What goes on in their minds?

For whatever reason, some people like to make a two-fingered victory sign when having their photos taken. But when that sign is made next to a corpse, it is nothing less than insensitive and in terrible taste. When it is made over the body of a bomb victim, it goes beyond bad taste.

Three nurses in the Narathiwat Hospital intensive care unit made such a gesture over the body of Police Sergeant Nimit Deewong, who was killed along with two fellow bomb-squad officers in an October 28 blast in the southern province, where a separatist insurgency has raged for almost a decade. 

It didn’t take long before commentators on the social media reacted with fury over the incident. Sadly, the three nurses had to wait for this outpouring of public anger and criticism to realise that their behaviour was inappropriate. 

Besides the criticism about their lack of sensitivity, the incident has generated a lengthy discussion about the appropriate use of mobile phones, which is another issue in itself. Be it in public places like restaurants or on public transport, or behind the steering wheel of a car, many Thais still don’t understand what constitutes appropriate behaviour when using a mobile phone. “It’s my phone and I can do whatever I want” tends to be the attitude of many people. 

As for the incident at Narathiwat Hospital, the management responded quickly, issuing a statement accompanied by a picture of the supposedly contrite nurses making a wai to apologise to the public and the victim’s family.  

The statement acknowledged that the nurses were guilty of professional misconduct and said a committee would be set up to investigate the incident, with appropriate disciplinary measures to follow.

Of course, by this time the nurses had had enough time to fine-tune their response – to say that the victory sign was a show of moral support to the victim and other security officers. 

Could it be that the nurses are just too desensitised to the violence and killing in Narathiwat, Yala and Patani – where more than 5,000 people have been killed in the ongoing Malay-Muslim insurgency – that it led to this violation of their professional ethics? At the least, the incident suggests that insensitivity, whether on a cultural level or in terms of personal conduct, is a poor reflection on our society. 

Time and again, similar issues – such as the use of Nazi insignia for advertising – surface in the Thai public space and generate uncomfortable debate about acceptable conduct, especially when foreigners raise the issue. One can make the tenuous argument that Thais’ ignorance of, or lack of exposure to, history could make such behaviour excusable. But what’s the excuse for the Narathiwat nurses? It’s too easy, once the public came down hard on them, to say they didn’t mean any harm.

Moreover, in terms of conflict sensitivity and awareness, one has to wonder what kind of training, if any, health professionals and other public officials are given before taking up positions in this restive region. 

Perhaps our schools and universities should do more work in this area, not only to prevent similar incidents from recurring, but also to instil in the hearts and minds of future generations a sense of awareness about their surroundings and the feelings of others.