A Problem That's Been Left To Fester For Too Long: Thai Opinion

[webfact]

STOPPAGE TIME

A problem that's been left to fester for too long

Tulsathit Taptim

Whoever masterminded the bomb attacks in the deep South over the weekend must have started off like many of us.

THAILAND: -- Whatever they are now - terrorists or evil - a good chance is that they, at least once in their lives, must have harboured pure ideals. A better chance yet is that they still believe they are acting for the greater good.

Evil, in many cases, is goodness gone awry. Many wars take place because human beings can't peacefully decide whose version of righteousness is better. Sometimes, selfishness plays its part, like fighting to control natural resources or to wipe out potential enemies. Sometimes, quite often in fact, we choose to do the wrong thing just to prove that we are right. Good can't match evil, and we don't have a choice but to fight the latter with its own kind.

People say there is no excuse for what happened in Songkhla and Yala on Saturday. That is true. But the lack of an excuse doesn't mean things like this will never happen again. Things like this are not up to those who find them inexcusable; they are up to those who can excuse themselves for doing them.

That is the advantage of terrorism. Immunity against condemnation and self-guilt are what enables it to sneak past any society's defences and strike at its heart. Security measures are just deterrence. We feel safe not because there are metal detectors at school gates; we do so because we don't believe anyone would just walk in and detonate a bomb on a busy playground.

If anyone is hell-bent on doing similar, he or she will just wait until a hotel or department store makeover makes the alarm and anxiety fade. It's hard to say who is playing cat and who is playing mouse. In the context of terrorism, the hunted is also the hunter.

Yala was an emphatic message that the hunters can do evil anywhere and any time they like (in the province, of course), and probably on any scale of their liking. Hat Yai was another no-nonsense warning that it was not limited to Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, that there are more mice out there than just those in remote schools, temples or rubber plantations.

Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has told us that the situation in the deep South may be a little more complicated than extremists running amok who can't differentiate right from wrong. The Yala and Hat Yai bombs, he said, could have been the result of several militant factions struggling or fighting to get attention. If any dialogue, most probably informal, is to be initiated with the insurgents, it should be totally inclusive, according to Prayuth.

Dialogue is one of the most controversial terms where this kind of problem is concerned. But if what happened in Yala and Songkhla is any indication, other efforts over the past decade are definitely not working. When the line between idealism and extremism is crossed, turning back is far harder than going for broke up ahead.

The Thai authorities will tell us they have tried virtually everything, and have had to resort to many damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't measures. The weekend bombs are in effect the most disheartening message that the efforts have been virtually all for nothing. The worst part is that no matter how we react, it could backfire. This is a problem that feeds on purported solutions like no other.

What are we supposed to do? What can we do or say to people who believe unwaveringly that they are doing the right thing? Send them a stern message back? We have done that. Send them love? Tens of millions of origami birds showered on the deep South in late 2004. The region has been always been a rebellious child, and any effort to rein it in has either been futile or provoked new aggression.

The failure may come from a simple cause. When parents become preoccupied with their own domestic issues, they forget their problem child. This child may have started off like many of us - smoking, partying or drinking - but lack of attention has allowed worse vices to take hold. For more than a decade now, our politicians have been busy fighting for power, state officials watching political winds, and the military paranoid over its own turf.

We have learned that it doesn't take much for pure ideals to darken. Lack of communication, respect and understanding wreak havoc faster than most people believe.

A decade is more than enough for a "just a small group of bandits" problem to become Yala and Hat Yai over the weekend. A decade is long enough to drum it into some people's heads that killing and hurting innocents is the right thing.

-- The Nation 2012-04-04