Thailand spins in its own circle

It was no big surprise when I returned home on June 20. News headlines were just like five days earlier. What else could they be but the rice price-pledging scheme and luxury car foreclosures. Somehow it was like the world was moving forward, but time in Thailand just stood still.

The atmosphere in Bonn, capital of the old West Germany, was lively during the first three days of the week. Hundreds of participants at the Deutsche Well Global Media Forum filled up hotel rooms there. At the World Conference Centre, the old Bundestag building, participants from Brazil to Indonesia were engaged in a number of thought-provoking sessions.

In a country like Thailand, gross domestic product (GDP) seems to be the most tangible measurement of the country’s economic wellbeing. At the forum, a discussion was dedicated to other indicators we could use to measure and ensure sustainable economic development. One session was dedicated to the role of religions in addressing the greed-driven global crisis.

Some participants would have said the forum’s highlight was when Avram Noam Chomsky gave a keynote speech on the first day. Widely considered to be the intellectual father of the Occupy movement, the renowned US linguist and philosopher won loud applause from the audience when he outlined the “conspiracy theory” that paralyses today’s democracy. He was offering comments up until participants boarded a cruise boat for dinner on the Rhine.

This reminded me of the appearance of Aung San Suu Kyi at the World Economic Forum on East Asia 2012 and 2013. She stole all the attention. All the photographers wanted to get a good photo of her, while reporters lined up to fire off questions.

But I would say the real highlight of the Bonn event was when Vandana Shiva, an activist from India, took the stage on the last day to deliver her speech on “Values for a Globalised World.” With her powerful voice and unique charisma, she convinced the audience why we must take better care of our environment. She started her speech by describing the struggle of women near the Yamuna River against logging, only to win the battle years later after the area suffered from serious flooding. To her, the world still enjoys cheap shirts because actual costs are not taken into account. Her message is that only when all species on earth are taken care of will a real earth democracy be created. “Human rights is the derivative of the rights of the earth,” she said.

The forum featured a total of 54 workshops, mostly designed to discuss how sustainability can be achieved when it comes to food and energy security as well as urbanisation. Brilliant solutions were floated, but all those thought-provoking ideas seemed so far away as soon as I arrived back in Bangkok. All the inspiration I’d gained from the three-day event was killed right after I scanned through the newspaper headlines.

Yes, the National Rice Policy Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, has conceded that the price pledging must be changed. For weeks, the Thai media asserted its role in piling up great pressure on the government to amend the pledging formula. Now that the price has been lowered from Bt15,000 a tonne to Bt12,000, the focus is on disgruntled farmers. Newspapers ran reports on planned demonstrations. One TV programme on June 20 interviewed a farmer. He said that even at the previous price, farmers benefitted little, with high costs including for pricey fertilisers. He said farmers now earn only Bt7,000 per tonne for all their hard work.

Another headline was about foreclosures on luxury cars, following illegal tariff declarations.

Soon, more news on the “white mask” anti-government demonstrations will flare up, particularly before the parliamentary session resumes in August.

At the global level, stock markets fell as the US Federal Reserve announced that quantitative easing would end in 2013, ahead of the previous expectation of 2014.

It seems that Thailand and the whole world is living so far away from the “sustainability” concept.

To be honest, how many people in the world really care about sustainability? Participants at the Bonn forum on the first day enjoyed a free flow of drinks while they were on the boat trip. Staff who manned the bar were kept busy opening bottles of wine. Here and there, the sound of breaking glass was heard. On the next day, at the workshops, they were told that some billion people still have no access to electricity.

Thailand is spinning in its own circle. I guess the world is also spinning in its own circle too.