Thailand: What we missed in September 2012
Originally published at Siam Voices on September 27, 2012 We look back at some news stories that made the headlines in Thailand this month.
Rich kids, fast cars, solid impunity: Social injustice on the roadside
At the beginning of this month, Central Juvenile and Family Court in Bangkok sentenced an 18-year-old girl to two years in jail for reckless driving, resulting in a crash with a van in which nine people were killed in December 2010. The sentence was suspended and the girl is banned from driving until the age of 25. What caught the attention of the public eye in this case is that not only was the driver 16 years old at the time of the accident (thus not legally old enough to drive a car), but also the daughter of a well-connected, high-society family, or "hi-so" in common Thai slang. That fact and that she survived almost unharmed made her the target of a relentless online witch hunt (we reported).
Just a few days later another lethal traffic accident involving an heir of a wealthy and influential businessman occurred in Bangkok when a police officer was hit by a sports car and dragged down the road for some distance. The drunk driver fled the scene and was later to be revealed as Vorayuth Yoovidhaya, the 27-year-old grandson of the recently deceased founder of Red Bull. However, since this is a wealthy and well-connected heir, the Thong Lor district police inspector initially attempted to cover up the hit-and-run case by detaining the family's caretaker as a scapegoat. This did not work and the inspector got suspended and Vorayuth will be brought to court. In the meantime, his family has reached a settlement with the siblings of the victim: a meager sum of 3m Baht ($97,000).
There have been countless incidents in the past were the offspring of the rich and powerful have gotten away after somebody else was killed (*cough*Chalerm's son*cough*) and these two incidents have yet again spurred some widespread outrage - but also, as usual with such widespread public outcries, quickly died down. Ironically, days later after Vorayuth's incident, a female pop singer was caught drunk driving at a police control, but - showing her total obliviousness to recent events - initially refused the breathalyzer test because - according to herself - she "is a celebrity and knows many senior police officials" and felt "not in an appropriate condition. And when I'm sober, I'll blow into it."
2012 Flood Watch: Waiting for the deluge?
After last year's flood crisis swept through Thailand and had most of central Bangkok spiraling into panic, many were wondering if such a large deluge can happen again this year. According to the numbers, this is unlikely to repeat, as there weren't heavy rainfalls that raised the water levels at the nation's dams like in 2011. Nevertheless the question that has been often raised is whether or not the country is ready for a big flood again and the if lessons were learnt from last year's failures. The problem that appeared this month though is that the heavy rainfalls that are falling directly over Bangkok are flooding the streets, prompting a deluge of pictures from sois under water on social media. The reason is the city's drainage system is struggling to cope with the downpours.
ASEAN Economic Community: Coming soon-ish
One of the big upcoming projects for Southeast Asia is the common ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). That is supposed to launch in 2015, but concerning Thailand there are some doubts whether or not the country is ready for the regional economic changes as many areas are still in dire need of improvement - education and English proficiency would be two right off the top of my head. It looks like that the other ASEAN countries have similar issues in the run-up to the AEC and thus the economic ministers have agreed to delay the launch from the first day of 2015 to the very last day of the year. However, ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan has a rather interesting take on the issue:
"However, there was never an agreed, exact date as to when in 2015 we should all work towards -- should it be 1 January? Mid-year? Or year-end 2015? The AEM (asean economic ministers) agreed on 31 December 2015," he said in the statement.
"Surin: AEC still on track", Bangkok Post, September 12, 2012
Ah yes, so we also learn that the launch date of "2015" was apparently just meant as a general guideline and they expected to set this off somewhere in those 365 days...!
Reading: World Book Capital of a non-bookish country
A recent story in the Bangkok Post revealed this:
About 60% of Thai children never even get to see a book in the first three years of their lives, according to the former president of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand (PUBAT).
Citing a study conducted in 2008, Rissawol Aramcharoen said the parents of over five million young children never read any stories, or fairy tales, to their children when they are young.
These children had also never been involved in activities that could develop their intelligence, she told told a seminar to mark International Literacy Day on Sunday.
