OPINION

Proud to help out

I am proud to be called a "temple boy" by the monks at a local temple on Maha Chai Road. Over the past few weeks we have been busy preparing to feed the huge throngs of people who came to say their final farewells to our beloved father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

My thanks go to all who assisted in preparing and serving food for the thousands who patiently waited to offer the sandalwood flowers at the Bangkok City Hall site. I, and many of my friends, joined the line and, after a prolonged wait, and some heavy rainfall, were blessed with the opportunity to lay the small offering at the foot of the portrait of our late King.

I cannot say enough about the preparations, and crowd control, at the City Hall site. Lines snaked their way around the plaza long after our departure about 7pm. Thai people were courteous, often offering umbrellas to those standing in the plaza during the rain, and the faces of many showed the grief associated with this historical moment. The system was well thought out, and implemented with dignity by the volunteers. Water was made available throughout the hours-long wait and those with disabilities were shown the highest regard by both mourners and staff.

I feel privileged to have been a part of these ceremonies, and the coming together of millions of Thai people, even in grief, shows just how resilient they are. The country will get past this but the memory, and principles, of this amazing Renaissance Man will live forever in the hearts and memories of Thai people all over the world. May his benevolence continue to shine upon us as he claims his rightful seat on Mt Meru.

The royal funeral procession on Thursday was the most impressive, colourful and best drilled group of people I have ever seen anywhere.

Despite the disparity of the various groups, I failed to see anyone out of step and all lines were perfect even during the slow marching, not a wobble was to be seen and in such circumstances all the foregoing is very hard to achieve ... but they did it, bless 'em. Whoever trained the participants merits the highest accolade.

The late King Bhumibol is the king and the god in my universe. As a king, time and time again, he led the country out of crises and towards the betterment of our small country. As a god, if being god is to be omnipresent and omnipotent, he was both. All my life whenever and wherever I look, he is there as a picture on the wall and it is most likely that he was there at some point in his life to meet his people in person. That is why his departure touches so many hearts in his kingdom so deeply. He was omnipotent -- he could summon rain, turn barren land into fertile ground, prevent drought and flood, and alleviate all sorts sufferings, big or small, of his people in the more real and tangible manner than any gods I know could have ever done.

And yet he is mortal. The fact that he is a mortal like all of us but he could do all that is the greatest inspiration. Because he did not have magical power to bring about things with a blink of an eye like gods in a myth, he has become a living symbol of perseverance, of endurance because we realise how hard it is for a mortal to do all that he had done.

The royal crematorium and the cremation ceremony, however magnificently lavish they may be, cannot compare to the love, loyalty and respect that we have for a man who had spent all his waking moments working hard for his land and his people. He was the ninth king of Thailand in the Chakri dynasty by blood but he has earned a special throne as a king of our heart by his deeds, and forever on that throne will he remain.

What the extraordinary ceremonies for the late King demonstrated to me is that when the Thai people want to, they can do anything. This was of course King Bhumibol's message himself. But it was much more than the common interpretation of self-sufficiency.

The late King empowered the Thais. Taking care of yourself begins with knowing that you can do it. The Thai people can solve all of their problems, including their differences, corruption, and so on. The greatest legacy they can give the King, to reflect his own legacy to them, is to do it.

Apart from her Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi has now joined another very exclusive club, that of the ethnic cleansers and genocidal tyrants of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Hand in glove with the commander in chief of Myanmar's military forces, Sen Gen Min Aung Hlaing, she has now achieved the objective of ridding Myanmar of the "pestilential" Rohingya, or Bengali, as she prefers to call them, with never a hint that first and foremost they are human beings.

According to the most recent reports, some 700,000 Rohingya have now fled Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh, and thousands continue the hazardous trek across the border.

Soon Myanmar will be rid of all Rohingya. Objective achieved!

Suu Kyi's public proclamations that she will personally oversee the return of refugees who can prove their identities is so facile and vacuous that she is damned by her own words.

I enjoyed reading Oct 23 online report, "THAI dinged for on-time performance". The amusing part was what travellers called THAI, the "go tomorrow" airline. Twenty years ago I took an El-Al flight, perhaps one of the most memorable in my flying past. El-Al was referred to by its clientele as "Ever Leaving-Always Late". I'm happy to say, El-Al is today one of the safest airlines in the world with a very impressive, excellent on-time schedule. Perhaps THAI will also improve … with time.

