Fourth estate, or fifth column?
Re: "New charter will only spur opposition if it is too one-sided", Burning Issue, and "Thailand's sliding reputation is costing much more than just tourism dollars", Guest Column, October 29.
The Nation is starting to foist niggling anti-government articles on us. Some writers seem to want to prove this country has no faith, and would even appear to wish take Thailand back to the democracy of the Thaksin fiefdom.
Take for example Wednesday’s Burning Issue column by Supalak Ganjanakhundee which blandly informs us that “Reform in Thailand will lead the country nowhere because the narrow-minded Reform Council … just acts like a club writing a charter to punish its enemies.” Well that’s strange prescience of thought, because the charter has not been written yet, has it?
Supalak ends with the assertion that, “wherever there is oppression there is resistance”.
Show us the oppression Supalak.
Maybe The Nation could print a little red flag beside these propaganda stories so that the more sensitive of us can avoid reading them until we feel in good humour.
But your guest column by Hasan Basar takes the cake. In his grandiloquent potted biography at the bottom of the column, he informs us he is a “PR guru” and has advised “prime ministers and holders of high political office”. Well it only took a few sentences to realise which recent prime ministers that might be, and that he was antagonistic to the present government.
This fellow actually suggests that the Koh Tao murder suspects retracting confessions equals “flip-flopping” by the authorities, and he calls for the prime minister to step in personally to solve this situation. The consequences of failure here “ will be severe for him [PM Prayut] personally”, Hasan informs us.
Perhaps the PR guru’s own gravy train has halted outside the station.
Hasan may prefer democratic corruption and Bt800 billion of wasted rice and bribes, but many Thais are pleased to see the attempts at reform.
Paul Scott
