absolutelyBangkok archive · Being farang
Originally published Dec. 26, 2008
Four years ago, on Dec. 26 2004, at around noon, one of the worst weeks in my life started in Villa Market with some free degustation of Blue Ice Beer, the probably worst beer in the world. While attempting to spew the terrible brew, my mother-in-law called. There’d been some big wave down in Phuket, she said. A few hours later, still dizzy from that indefinable brew, I was in my car heading down to Phuket.
Arriving there with next day’s sunrise, most coastal roads were still impassable, inundated with dead bodies and debris. Couldn’t count the bloated bodies of the dead along the road anymore even after the first day, not to mention the following days. Thailand and the tsunami-affected Indian Ocean suffered tremendous pain. But togetherness and solidarity were strong in those days.
An unseen wave of worldwide solidarity swept the disaster region. Help from everywhere arrived. Schoolchildren and housewives in faraway countries collected money for the tsunami victims. This time around, with Thailand’s political crisis, damage is of completely different nature. But not less devastating — and completely preventable, if common sense could prevail.
Thailand again suffers great pain and we witness no worldwide solidarity whatsoever. On the contrary. Hotels report the lowest monthly occupancy rates they’ve experienced in history. Don’t blame the old government. Don’t blame the protesters. Blame the whole nation that a minority of supremacist do-gooders was able to take their chance.
Nobody can number the damage Thailand suffers in the wake of the chaos campaign. We’re talking billions of baht mainly affecting the tourism sector, which accounts for over six percent of the kingdom’s economy and directly employs some 1.8 million people with many more depending on it.
As a consequence, by having scared off foreigners, a key sector of an economy already reeling from slowing exports due to the global downturn, Thailand suffers another tsunami. The human toll back then was unspeakable, but actually brought tons of money and goodwill into the country and showed the outside world a kingdom Thais can still be proud of.
The damages of then and now differ in nature, but not in real life. Thailand’s politics of impunity with the worst slump in Thai tourism since decades put the December 2004 tsunami, bird flu and SARS in the shade.
Back then Thailand treated foreigners with utmost dignity and respect. Just now, under the pretext of higher morals and ethics, foreigners were held hostage by cheering and smiling, indoctrinated radicals in disguise who enjoyed a lot of fun and excellent food and music at the airport.
With the main reason for the overthrow of the old governments being that they bought elections. Now chief buyers of that old government sit in pole positions of the new government, while none of the principal agitators is in serious danger of persecution.
I know, you heard it all before a thousand times and are tired of the same old outrage. It’s just… Thailand suffers another tsunami and nobody in the outside world really cares. Tough luck. Serves ‘em right.
Ridiculed politics and kangaroo courts and empty beaches and such? Well, who doesn’t love empty beaches. But this sense of freedom comes with a hefty price tag attached.
Once you were proud of living here. Now you’re plain embarrassed or just sad for the country suffering these not only partially self-inflicted pains. Maybe you’re even slightly worried.
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