Something is badly wrong when two major universities have to apologise for the activities of their students within a single week. First came the apology from Chulalongkorn University over the disgraceful mural depicting Adolf Hitler among comic book superheroes. It created a sense of global outrage that was not diminished by the sight of a female graduate giving the mural a Nazi salute.
This prompted one rabbi from a Holocaust memorial organisation to question whether "a genocidal hate monger" was an appropriate role model for young Thai people.
Two days later, Rangsit University was the one apologising for the extreme humiliation inflicted on a group of its students during a hazing ceremony. While neither the unhealthy preoccupation with Hitler nor the practice of hazing are a new phenomenon, they show that the lessons of the past have not been learned. Human rights activists will be particularly disappointed that their efforts to create awareness of why such behaviour is wrong appear to have failed. And Rangsit university authorities should be angry that their campus code requiring students to respect the dignity of fellow humans and refrain from lewd acts is blatantly ignored. Blaming the natural rebelliousness of youth is too simple an explanation.
Fortunately no one was physically hurt in the beachside hazing ordeal in which freshman were ordered to strip naked and stand in the surf while pictures were taken for publication in Thai social media and a woman walked past, apparently inspecting them. But past experience has shown that this type of seemingly innocent public humiliation can create long-lasting psychological scars and even drive sensitive individuals to commit acts of self-harm or suicide. It is not hard to imagine the embarrassment that these first-year engineering students must feel at having poorly pixelated images of themselves in the nude uploaded to the internet for viewing by classmates, teachers or anyone, anywhere.
Universities and their senior students have come under strong pressure in recent years to do away with hazing after what was supposed to be harmless fun degenerated into a sadistic ritual.
In one shocking display of intimidation and brutality at Rajamangala University of Technology's Uthen Thawai campus four years ago, first-year students were introduced to their new learning environment by being forced to eat fresh chillies and swallow ink-stained paper after which they were beaten, threatened with guns, stripped of their underwear and had their pubic hair burned and paint sprayed over their genitals. These are criminal acts. In the previous year a judge rightly jailed three senior students from another college who had sprayed a newcomer's back with paint from an aerosol can in a hazing rite and then set fire to it.
The problem of violent anti-social behaviour has been passed down from generation to generation. Failed students have gone on to become failed administrators, gifted students have turned into well-intentioned educators but this troubling issue has outlived them all. Few teachers take action to stop it.
Some view hazing as merely a rite of passage that, like bullying, has been around for centuries.
But it has become rife with abuse and the time has come for it to be outlawed. Until that happens, new students should collectively boycott any hazing activity that could harm them or have an impact on their future lives. There is no honour in tormenting innocent college newcomers.