Brother Number One strikes back

Indeed, I feel there’s more hope here than there is for so many so-called “developed” countries – because Thailand still has the possibility to break the mould and emerge as a uniquely free and self-sustaining society. And it’s the fluidity of the present that gives it that freedom to create such a world.

I’d just like to add this. The percentage of the world’s population that lives in extreme poverty is as much an embarrassment to me as it is to any of the goody-two-shoes reporters of the world who see the present conflict in Thailand as yet another struggle for democracy against a selfish elite. 

It’s an embarrassment to me as I’ve spent my whole life trying to lift up those who are in need in any way I could, and yet I’m so comfortable and well educated. 

Even my letters to the editors of newspapers like The Nation are part of my effort to help the disenfranchised, yet I know that however well-intentioned my words are, they’re dismissed by many “democracy” supporters as those of someone who’s got it all.

It’s like when people tell me, “You see, Lung Kip, you went to Yale and Cambridge so you could never understand the suffering of the poor. Any government you’re involved with has to be elitist because you’re an elite, and just by being yourself you hold back the poor. Just by being who you are, you stifle their desire for a better world.” 

Like Pol Pot said.

Lung Kip

Chiang Mai