The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is no less relevant today. And one picture which appeared on the front pages of most dailies on Tuesday, or the video clip that went viral in the social media, tells a story so blatant, so un-Buddhist that no words are really needed at all.
Nevertheless, some background to the pictures does need to be told.
The monk came out of a nearby lane and walked toward the office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission where a few hundred followers of the so-called People’s Radio for Democracy group, a Nonthaburi-based faction of the red-shirt movement, was evicting a small group of anti-government protesters from the scene after having broken through a police cordon.
The monk, later identified as Phra Prat Supavirut from a wat in Kalasin, reportedly criticised the red-shirt demonstrators’ conduct and, as a consequence, he was beaten up - with the assault caught on video.
The attack occurred in broad daylight in the presence of the media, the police and many other people. Yet, the assailants, men and women, appeared unperturbed and unashamed that they had ganged up to bash the unfortunate monk.
Protesters wearing the red shirts of the People’s Radio for Democracy group attack a monk near the National Anti-Corruption Commission office on Monday, March 24, 2014 (Bangkok Post photo)
Beating up a monk in broad daylight, in public, simply because he had criticsed their actions, or because they suspected he might not be a real monk, is totally unthinkable and unacceptable. It was a barbaric act, deserving to be condemned in the strongest terms.
I wonder what the red-shirt leaders have to say about this shameless, senseless assault by a handful of their red followers? I hope they and the other red huggers do not come to their defence, claiming that the assailants were fake red-shirts, or that the monk was not really a monk at all.
This unprovoked attack on a monk is totally unjustified. It was not a spontaneous emotional outburst either, because this group of red-shirt followers was not under any pressure or harassment by their opponents to the point that they could justifiably vent their anger or exact revenge on just anyone they suspected to be in the opposite camp.
It was purely barbaric, fuelled by extreme hatred of their perceived enemy – be it a monk, a child, a woman or an elderly person.
Remember the scene at a recent red-shirt rally when the audience broke into cheers and hand clapping when a leader took to the stage to announce the lethal attack on a rally of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee near a market in Trat province? Five people, including an innocent child who happened to be at a food stall near the protest site, were killed in that attack. And yet they applauded.
Something must be wrong with the minds of these freaks – these people who can senselessly and without any remorse beat up a defenceless monk, or can go up on the stage to jubilantly announce the killing of innocent people.
The unbecoming behaviour of this minority of people is probably the result of the hate propaganda thyey have been fed day after day after day by their rabid red-shirt community radio stations.
That reminds me of the role of Yankroh radio station in the days ahead of the October 6 bloody crackdown on leftist students in 1976. The station broadcast hate rhetoric directed against the students around the clock, and allowed its audience to phone in to add fuel to the fire.
I was shocked then to see a dead body, someone acused of being Vietnamese, being dragged across Sanam Luang. Then, there was the boy who sat on the body, smiling, as if it were some sort of toy.
I wondered then how could we, human beings, Thais, have allow ourselves to fall so low that we could do such a thing to other Thais, just because of political differences.
One thing I found out later is that it was the hate propaganda that poisoned their minds and souls. And the same hate propaganda from both sides of the political divide is again poisoning the minds of Thais these days. This must stop if we are ever to restore order and sensibility, and listen to our collective conscience.