FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Requiem for a most extraordinarily benevolent monarch

Requiem for a most extraordinarily benevolent monarch

There is a place in outback Australia where New Year’s Eve occurs thrice every year due to the intersection of three time zones. It sounds too outlandish to be true, but it is. In fact in Australia alone, there are three such places.

Sometimes in history, we encounter an occasion when things come together in such an extraordinary way that it surpasses our common understanding or expectation.  The life and time of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is one of those rare occasions.
French historian Ernest Renan (1823-1892) defined nation as “a soul, a spiritual principle” made of two elements – the past and the present. The past, Renan wrote, is the possession in common of a rich trove of memories; the present is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue the undivided heritage; to have done great things together in the past and to wish to do more.
His Majesty King Bhumibol was called the “Soul” of the Thai nation. More aptly, he was our collective conscience, our Grace. His life and time represented everything good about being Thai, and so much more. He was the example of how much better we could become. 
It is impossible to imagine another person who selflessly did so much for his nation’s collective good, as His Majesty. And he did so without wanting recognition, or indeed anything in return, except for better lives for his people.  He did so willingly, fully, unconditionally and judiciously. 

It was a promise he kept throughout his life since the day he made his pledge to the nation: “I will reign with righteousness for the benefits and happiness” of the people. It was a vow of immeasurable proportions. It was an enormously heavy load for one man to carry. But His Majesty knew it came with the territory, he never complained. He willingly and consciously placed “the gold leaf on the Buddha’s back”. He knew that it had to be done and somebody had to do it for the golden Buddha to be complete.
In Switzerland he was raised as a child by a mother who taught him always to keep his feet on the ground. The alluring light of the throne did not affect him. He lived his life in the way and manner that was true to his mother’s teaching, one that would make her proud – a simple and undemanding life. That was the genuine love and faithfulness he could give to one of the persons he loved the most. It was one trait His Majesty displayed in all that he did.
His Sufficiency Economy philosophy was his lifelong dissertation and field study.  It was a well-thought-out principle, not a half-baked idea. It was profoundly simple, so much so that it was little understood and often misunderstood during His Majesty’s lifetime. Again, he did not complain and did not demand that we learn it. But he kept practising it, setting examples, one after another, perhaps with the hope and faith that in our wisdom we could one day open our hearts and minds to it, and benefit. 
His Majesty grew up speaking, among other languages, French.  The word “sufficient” maybe the closest English translation of the French word “suffisant”, but it does not quite capture the crucial essence of it. Inherent in the word “suffisant” is the notion of “balance” – that everything hangs together proportionately in equilibrium. And such balance is applicable to everything we do in our life. It was never meant or used to perpetuate poverty, as some have mistakenly interpreted. With this philosophy, the word poverty would never enter the lexicon. It does not even exist. Sufficiency Economy thinking is on an entirely different plateau than the mundane, convenient and even biased interpretation a lot of people attach to it.
This philosophy is one of the legacies His Majesty left behind for his people. It is an inheritance that will never run out, but only keep giving, if we heed it.
His Majesty King Bhumibol was a miracle, a rare and finest admixture of virtues all embodied in one extraordinary monarch. Magnanimity, tolerance, compassion, selflessness, erudition, perseverance, dignity, valour, honesty, decency, sacrifice and sensibility were personified in one man. It does not happen often. We Thais must count our blessings, and perhaps ask ourselves more often what good we have done to deserve him. 
For 12 months now, millions of Thais have wept. The torrent of tears today will be enough to lure us into thinking that our love and gratitude for His Majesty will last forever – that it would have lasting effects on our character, our thinking and our behaviour. But will it?
His Majesty’s passing has left an enormous void in our life and spirit. But beyond longing, there must be the actual acts of gratitude that we continue to do in his memory and in his footsteps. Those acts will fill the void we all currently share. By performing them, our pain will be soothed, and it will allow our past and present to form our character, our collective soul. By performing them, we will become better people.  It will be then that we will reach the realisation that His Majesty has never left 
us. 

If e’er when faith had fallen asleep,
I hear a voice “believe no more’
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warm within the breast would 
melt
The freezing reason’s solder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer’d I’have felt.’

No, like a child in doubt and fear;
But that blind clamour made me 
wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But crying knows his father near
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809-1892)
    

    

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