Thai opinion: Down and out in a blind man's paradise

[webfact]

TELL IT AS IT IS
Down and out in a blind man's paradise
Pornpimol Kanchanalak
Special to The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The woman in her late 20s excused herself from the conversation she was having with a student interviewing her for his research, to do "some business". She came back less than 10 minutes later - and B12 the richer.

The scene occurred in Soi Sa-ke near the Grand Palace, where the woman is homeless, meaning she is not a permanent "resident" beneath her roof of sky and her floor and bed of concrete and soil.

More than 500 people live here - if their existence can be called "living" - just around the corner from the majestic national landmarks of the Grand Palace, Pinklao Bridge, White Chedi, Sanam Luang and Rama VIII Bridge.

They are a motley crew of runaways, addicts (some HIV positive), drug dealers, panhandlers and others.

Many came to Bangkok to join protest rallies, then returned to find life in their rural hometowns suddenly empty after their experience of political demonstrations.

They returned to the capital - physically and mentally challenged individuals whose families have given up on them.

These are people who have fallen through the capitalist fissures, lost their jobs and then their homes. They were either too proud to beg for help from friends and relatives, or they had none to begin with, or they knew they would be spurned anyway as symptoms of a "social disease". They are unskilled, unable to stuff their resumes to apply for a new job

They are children of families who have resided here for decades. But they have little idea what "home" or "family" means. The streets are their school, gangsters their teachers, addicts hungry for a fix their customers.

They are bona fide Thais, but without the benefits that citizenship confers. Either they are no longer registered at their old family home, or they have lost their citizen ID card and can't get a new one without a residential address. Many were born to a mother who has no nationality, is illiterate, or has lost her mental faculties. Without a national ID card, they can't get medical care or access to any other social safety net the government has in place.

There are scumbags who force the already browbeaten homeless to buy their lists of the almshouses that offer free meals around the city. Each and every one has to buy this list, which comes out every week and costs Bt20. They are not allowed to share the lists. The scumbag-purveyors divide the city like personal fiefdoms, lording it over their defenceless prey.

Some NGOs are active in the area, but they focus mainly on handing out food. Perhaps they have been here long enough to believe that whatever effort they make to salvage the wrecked lives will be futile. The problem is too multifaceted to be solved easily, if at all. They may be unwittingly enablers - if the number of the homeless dwindles, so will their donations from the public.

So every year, they will always report that the number of dispossessed and down-and-outs has risen.

Meanwhile, the downtrodden go mechanically on with their "existence". They know neither happiness nor sorrow. Emotions are irrelevant and alien. Each carries a backpack with few items of clothing. When they feel they need to clean up, they pay to enter a public washroom - if they have the cash to do so. As for calls of nature, they pay for them if they have to, or use the side of the road if they can do so without getting caught. They rummage through trash bins in search of empty bottles, cans, paper and leftover food that they can then sell or eat. The panhandlers go to work every day (unless they are too ill) under the watchful eye of their mafia bosses - who will take most of the cash at the end of the day. Boys and girls graduate to selling sex whenever, wherever and whichever way their customers dictate.

These are people who are not just homeless and stateless; they have no hopes, cherish no dreams. To do so would be too unbearably painful. To them, there is no past, no future, not even a present they can call their own. They are just "here", and couldn't care less about "what is" or what is to become of them.

In a nearby parallel universe, gleaming and glorious structures attract admiration from onlookers.

In this universe, the cost of a single upscale wedding party is enough to transport all the homeless unfortunates to a "heaven" beyond their imagining.

The rest of us look at this kind of lavish spectacle with great admiration. We do not see our less fortunate compatriots: we do not want to see; we cannot see. The lure of bright lights and money keeps our eyes are wide shut, oblivious to the plight of a group of people whose lives we refuse to acknowledge.

"For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay -

Except the dream that's almost dead today."

(Langston Hughes)

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Down-and-out-in-a-blind-mans-paradise-30260014.html


-- The Nation 2015-05-14

[Plutojames88]

Quote

"These are people who have fallen through the capitalist fissures"

Unquote

Welcome to the beginning of the long propaganda war and ""slants on truth"" ahead.

Blame the capitalist system for our poverty ( not us)

Thailand faces sanctions , so the government orders the beginning of a multitude of negative western

Rants.

This is subtle , compared to what will lay ahead, ( when they hit) after sanctions get applied

The message will eventually be very North Korean.

Only difference is the poorly applied quotes borrowed usually from western Presidents of great standing and thinkers s for democracy and good of man kind - poets deep , and our essence , audaciously twisted into their version of things

Edited May 13, 2015 by Plutojames88

[trogers]

Take an idea from Singapore. Fingerprints records are made and kept when applying for the first ID cards.

