Blame Game

After reading about the Tak Bai Demonstration and the fallout due to the excessive handling of the round up of protesters by the 4th Army regiment (78 fatalities), I've just felt that I'm just bored, frustrated, and completely aghast by all the people involved in this incident with whold wide repurcussions, that I think its finally time I rear my ugly mouth and play my own version of the Blame Game, in which I point fingers to people who I strongly believe are to blame in all of this.

In the events leading up to the tradegy, I have to profess that I have little love for Muslim extremists. These people who selectively pick key phrases to obscure many of the words of the Koran to brainwash the young and angry population to instigate acts of violence and terror against the rest of the world and against Islam itself. Combined with lack of Koran translation for local dialects, we can see that its easy for so proclaimed "religious teachers" to easily mess how these young people think. With additional apathy due to the lower level of education offered in ponoh schools that have not adequately evolved and supplied quality education that fit in the modern society, more and more muslims are left behind - with lower education, training, jobless, and angry - in which is the reason why muslim extremist has been more visible than other religions.

I also blame the muslim people of down South for rioting during the holy month of Ramadan. That is completely out of context and they should be ashamed for that, saying that this period should be holy, when they cannot control the populace out of rioting itself (though peaceful)

I blame the Thai people for having the Thai Mung behavior (Thai people have a habit to flock to see incidents), and that caused the swelling of the ranks of protesters -coupled with school holidays and unemployment in general.

I blame the 4th Army Regiment who was in charge of security down there, who has used completely excessive and unhumane methods to round up the protesters - much like how we herd up pigs. In breaking up protestors, we use water pumps, police welding bations, and tear gas - but over here we use bullets! I just had the feeling that Thailand is no longer the land of free - but a disciple of Mymmar - the land of oppressed :-/

Our government deserves alot of blame. They have been utterly clueless and utterly out of touch with the people in our country. Their aloofness was again then evident in their dealing with the population down south. Our PM deserves huge blame, for flipflop policies, and also for hand-picking the 4th Army general who seems to be convinced that only hard-handed tactics will stablize the south. In his speech, he still defends that the state was right to take down all illegal mob activities and offered a puny cash compensation, and the opportunity for the families of the victims to go on a Haj Pilgrimage. I find this to be very sickening, much like trying money at the problem, not at the crux of it. To add salt on the wound, we know that our government feels that 10k baht ($250) is the cost of a single Thai citizen, and that its their right that anyone could be killed if they were suspected to be dangerous - much like the war on dark influence and drugs. Our Human Right record has been apalling. and it makes me wonder where did the tolerance and kindness that has been typical character of a Buddhist country gone?

Never before in the history of our democratic country that any government has shown such contempt to the people in its land, and it makes me sick to know the dangerous path we are walking down at the present.

Though I blame many people here in all of this, I wanted to reserve my last words to blame the thing that has been the crux of this problem - the Media. Our media is the single identity that managed to make terrorism and its evil a global phenomenon instead of a local event. Coupled with capitalistic goals of selling news, media sources has been known to spice up reports with sensational headlines and conclusions that has been drumming up the divide. A good example could be spotted with one Buddhist extremist contributor who said that the problem with the south could be solved by using extreme violence like how Indonesia got rid of the communist uprising there by rooting out all support in military aciton. That person was a fool, and military action only serves to divide the people though it can provide short term stability. Political ideology is weak compared with religious conviction where the lure of heaven and all its derviations provides complete fanatical support. We can see that people who are extremists both in religious, political, environmental, and economic issues for these people are the people who will bring ruin to our world and our media are allowing these people to run the media circus show?