedy politicians and bureaucrats.

Wouldn’t these initiatives would have broad appeal regardless of what shirts we are wearing this morning? We’ve been acting like rodents crowded into a small box and crawling all over each other. Now it’s time to build for our future: a modern Thailand we all can be proud of.

Marc Schnapp

Bangkok