Showing 1 - 3 of 3
Popping the question of hero or killer
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/03/2016
» A hero to some is a murderer to others — how I wish the world were less tortuous.
Going to jail for writing is a horror story
Business, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/03/2013
» Interestingly, getting people killed can't be as bad as disturbing people. Fatal recklessness isn't as unforgivable as deliberate provocation. At one extreme, murder is sometimes more tolerable than writing. To know how to toe the line, to know what to write and what not to write, has become a political as well as literary dilemma - and here we're talking about Chinese Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan's semi-endorsement of censorship and jailed editor Somyot Prueksakasemsuk's sentence for breaking the lese majeste law. And we thought clemency was the way of our world.
Madness, badness, sadness
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/04/2012
» Horror was replayed, because all exorcism is a form of inevitable horror. First, one of the prosecutors of the Norwegian court read out the names and details of each of the 77 victims killed by Anders Behring Breivik on July 22, 2011. "She was at the water's edge... Shot dead." "He was in the Big Hall of the cafe. Shot dead." "He fled and fell off a cliff near the island's west point... Died of fall injuries and/or drowning." Then again, and again, and again: "She/He was near the water pump. Shot dead." The frigid, literal, unwavering police prose of the report gives you the feeling that you are walking into a graveyard. Or a morgue. You look away but the screams continue. Then comes the horror of Breivik's claim that he is sane. Of his vow that he "would do it again". Of him announcing that the victims were not "innocent". Of him insisting that he acted out of "goodness" to prevent Islam from becoming a major threat to European civilisation. Of his malevolent bombast that what he did in downtown Oslo and a youth camp on Utoya Island last year was "the most sophisticated and spectacular attack committed in Europe since World War II".