"60% of preschoolers never see a book", Bangkok Post, September 10, 2012
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised by the numbers, since we have often reported on the dismal state of Thai education (see above) and that also correlates to a much cited study that says Thais on average read seven or eight lines per year - yes, you read that right: not eight to seven pages, let alone books, but lines! However, not much else is known about the source of this study. Regardless, it does not hide the fact that Thais are not very bookish. The reasons for a lack of reading culture are very clear as mentioned over at Bangkok Pundit.
Note: The release of the final report by the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) into the deaths during the anti-government red shirt protests of 2010 will be addressed in a future column.
Thai media and the problem of Bangkok-centric perception
Originally published at Siam Voices on September 17, 2012 Last week, Pravit Rojanaphruk wrote a story for The Nation about Thai film-maker Naulnoi Thammasathien, who talked about her upcoming documentary about life in Thailand's southern border provinces and voiced her discontent about the Bangkok-centric media coverage:
Issues like rights of residents, normalcy and positive aspects of life in parts of the region are often overlooked, the filmmaker said. Her 40-minute documentary, titled "The Agent of Change", screened in Bangkok on Monday.
Nualnoi said her film was different because it was made in collaboration with local Thai-Malay Muslims in the South. "People in the three southernmost provinces want others to see them in a positive light," she explained.
She also called on the media to not just focus on people being arrested or accused of separatism, but also report if they are acquitted or they could be branded as separatist for good. The separatist strife has taken more than 5,000 lives over the past eight years and injured 10,000 others.
(...) The rest of Thai society still lacked adequate understanding of the South, while people in the region were given little say or a chance to participate in how conflicts are resolved.
"Media reports on insurgency one-sided : filmmaker", The Nation, September 12, 2012
This is certainly not a new complaint and indeed the only news stories we hear from the South are about the nearly decade-long violent insurgency. TThailand's media organizations (especially the newspapers) have a tendency to turn a blind eye not only to the South, but to everywhere outside Bangkok.
One excellent source of information about the Thai media landscape is "Politics and the Press in Thailand: Media Machinations" by Prof. Duncan McCargo of the University of Leeds, who carried out in-depth research about the workings of Thai newspapers in the late 1990s. Most of his findings remain valid today. Here's one:
Another feature of the Thai news media is its Bangkok focus. (...) The division of editorial departments into desks is revealing: typically, Thai newspapers have desks for types of news (...) In addition to these, they have a separate desk for ‘provincial’ news. Any news story which breaks outside Bangkok is first and foremost a provincial story; only in a secondary sense will it be considered a crime story, a political story, or whatever.
Thai newspapers do not, as a general rule, maintain proper news bureaux staffed by career reporters in provincial areas. (...)
Most Bangkok-based reporters are uncomfortable travelling to provincial areas (...). Beyond Bangkok is a kind of hinterland, where nothing of much significance is deemed to occur. Thus a typical political desk of a Thai newspaper might have twelve to fifteen reporters, none of whom ever venture outside Bangkok, except either to accompany a politician (such as the prime minister) on a provincial visit or to cover an election.
From: "Politics and the Press in Thailand: Media Machinations", by Duncan McCargo, 2000
There have been two other examples in recent years that highlight the problems of Bangkok-centricism: In the run-up to the 2010 red shirt protests, there were fundraising events in north-eastern Isaan and other activities - all reported exclusively by the foreign media. When the red shirt protests increased in attendance, persistence and duration, many Bangkokians were stunned and shocked - so were most of the local Thai media, as they had failed to monitor the activities of the red shirts in the provinces.
The other incident was during last year's flood crisis, when large areas in and around Bangkok were inundated by Thailand's worst natural disaster in some time. However, there were also floods elsewhere, like in the north-eastern province of Khon Kaen. But reports from other flood-hit locations were almost drowned out by the non-stop coverage of the crisis in the capital - so much so that it took a mental toll on Bangkok residents.
While residents outside the capital have several local media outlets like small-scale community papers or community radio stations, not much of that local coverage ever reaches the big media organizations in the capital. The internet does, however, provide a chance for grass-roots media in the provinces to reach a wider audience. One such example are our friends at The Isaan Record (who are coming back from a hiatus, by the way!) who have taken great strides in covering the stories and issues that matter in Thailand's north-east.