A very interesting opinion column in the Bangkok Post regarding the divide between the amart and prai in Thailand. Voranai Vanijaka makes a case that reconciliation is not just about wage gaps and public handouts but has to be addressed as an attitude between rich and poor.
You see, when a man crawls to serve another man – what does that do to his spirit? But it’s tradition, and society has been so conditioned to it for so long. We see nothing wrong with it. We don’t even realise or recognise it. It’s just the way things are.
But what lies underneath is an amputated spirit, and unlike a lost arm or a lost leg, there’s no prosthetic for it. Imagine a society, where the majority has an amputated spirit.
He says that things like the income gap are merely symptoms of this amputated spirit.
In the past or in the present, the masses, the populace, just doesn’t know any better and doesn’t want to know any better. Whenever they protest, it’s never to demand a better education. It’s never to demand healthcare. It’s never to demand civil rights and liberty. But for subsidies and fixed prices – things that can only help them to be comfortably poor, temporarily.
It’s a very different take on what’s happening in Thai society and is something that needs to be considered going forward.
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