Some countries in Southeast Asia have been covered in haze. For over a month, people in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia have found their visibility reduced by the thin veil of smog, the grey mist of infinitesimal particles that blankets their skies and streets. The cause is the illegal burning to clear farmland for palm oil plantations; the effect is a health hazard, an environmental threat and a political dent, especially for Joko Widodo.
Thailand is covered in a haze too, of a different kind. It also reduces our visibility and blocks our minds. It too is made of infinitesimal particles that gel together to become an invisible blanket (it also becomes a noose).
Worst of all, the forecast is grim: as the vagaries of the wind and the season will soon lift the haze from most Southeast Asian nations, we in the Golden Axe are likely to stay stuck in the hazy shroud of our own making.
In the news, our kind of haze covers many sensational cases whose information forms a labyrinth, or a cul de sac, or again, a noose. These cases sometimes involve death, which brings in more smokescreen and fog. Such as the high-profile case of Suriyan “Mor Yong” Sucharitpolwong and Pol Maj Prakrom Wirunprapa, who was found dead in custody. That’s what’s on everyone’s trembling lips, but let’s not ignore others. Such as the Koh Tao murder case, also shrouded in a baffling mist, and of course the Erawan shrine bombing, a case so terrifying and so messy that it somehow ended up like a gift-wrapped Christmas package delivered by the bloody-nosed reindeer — no wrinkles, no loose knots, everything solved, except that everyone else still feels like they’re swimming in a haze.
And don’t forget the densest fog of all: the Single Gateway idea (or policy, or directive, or order, or “a study”?). The wind of change seemed to have blown it away, but maybe not, since it has been renamed “an IT hub”, whatever that means. Again, we brace ourselves for the national blanket that covers up to our eyes, all the more possible now that the prime minister is toying with the idea of “shutting down the country”. Where’s the master switch? Maybe he knows but we don’t.
At the media circus on Oct 21 when Mr Suriyan and two other suspects were moved to prison, there were a hundred reporters, cameras, microphones, tweets and live coverage. But they couldn’t see through the fog — maybe they weren’t allowed to, maybe they didn’t want to.
The haze is impenetrable, and we all stumble and tiptoe, fearful of falling off the cliff. Likewise at the news conference by the police four days ago, when it seemed like more information was being dispensed, we learned what happened though we still didn’t know what happened. Knowledge and acknowledgement aren’t the same.
So, if the season and the wind can wipe away the Southeast Asian haze, what could do the same for us?
A few things I guess. Journalism, for a start, but the definition of that practice seems limited in some circumstances (it’s not an excuse), and so outdated now that reporters have to rely on imagination, dreams, tea leaves, and unofficial sources that sometimes only produce more haze. Then we have the authorities, who sometimes work like a giant fog-making machine, creating perpetual smoke through which we’re unable to see — take the recent arrests, the Koh Tao cases and the Erawan bombing for instance, not to mention so many other incidents.
What comes with smoke is mistrust. That’s why we’re schooled to take any official statements, from confessions of suspected murderers to the denial that the Single Gateway won’t be implemented, with a grain of salt. When the prime minster talks about reform, I give it that he means it, and means well. But his reform won’t mean anything if it doesn’t touch on the deeper structure, from the police, the military, the media and whatnot, to ensure that the wind of change will carry away the smoke that has gotten into our eyes.
There’s a glitch: the thing with smoke and haze is that we can get used to it. We’re such an adaptable creature — not adaptable in the feline sense of learning to see in the dark, but when it’s okay, when it’s not bothering us too much, to feel our way through the shadows without knowing if there is an elephant in the room. As long as the elephant doesn’t run amok and trample us to death. To be honest, we’ve already been conditioned to feel that it’s not bothering us too much to feel like living in a haze, to feel slightly irritable in the eyes and ears, or to breathe the invisible particles that might be harmful in the near future. And that’s not a good sign.
Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor, Bangkok Post.