Interestingly, getting people killed can't be as bad as disturbing people. Fatal recklessness isn't as unforgivable as deliberate provocation. At one extreme, murder is sometimes more tolerable than writing. To know how to toe the line, to know what to write and what not to write, has become a political as well as literary dilemma - and here we're talking about Chinese Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan's semi-endorsement of censorship and jailed editor Somyot Prueksakasemsuk's sentence for breaking the lese majeste law. And we thought clemency was the way of our world.
Let's recap.
On Tuesday Kanpitak "Mu Ham" Patchimsawat got a two-year suspended jail term for premeditated murder, attempted murder and physical assault after he drove his Mercedes into a crowd waiting at a bus stop, killing one woman and injuring two other people. At first he got 10 years, but the Appeal Court reduced and suspended the prison term. Kanpitak claims mental disorder as the cause of that abominable bout of road rage. In short, the man walks.
On Thursday, we hear a report that convicted murderer Somchai "Kamnan Poh" Khunpluem will spend the foreseeable future in a hospital. The man had been sentenced to 30 years in prison for hiring a gunman to commit murder, but he was granted bail - that's quite astonishing - jumped it (not quite so astonishing), hid for seven years and was only arrested in a sting last month. This week, the Corrections Department said the kamnan can stay at Chon Buri Hospital indefinitely. In short, the "Godfather of Chon Buri" hardly spent any time behind bars. Sincerely, let's wish him well. Only that he may serve his time. No clemency for a writer though. Magazine editor Somyot got 10 years in jail for printing "highly sensitive" material. No bail. Let me stress again that even if we don't agree with everything, or anything, he writes or publishes, even if we have to be wary of that dangerous cliff that separates criticism from defamation - even if total freedom of speech sounds like a fantasy - being locked up for a such a long time simply for publishing stuff is pure horror.
And while there is the amazing number of eight versions of the amnesty bill, designed with the hope to heal our fetid wounds of polarisation, none of them covers the crime of writing and publishing. Now, I resent the romanticisation of writing and the high-handed attitude that the writing profession, or "artists", should have special latitude in society; but again, being punished for dissenting through words is too hard to stomach.
The case of Nobel laureate Mo Yan deepens the dilemma. Mo is a member of the government-run Chinese Writers Association and of the Communist Party. In 2009, he enraged literary critics when he walked out of a conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair when a group of Chinese dissident writers walked in. When he was awarded the Nobel, he trod a precarious line and said censorship is necessary, comparing it to airport security. In short, he seems too close to the establishment.
It doesn't help that, years before, Mo agreed to do the job of copying Mao Zedong's speech that set the limitations of what would be allowed by artists during his reign (Mo Yan is a pseudonym meaning "don't speak" - that, and his stint as a copyist, makes him a startling descendant of Herman Melville's most fascinating character, Bartleby, a copyist who lives in silence and prefers not to say anything).
The Nobel Prize is given for literary merit, not for political bravado. No doubt, Mo's defence of censorship is unbecoming at best and undignified at worst, given that there are jailed writers in China. But Mo's novels are also known to be a subtle form of social criticism, and he has also spoken about how dissent can be performed in the solitude of his writing room, not on the streets or with the fury of political pamphlets.
Whether Mo is playing with the power brokers or colluding with them may never be known. But that's China. It's unfortunate that the same thing is being applied to Thailand, where a murderer can get bail but some writers can't. I never knew this country believed that letters are more homicidal than godfathers. Maybe, just maybe, even a tightrope-walker like Mo Yan wouldn't get off if he were here. We all are becoming Bartleby, unless a sane update of our law is considered very seriously.
Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor,
Bangkok Post.