Time to nominate Sulak for a Nobel Peace Prize
Re: “Prosecution of Sulak exposes primitive mentality”, Have Your Say, yesterday.
I applaud Rita Henry’s objection to the renewed persecution of Thailand’s renowned social reformer Sulak Sivaraksa. The only thing I question is its headline, which she did not write. Calling the mentality that wants to prosecute Sulak “primitive” is a bit harsh. The operative word is “feudal”. It doesn’t take much research to discover that feudal thinking is alive and kicking in 21st-century Thailand.
Sulak Sivaraksa has been championing social and religious reform since well before I arrived here in 1986. He is the grand old man of social reform in Thailand. You could call him Thailand’s conscience. At one time he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Now would be a good time to nominate him again. Always the gadfly, he has been jailed more than once by various repressive regimes. If I’m not mistaken, he was the wordsmith who coined the term “engaged Buddhism” to describe a kind of Buddhism that is committed without being attached. And now that he is in his eighties and approaching his final years, like a pack of young wolves attacking an old moose, the bullies are ganging up on him to bring him down.
Stop picking on him, junta. Sulak Sivaraksa is twice the man that any of you will ever be.
Ye Olde Pedant
