Seek advice, but not from the rude and uncultivated

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015
Seek advice, but not from the rude and uncultivated

People are coming uninvited from the other side of the globe and giving Thais "lessons" on how to run a country.

Horrible, some will say, because the envoys themselves come from a dysfunctional democracy that my well educated friends up North call a corporate dictatorship.
And those people go everywhere in the world on the same mission, but only to countries which have something they desire and which are not yet on their side.
These days their leaders are attending the funeral of a dictator, his good friend, they say. That dictatorship is not bothered with “lessons” in democracy, because they have oil and are on “our” side.
So how should the practice be to be democratic? Like with the Germans. They come when they are invited – to inform and advise about democracy.
Thailand should invite more people from up North, from social democratic labour parties, to help set up the Thai Social Democratic Party with the core purpose of taking care of the interests of wage-working people and poor farmers.
Many have aired an interest in establishing the Thai Social Democratic Party, but nothing is done. May I suggest the government, together with the biggest labour unions, invite representatives from the Nordic social democratic parties to Thailand.
But remember, they will not come without an invitation. Only rude and uncultivated people scramble into other people’s house without an invitation to tell the dweller how to live.
A North Country Man