Summer School

For a while it seemed that everybody here was either really agitated or really depressed about Thailand’s troubles. Around that time, the middle of last month, when things were at their most explosive and the international press was updating standoff stories every few hours, the U.S. Embassy offered to evacuate employees’ family members.

Nobody I know was nervous enough about the situation to accept the offer, which expired today. I did hear a rumor that some international school kids, at risk of failing their finals, had successfully begged their parents to send them away. The program, known in official State Dept.-ese as “Authorized Departure,” demands that the evacuees return immediately after the offer expires. Pity the students who thought they were off the hook. Sounds like their plans for the rest of the month now include summer school.

Generally speaking things are again calm, at least on the surface. A curfew that lasted about ten days, and got progressively shorter as time went on, has now ended (though a state of emergency is still in force). The newspapers are now dominated by stories about politicians talking to one another rather than communicating through the press or via speeches.

Of course it’s just a lull in the action. No doubt a nasty plot is being hatched somewhere out of sight, and cells of people with narrow agendas are regrouping, and the military is scripting its reactions for what to do when the elections don’t turn out right.

Let us pray that all of the leaders associated with the recent conflicts also spend some time in summer school. The craziness of the past few months turns out not to be unique in Thai history. Dead ends, snipers, even arson on a grand scale have all appeared before in the long-running drama soap opera that is politics here.

Thus far I’m not convinced that the lessons of the earlier episodes have been absorbed. Last week Thaksin was formally accused of supporting terrorism, a decision that seems to play right into the hands of his well-paid spin-doctor squad. Coming up are debates about the current flawed constitution, and about lifting the ban on participating in politics for more than 100 members of dissolved parties. Compromise on those controversies will be much tougher now than they might have been before recent events, but looking back at the many examples in Thai history of following the middle way may help move things forward this time.

On a positive note, more than 10,000 volunteers, most of them young, turned out last weekend for a city-sponsored clean-up of the protest sites. Perhaps if the people lead, the leaders will follow?