Slaying Dragons

Earlier this month, Pravit Rojanaphruk, of the Nation, one of Bangkok’s English Newspapers, wrote an open letter to the Red Shirts.  That letter in English can be found here:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/An-open-letter-to-the-red-shirts-30146164.html

That letter in Thai can be found here:

http://www.prachatai.com/journal/2011/01/32679

Pravit starts out his letter like this:

“Now that tens of thousands of you have re-grouped to continue the struggle against the old order, take a few moments to consider my advice, which I hope will be useful to you and society at large.”

I will forgive Pravit for not saying the magic word “PLEASE” and I will remind everyone of the famous American saying, “advice is like assholes, everyone has one.” That being said, evidently the Nation has quite a few assholes.

However, Pravit is correct about one thing in his letter when he states that “There is no place for lese majeste law in a truly democratic society because citizens in a democracy should be able to express their "critical" views without fear of persecution.” Then Pravit goes on to suggest that the Red Shirts shouldn’t use the Wikileaks documents to sue certain Privy Council members for lese majeste.

I couldn’t disagree more and here is my opinion (yes, I’ve been called an asshole too).  Another American saying is “opportunity knocks but once.” The Wikileaks document where certain members of the Privy Council were bad mouthing a member of the Royal Family is such a rare and golden opportunity. Consider this as ‘manna’ from heaven, a powerful gift from above or even karma, if you will.  One just shouldn’t waste a precious opportunity that can be used to smite the evil dragons which are the enemies of democracy.

Pravit mentioned one of these dragons.  It is the dragon of Lese Majeste, really draconian and really undemocratic. 

So how do you slay such a beast? By doing nothing? No, you draw attention to it and what better way to do so than to use the Wikileaks document to do this. Besides, I’m sure the enemies of democracy would love nothing more than for the Red Shirts to NOT use the Wikileaks document.

Worried about those Privy Council members being thrown in jail for lese majeste? Not me but if you are then you don’t have to worry about it much because there is another evil and anti-democratic dragon in Thailand which will probably come to the accused Privy Council Members rescue – the dragon of Double Standards.  

Again, one can only fight something that is out in the open. If the Red Shirts don’t use the Wikileaks documents then how can people fully see the evil of lese majeste and double standards?

But what happens if, by some miracle, this lese majeste case does go to court? Another evil and anti-democratic dragon called “Corrupt Courts” lurks. 

Expose it, expose all Thailand’s evil dragons, bring them out into the light in order to slay them.

Oh, I almost forgot. There are a few other scaly reptilian creatures which are just as evil and anti-democratic in Thailand that need to be exposed.  One in particular is especially vile.  Not to be confused with the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia, the Prem-odo Dragon of Thailand is one of the worst enemies of democracy there ever was.

This Orange Shirt wishes the Red Shirts the best of luck with their law suit.  Go for it!