Bangkok Interlude

Before I get back to Cambodia, I thought I'd touch briefly on the continuing political situation in the south and my observations as to the situations in neighboring Burma and Cambodia. In an earlier post I discussed the escalating violence in the south vis a vis the Tak Bai incident. I won't rehash what I wrote then instead pls see my earlier post. In recent days, there have been allegations of additional deaths and more 'protestors' unaccounted for. How much truth there is to these allegations remains to be seen, but I wouldn't be surprised if more dead turn up. Prime Minister Thaksin continues to take huge amounts of heat from predominantly Muslim Malaysia as well as from many internal parties. Of course Malaysia would love to see even more violence in the hope that the south would be granted some different sort of political status, independence even. No chance of that. My guess is that he will survive the crisis if he can protect the Buddhists in the south. The King has asked for forbearance on all sides and the vast majority will accede to his request. Of course the most extreme will not. We all know how this plays out unless our heads have been in the sand for the past 200 years. A small group of unhappy people create violence to evoke a response. The hoped for response will be brutal and perhaps overkill. The unhappy people then recruit more to their ranks who are upset about the government reaction and perpetrate more violence. The government escalates their efforts and the conflict grows until people that had previously lived in peace are now completely polarized. I'm so damn tired of that scenario..... Lately this conflict as we know has been cloaked in religious fervor. Again, we all know it has nothing really to do with religion and everything to do with money and power. Many people are making efforts in the south to try to resolve this, but the extremist instigators are not going to let this die. They have killed innocent people who have done nothing but try to live their daily lives. Shopkeepers, teachers and motorcycle drivers who have done nothing but exist have been brutally murdered in the south. What's the solution? Where will it go? All I can really see is that violence begets violence and the spiral grows and grows just as it has in the middle east.
As to Burma, as I speculated before the 'resignation' of Kin Nyunt that it might have something to do with corruption and sure enough that is the new reason given for his forced resignation. Clearly corruption is the standard in Burma but the leader should NOT rub everyone's nose in it. Seems he was very openly consorting with extremely well known international drug lords. This didn't go over well with the rest of the rich and powerful. Additionally it is rumored that he was cutting into their slice of the pie. The fact that he APPEARED more liberal really had nothing to do with his removal, as usual it was about money and power and those who have it wanting to maintain it.
Cambodia on the other hand, is a better story. As in Thailand, the Cambodians love their King and when King Norodam Sihanouk asked to step down there were initially some concerns. However the 'election' of King Norodam Sihamoni was smooth and the Cambodian people seem very happy with the choice. Here is a link to more information about the new king: http://cambodia.news.designerz.com/cambodias-prince-sihamoni-the-dancer-destined-to-be-king.html Do check out the link, the new King is quite an interesting character.

Enough editorializing for now. As to my life here in BKK, my big news is that my primary teacher resigned and my secondary teacher has been in the hospital for the past couple of weeks so I have two new teachers. Khun Opal and Khun Nui, I have posted a picture of the two of them. Tough duty here in the Land of Smiles. I'll take about 30 more hours of lessons in the next month. If people speak slowly enough, I can begin to hold a bit of conversation now, but it's still very difficult to follow any conversation on television or between two native Thai speakers.

Otherwise, it rained here yesterday for the first time since I've been here. I was safe inside at the time. Good thing since I have no raingear. And even though I am told it is winter here, the temperature is still in the 90's!!! Yikes!!!

All for now... as always questions, comments and salutations to andym528@hotmail.com