OPINION

A silly syllabus

Former Education Minister Somsak Prissananantakul favours providing students with a better understanding of history (BP, Nov 3), so long as a process known as chamra prawattisat be undertaken, in which academics with differing opinions come together to agree on a standard interpretation. This proposal sums up much of what is wrong with Thai education, and perhaps Thai culture as well. Why have a standard interpretation of history? So it can be crammed down students' throats for later regurgitation on command? History is like a photograph. It captures events from a specific angle, with a specific depth of field, and perhaps through various filters. Why not expose students to multiple interpretations and let them, through discussion, identify the biases in each and, in the process, develop critical thinking skills?

Tom Parkinson

Re: "Cardboard critics seen at Thammasat graduation protest", (BP, Nov 1).

My memory did a double take. Back in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, I was an English teacher at Thammasat, Tha Prachan campus. We foreign ajarn used to eat lunch at the vendors' stalls that then graced the campus before they were cleared out. Among the vendors was a South Asian gentleman who sold peanuts from a portable tray with a stand that he carried. No lunch was complete without purchasing a small bag of peanuts from him for dessert.

We called him the peanut man. Could "Bernard, a bean seller" be the same guy? I'm betting that he is, and if so I welcome his presence as a symbol of stability and continuity from a kinder and gentler era. He inspires warm memories of a bygone time. He also sold good peanuts.

Re: "The architects of this ruinous mess must go", (Opinion, Nov 3).

I agree that constitutional reform is needed and that the current government is failing the country and its people in many ways. But in the real world, the "spring" prophesied by Pablo Neruda, a staunch communist (and rapist) who won the Lenin Peace Prize from the USSR in the middle of the Cold War, was not a pluralistic democracy but a communist regime.

In the real world, resistance, during WWII, included communists who first sabotaged European countries' war efforts against Nazi Germany, collaborated with German after their victories in 1940, and only became resistant after the end of the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact in 1941. Towards the end of the war, they then started to eliminate the democrats in the resistance to prepare for the establishment of communist regimes.

I am not saying of course that, just because student protests started with chants and slogans of the Communist Party of Thailand and their three-finger sign is a strange cross between a communist fist and the fascist salute (in reality obviously, a silly reference to a Hollywood blockbuster for young adults), all students are communists etc. But some are and some of their most vocal leaders are, and a mature adult progressive should be able to establish critical distance from them and some red lines. This is what Prof Thitinan has done in his articles, though his references are not the Hunger Games and Pablo Neruda.

A Nov 3 report on four charges against [Palang Pracharath MP] Pareena [Kraikupt] in the poultry farm case was wrapped up with "She is seen as the staunch defender of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha".

Dear readers, you can write the following quoted statement on a piece of paper and tape it on your bathroom door: "Somsak Pola predicted on Nov 3, 2020 that Pareena's case will drag on for at least 10 years and she will eventually be acquitted of all charges."

That's how much faith I have in our justice system.