Will this annus horribilis be over by midnight, december 31?
We Thais have lived through another year of horrors. It is not an exaggeration to say that many of us have been entertaining wistful thoughts of moving to another country, so we do not have to see, hear or witness in any way, all the follies, unconscionab
For those who cannot even imagine going anywhere else, there is a deepened sense of resignation. This transforms itself back and forth into frustration, depression, helplessness, anger and even hatred. It makes us myopic and callous. Some people have became seriously vengeful, bitter and destructive.
Politics has become more polarised. Politicians are more self-centered, cynical and corrupt to an extent that is unfathomable. It was only when we thought it couldn’t get any worse that evidence proved that we were dead wrong. Principles, professionalism and integrity are obsolete terms, and we cannot even be nostalgic; that is beyond our reach.
Another rising sentiment is our political apathy and sarcasm. While this sentiment is not unique to Thailand – only about 17 per cent of Americans put their trust in the politicians they helped to elect to represent them – such a reaction may be several notches stronger here. One cab-driver recently stated with a deadpan expression, “We have 500 thieves in Parliament.” His yellow painted cab had a sticker on the back bumper that read “This car is red.”
The collective national despondency and grief at the ongoing turmoil was summed up in full and in distinct display in the images we saw on the balcony of the Chakri Maha Prasat Throne Hall on December 5 during the pledge of allegiance ceremony for government officials. Man does many meaningless things in life, but for many of us, watching such a hollow oath-taking ceremony, this pushed us into the darkest realms of absurdity. The national interest should have been on the conscience of every Thai – public servants and the rest of us ordinary mortals. The absence of conscience among many of those taking the oath rendered the whole scene a horrendous lie.
These days, if you ask people what they plan to do to celebrate the New Year, the most common answer is “Nothing, I’m not in the mood.” Many simply cannot afford to celebrate, as they have incurred unexpected expenses for flood-related matters. Joy has hopelessly disappeared from their lives and their hearts, so what’s the point of spending money looking for happiness when it is not to be found?
Meanwhile, Nasa seems to be discovering every month new exo-planets similar to earth outside our galaxy. The Higgs boson may finally be found as a result of research experimentation inside the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the particle physics laboratory on the border of France and Switzerland. The Higgs bosun has been called the “God particle;” it has been postulated but never scientifically proven to exist, perhaps until now. As minute and unstable as it may be, the Higgs particle gives the universe and everything in it, including humans, mass, without which nothing would exist. Without it, all fundamental particles would weigh nothing and hurtle around at the speed of light. Without it, the formation of atoms in the early universe would have been impossible, and would therefore have ruled out life as we know it.
It is an irony that man ventures with ever more success into the esoteric branches of physics, but we are not doing so as earnestly when looking for another missing element called conscience.
And conscience is what has been missing here for quite a while. Its absence has brought us to the messy juncture we are at today.
Thailand has plunged down the international rankings when it comes to corruption. Graft permeates every facet of our lives, not only in politics, which simply represents its pinnacle. Thai men have received the first prize worldwide for cheating; Thai women took second place. Some firemen will not release water to extinguish fires until they are paid under the table. Some houses have burned down completely because of this greed. Some low-level security guards at Suvarnabhumi Airport chase away any taxis that do not pay them to park near the gates for passengers. Drivers of high-ranking doodads invoke the names of their bosses to demand payback on various things such as entrance into some prestigious school. Corruption and cheating it is so prevalent in our society that our youngsters have accepted it as not only the normal way of life, but also as being perfectly acceptable.
This missing conscience is the cause of our national grief, our anxiety and the very sorry state of our affairs. Eventually it will lead to our demise as a proud and dignified nation. We will see more, not fewer annus horribilis if more of us cannot recapture this element and collectively make it a priority in our national agenda.
The Higgs boson was postulated in the 1960s, and in less than one generation mankind has made great advances in the quest to find it. Conscience, on the other hand, is an abstract element, as old as the history of man. It is an inner faculty that makes our livelihoods and wellbeing sustainable. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180) wrote in his book “Meditations” that conscience was the human capacity to live by rational principles that were congruent with the true, tranquil and harmonious nature of our mind, and thereby that of the universe.
“Only there, delight and stillness … the only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts.”
With a higher degree of conscience, nationally and individually, we mat someday have our Annus Mirabilis; maybe not this incoming year, but someday.
Peace and goodwill to all for this Christmas and the New Year.
