Showing 91 - 100 of 288
A backpack, bombs and a land of fear
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/09/2016
» The photo just broke your heart: A little yellow backpack with a cartoon pattern, crumpled on the road in Narathiwat after a bomb. We can imagine the rest. A few minutes before, it must have been slung on the back of a five-year-old girl before a deadly blast knocked it off. She was killed along with her father, Mayeng Wohbah, at 8.25am outside a school in Tak Bai, a place that has seen too many deaths, adults and children, over many years.
Hanuman help us from a 'happy' ogre
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/09/2016
» The crusader has returned to the gate, ready to crush the infidels. I thought the new buzzword was "Thailand 4.0", whatever that means, and yet this week we're still arguing if a portrayal of a mythical ogre in a music video is blasphemy, a transgression against the high culture of Siam, the culture that stares down from a pedestal, that exists like a taxidermied animal on the altar of an abandoned temple.
For a ghost of a chance, use your talisman
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/10/2016
» On Wednesday Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha talked for 135 minutes at the Bangkok Post Forum, more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Monday combined. And this isn't even an election campaign. A good soldier, he's unfazed by the presence of enemies and microphone. From the podium, arms outstretched, the PM touched on a lot of topics: Thai education, the economy, Section 44, Thailand as a "developed" country, the 20-year prophecy, etc. But what struck me like a hammer was when the general mentioned ghosts.
Youth strike fear into old, cold hearts
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/10/2016
» We can imagine the scene: Twenty policemen mobbed a 19-year-old boy arriving at the airport immigration. They took him to the detention quarters and kept him there, refusing communication, and consequently sent the entire world into a manhunt frenzy. Where's Joshua Wong? What has he done? Or more directly to the heart of the midnight stealth: What did the Thai authorities fear? Why did the mighty state have to send 20 officers -- not five, not 10, but 20 -- to whiz away a skinny boy on a red-eye flight? A boy whom I bet never won a fist-fight in his high-school yard.
All aboard for a 'Thai-Thai' referendum
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/07/2016
» The word "Thai" means "free". But when you repeat the syllable and say "Thai-Thai" (with a dismissive laugh), suddenly it means "fake" -- it means we've bent whatever rule the world has to make it suitable to our temperament, emotion and impulse. For example, when you're not sure if your principle is solid, your stance firm, your democracy authentic, or your coup justified, there's a simple way to shut down the argument: just say it's baab Thai-Thai, "in the Thai way". Then, if everything is not forgiven, at least it's understood.
Army 'image' trumps the people's truth
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/07/2016
» Her uncle was beaten to death in an army camp and now she has been sued for revealing what happened. On Monday, Naritsarawan Kaewnopparat was arrested and charged for defamation and disseminating "false information" -- meaning the details of her uncle's harrowing death at the combat boots of his drill sergeants, who caned and kicked him from evening until past midnight back in 2011 at a Narathiwat barracks. Ms Naritsarawan, who has been fighting for a semblance of justice for six years, denied the charges and was released on bail.
Breaking into song on the big vote day
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/08/2016
» Tomorrow is the day. Are you ready? Really, are you ready?Keep calm, get dressed, put on your Sunday smile, and head out to … No, not the referendum booth, or maybe later. First you really must go to the Scala Theatre in Siam Square, where for the first time in Thailand in decades, The Sound of Music will play on the big cinema screen with its historic overflowing of saccharine -- and with one of the strangest anti-dictatorship sentiments ever shown on film.
Pokemon goes on run from state capture
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/08/2016
» No, they will not ban Pokemon Go, though it's not hard to tell how tempting that idea must be in the post-referendum landscape where peace, order and national security have been constitutionally enshrined.
Serving up cruelty, a taste of 'Thainess'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/08/2016
» The debate on the meaning of "Thainess" always fills me with patriotism and stomach ache. After last week's bombings, the army chief warned us to look out for people who wore hats, glasses and carried backpacks, because "Thais don't do that". The general meant well -- that we should watch out for suspicious agents of terror -- but the way he framed it was a crass, militaristic way of monopolising the definition of something that is shifting, malleable, even undefinable.
Going S44 cold turkey is going to hurt
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/08/2016
» There's a Thai phrase, fon lai chang, the rain that chases out the elephant. But the heavy rain on Wednesday night managed to chase out something bigger than an elephant: the Bangkok governor. I hear people popping champagne corks.