Re: "Anupong dodges criticism in speed gun fiasco", (BP, Oct 21).

As the responsible minister who signed off on the deal, the general's defence is every bit as solid as Yingluck Shinawatra's when found guilty of failing to exercise proper oversight of the rice-pledging scheme. When will the equally impartial prosecution of the Interior Minister be forwarded to the court for political office holders?

But we see now how very prescient were the ruling politicians unelected to generously award themselves, immediately after overthrowing the highest rule of law of the Thai nation, a full amnesty for past, present and future acts: Guilt is irrelevant, not being subject to any test in the same courts of law that apply to the political players on the "bad" side who have no such amnesty because the outraged voice of the Thai people, democratically heard, rightly prevented such a corruption of justice.

Despite the numerous "taxi mafia crackdowns" announced by the Pattaya municipal authorities, I have never found a taxi driver that will use the meter, nor have I met anyone that knows anyone that has ever found a legitimate taxi driver in Pattaya.

Despite 10 years of "crackdowns," by the police chief and Pattaya mayor, taxi drivers still refuse to follow the law and honour their contract with Pattaya City Hall.

Let's be honest -- Pattaya taxi drivers are petty criminals posing as cabbies so they can get close to their victims. Uber or Grab taxi drivers' attempts to enter the market and offer a fair transportation service are instantly embroiled in a dangerous turf war.

Tourists are recommended to steer clear of the crossfire and be content to be ripped off in the Pattaya City's authorised "risk-free" mafia Taxis.

Re: "Not feeling blessed," (PostBag, Oct 21).

I appreciate Mr Robin Grant's rebuttal of my letter showing his utter disdain for dictatorship. But let me answer your misgivings point by point:

1) I am not happy with a military junta "once more". In fact, I was dead set against some military rules in the past. But now I am simply happier with this government than the past few democratically elected governments that very clearly were putting this country in a tailspin into oblivion. If you were here in Thailand at that time, you could not fail to notice that the country was heading straight into a civil war with both warring sides could only agree to disagree -- then Gen Prayut stepped in.

2) I have asked myself why, in the 21st century, this country should yet again be run by generals. I have found the answer and that answer is "politicians of all colours" bent on reaping riches for themselves and their cronies once in office at the expense of the Thai people and the country's coffer. Another answer is the flawed democratic system that allowed them to do so.

3) On the people's freedom, in the past three years I have never once felt frustrated by any lack of freedom as a common citizen. I criticise the government in public (which I often do -- and you do often enough on the pages of the Bangkok Post) when I feel like wanting to make a point without any fear of any kind of reprisal. So, I do not understand what Mr Grant was talking about when he says that I am content "to be told what he can say and cannot say in public".

4) On corruption. I do cringe when I learn of corrupt practices that still exist today. However, I weigh the current situation with the blatant and enormous amount of corruption, the kind that actually threatened the very existence of Thailand, going on under the past democratic governments that ignored the hue and cry of the citizens who elected them simply because they had the majority in the government.

Also the current government has recovered billions upon billions of baht worth of cash and public land from previously influential crooks and prosecute the perpetrators -- a feat that no democratic governments ever dared to do.

I wonder why expats in totalitarian communist countries like Laos and Vietnam are very much content to live and work there. Also the expats busy doing business in Thailand's neighbouring country to the immediate East seem not to be bothered with a democratic government that has been in power for the past 20 or 30 years which prosecutes, deports and murders its opposition and recently shut down an English-language newspaper.

The answer to my curiosity seems to be that the democracy-loving foreigners in Thailand are simply perplexed as to why this "tyrannical junta" seems to be working well and has put Thailand back on track to progress much more so than the past 20 years of democratically elected governments which seemed to have existed only to reap and plunder and running Thailand into the ground. So, thanks a lot for your concern guys.

Mr Grant, the Thai garden may not be all that lovely, but at least it is much lovelier than the previous 20 years under successive democratic governments during which I must have lost at least couple of years of my life due to constant extreme stress, which funnily enough, I don't feel anymore today.

I salute Khun Kantanit's daring comments on Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha. The general came, the general saw, the general conquered, righting the wrongs by the previous governments, bringing crooks and criminals to justice. This style of dictatorial democracy works for Thailand. I just hope more of the same Prayut will come. And for good measure, add Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat ... serve chilled.