COMMENTARY
ATIYA ACHAKULWISUT
Isn't it gratifying, phi nong? Does it give us a thrill to hit people whose views we don't share, hard and square in the face? Hit them until they fall down and become unconscious. Hit them again and again, with a nail-studded wooden stick. Make sure the nails make their nasty contact with the soft flesh, that they tear deep and wide.
Academics are so worried about social division, aren't they? Well, they need not now. The Udon Thani model has been tried and proven true. Hammers, iron bars and nail-spiked wooden sticks - these are the perfect tools for social harmony and the long-wanted national reconciliation.
No more argument, phi nong. No more wasting time to convince others of our opinions. It's much faster, more effective and not to say personally fulfilling to beat them up. Hit them until they plead to agree with us. Pound them with the sharp nails until their wrong views are drained along with their own blood.
Prominent scholar Acharn Thirayuth Boonmi has come out and warned that the confrontation between the pro-government group and anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy could escalate into social unrest more violent than the Oct 14 and Oct 6 events if nothing is done to calm it down.
He should know. Acharn Thirayuth was one among scores of university students who had to flee into the jungle after frenzied mobs were unleashed to maul, murder and burn many of them on Oct 6, 1976. A lot of people were killed. A lot of those who survived would describe the massacre as brutal beyond words, the very worst killing that has ever occurred in this country.
Acharn Thirayuth was probably right in his prediction. There will be war and there will be blood. The only kink is: Why should anyone want to tone down the hatred and the craziness? They are the perfect tools for political and ideological cleansing. How can we reach any agreement otherwise?
A big round of applause also to the genius who came up with the idea of using the national flag pole to beat up other people with. Isn't that classic? Symbolic, too. Here, in the name of national unity and with the sanctity of the flag, I took the sacred duty of beating you, who dare to disagree with me, to a pulp.
This is not to say that it provided such a colourful photo op - Thai people hitting Thai people with a pole carrying their own national flag. If you can dye the red - the symbol of nationhood - of the tri-colour flag with the bad blood of dissent, it then doubles the glory and satisfaction.
Some of the leaders of theKhon Rak Udon club, which pushed through the thin and flimsy line of police to beat up members of the PAD last week, argued that those injured during the free-for-all were non-natives of Udon Thani.
They said they had to beat the PAD members up because they were giving a bad name to the province. They insisted it was only out of generosity that they didn't kill them off in repayment for the bad deeds they'd committed.
The logic is flawless, is it not? Especially for a prelude to a civil war or mass killing. Although I have to say this kind of reasoning is a little stale as it is very much the same as the one used during the Oct 6 crushing of the student movement. At that time, the militants were told that the students were not Thai. That they were Vietnamese and sympathisers of communism. The students were portrayed as monsters who deserved to die. That explained why the killings were exceptionally cruel.
The excuse to attack one another seems mild this time, but quite interestingly still gets the job done.
But then again, an excuse is probably no longer necessary.
Before the Udon Thani incident, PM Samak Sundaravej actually urged people who support the PPP to start "killing" those who oppose it because many of his people had been "killed".
He didn't talk about the Udon Thani attack after it happened. In his latest weekly TV and radio address, the PM was seen reciting classical poetry with a prolonged, rolling cadence and a smile.
So guard your turf, pi nong.
Sharpen your lance. We are rolling off to the worst-ever unrest in the history of Thailand, one that would put the horrid Oct 6 in its place.
After all, only one person died in that mass killing.
Atiya Achakulwisut is Editorial Pages Editor, Bangkok Post.
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