And such records can be used to replace lost ID cards and other documents.

Edited May 14, 2015 by trogers

[canuckamuck]

As if no one knows what homeless means. Another long pointless article I wished I have skipped. I just wanted to know what she did for 12 baht, if that is what B12 stands for. Or perhaps she got a vitamin.

[Praematura]

Global inequality is a plague facing the world. This article on the sales price of a Picasso sold this week raises some valid points.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/upshot/the-179-million-picasso-that-explains-global-inequality.html

[oneday]

Take an idea from Singapore. Fingerprints records are made and kept when applying for the first ID cards.

And such records can be used to replace lost ID cards and other documents.

Nah, this idea is way, way to intelligent for Thailand to ever adopt it.

...and now Singapore has fingerprints for every citizen in the country...a nice little crime fighting tool. I wouldn't be surprised if they start taking DNA samples in the future.

Edited May 14, 2015 by oneday

[Thaddeus]

As if no one knows what homeless means. Another long pointless article I wished I have skipped. I just wanted to know what she did for 12 baht, if that is what B12 stands for. Or perhaps she got a vitamin.

Thank you.

My brain had started to go numb after the first few paragraphs, so I skipped to the replies, you have saved quite a few minutes of my life.

Perhaps the 12 baht was a tip from a stranger that she had advised to stay away from articles like this.

Here is a tip to the author of it, start doing something good instead of just trying to sound good, because you are crap at it, run a soup kitchen instead.

[trogers]

Take an idea from Singapore. Fingerprints records are made and kept when applying for the first ID cards.

And such records can be used to replace lost ID cards and other documents.

Nah, this idea is way, way to intelligent for Thailand to ever adopt it.

...and now Singapore has fingerprints for every citizen in the country...a nice little crime fighting tool. I wouldn't be surprised if they start taking DNA samples in the future.

I think they do, of all males, during their medical checks conducted before military service.

[rametindallas]

With an unemployment rate of less than 1%, these individuals are either lazy or have mental problems. Since this is Asia, soup kitchens for the destitute are out. Maybe they can beg and get into one of the beggars' retraining schools; if only they knew about it. Every society has its dregs and I don't think there is any cure as there will alway be those for whom life is always a challenge. Some choose to live this way, some don't know there is a choice, and then there are the truly helpless. I have read, over the years, of various aid societies that seek out the homeless and destitute to try to help them. Several religious groups have homes for the young women. It is the same in the West. It takes all kinds to make a world.

Langston Hughes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes

[tbthailand]

about the author....

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1277609.html

she pops up on the nation from time to time with one of her elitist rants.

I agree with plutojames - she is deflecting the topic of real human pain from those guilty of causing it and not addressing it. She even tries to blame NGOs as "enablers"

[Strangebrew]

There people who say and then there are those's that do We know which one you are. Your either part of the problem or part of the solution. What you speak of can be any city any country. You can either throw a few baht there way or pick them up and show the correct path. Or do what you do now which from the way it was written turn a blind eye to the problem. Now myself Do I have answer "NO". Do I see the problem? "Yes". Can if be fixed? yes but only to a point if those you help want to be helped. Now the biggie can I help? "No" my visa won't allow due to the fact it may be seen as work. But handing a person some food to feed them is humane and not work while handing cash can be seen as for services rendered.

[WitawatWatawit]

This is a "feel good" story - but not for you and me. Just the author. This kind of writing serves zero purpose other than to massage the author's ego. Creative writing is all well and good, but to present it in the gritty opinion pages where we expect intelligent and thought-provoking articles of current and sensitive issues .... well, some editor is missing the point.

Perhaps she could have finished with the oft-used (but origins unknown) line: "I wonder what the poor are doing today?"

[Godders]

Reading some of these comments, I begin to understand how Cameron was re-elected as Prime Minister of the UK and why Hillary Clinton will likely end up as next President of the United States.

Blaming the victim requires a particularly warped kind of logic and a lack of compassion - one of the few instincts which divides us from our primate ancestors - encountered with depressing frequency among Thai Visa posters.

One can only hope that if and when such individuals fall on hard times, the rest of us will be more understanding.

[WitawatWatawit]

Reading some of these comments, I begin to understand how Cameron was re-elected as Prime Minister of the UK and why Hillary Clinton will likely end up as next President of the United States.

Blaming the victim requires a particularly warped kind of logic and a lack of compassion - one of the few instincts which divides us from our primate ancestors - encountered with depressing frequency among Thai Visa posters.

One can only hope that if and when such individuals fall on hard times, the rest of us will be more understanding.

Wow - talking of warped logic: you've gone from Bangkok street beggars to Cameron and Clinton. Well done. Oh, and be careful with blanket comments - most of us are not "blaming the victim". We're nicer than that.