I agree with the Constitution Drafting Committee that students be taught their civil rights at all educational levels so they will know their duties and responsibilities. To promote commitment to what they learn, we should follow Lord Buddha’s teaching: “Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.”
We should teach them to follow former prime minister Anand Panyarachun’s Seven Pillars of Sustainable Democracy — “elections, political tolerance, the rule of law, freedom of expression, accountability and transparency, decentralisation and civil society” — and practise those pillars at age-appropriate levels. For example, in primary schools, we can encourage youngsters to debate and choose between two diets that are equally healthy; secondary school students could form environmental or political clubs, selecting then defending a real or hypothetical party’s platform.
Teachers would guide the students so that they practised political tolerance, and the rest of the Pillars, so that the give-and-take discussions shed light and not heat.
Such courses would be in full accord with Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”
Burin Kantabutra
Land of headaches
One of the main attractions of Thailand is the attitude of the Thais, and I think the “Land of Smiles” was one of the most aptly named tourism slogans. However, one point that does frustrate me is the information sometimes not provided about infrastructure.
For example, last week, the website of the State Railway of Thailand and the website of Suvarnabhumi airport clearly showed an Airport Express train running from 10am from the airport to Makkasan City Air Terminal, journey time 15 minutes. This also appears on the maps at the airport and at Makkasan station.
Yet the only rail link from the airport is the “city” line commuter train from Suvarnabhumi to Phaya Thai BTS station, taking 40 minutes. And this service, which runs every 20 minutes, has only three vehicles per train with no space for luggage and only a small number of hard plastic seats, resulting in uncomfortable overcrowding on every train.
No one at the airport or at Makkasan station was able to advise me why the “express” service was not running, nor when it might resume.
Not a very good advert for Bangkok and the “Land of Smiles”. Even the four express bus routes from the airport to the city centre have been withdrawn.
I hope the reforms underway are successful, but that good communication is included as an integral part of the process!
Michael
Enforce booze rules
The proposed ban on alcohol sales by the Public Health Ministry shows clearly they want to bring the death toll down, but it also shows clearly they have no connection with society.
At festivities people want to celebrate and enjoy; often this goes with alcohol intake. Nothing wrong with that.
But the moment they start their vehicle, being drunk, they are doing something illegal. So let the police enforce the law against those perpetrators instead of making everyone else suffer.
The laws are there already; we don’t need more restrictions, only enforcement of existing ones.
Drs A F Engelkes
Five near misses
On Saturday, I took the opportunity of this "non-drinking" holiday to visit my son in Doi Saket outside Chiang Mai.
At 7pm, in the dark, I drove 10km into town and had four motorbikes and one car barrel straight at me, the wrong way down a multi-laned highway, flashing their lights for me to move into the next traffic lane so they could fulfil their lawbreaking shortcuts.
What kind of education must these people have to think driving the wrong way up the hard shoulder of a highway in the dark is a good idea? Is it any wonder Thailand has one of the worst accident rates in the world?
Lungstib
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