The Nation has regular updates from day 2 of the Sanam Luang protests - it saves me from having to listen to the protests! We have this gem from Amarin Khoman who The Nation calls a social critic. Rubbish, he is a hardline nationalist. Him, Sonhdi, and Prachai belong together. Ok, the quote is:
Amarin likens the anti-Thaksin rally to the pro-democracy rally in Philippines against then president Marcos 20 years ago.
Amarin blames Thaksin for the deaths of thousands of drug suspects.
He faults Thaksin for thousands of deaths of people by tsunami. He says if Thaksin was an effective minister, the deaths could have been prevented. Amarin says Indonesia declined to warn Thailand because Thaksin failed in foreign policy and infuriated Indonesia by accusing it of supporting terrorists in the deep South.
COMMENT: There are over 120,000 people confirmed dead in Indonesia, and just over 5,000 people in Thailand. After the tsunami, Indonesia was interested in setting up a regional early warning system. He is simply plucking statements out of thin air and calling them facts.
Now, to think newspapers actually allow him to write opinion pieces. Yes, you, Bangkok Post. How do you let this fool write pieces for your newspaper?
Try not to pre-judge - what did the guy actually write in those opinion pieces? Even if we don't agree with his views, you're saying he should be effectively censored?
I am not going to ask the government to censor his views. Anything he writes though should come with a well-worded disclaimer though about his business interests. Also, don't go calling him a social critic. Call him, a nationalist and or a member of the anti-Soros, anti-IMF brigade.
He is also the one who likes to do the supressing of other people's views. He likes to sue, or at least to threaten to sue, people who disagree with his nationalist and xenophobic diatribes. To restate my concern, I can't believe he is taken seriously as a writer who writes (or at least wrote) a semi-regular column.
Yes, newspapers need to have balance and offer alternative views, but not every crackpot needs to have a semi-regular column. There is that guy who runs the steel business as well whose name escapes me. They appeared to be writing from the same scriptbook - Prachai and Sondhi are the same.
Well, you know the Bangkok Post's archive system means that older pieces are hard to find. I can't remember how regularly he wrote, but it was regular enough to be wary of looking at the opinion/editorial section. Here is one piece.
THAILAND'S SURVIVAL IS AT STAKE. Although, I remember much worse.
From what I understand about the media in all parts of the world, "social critic" is a euphamism for "left-wing activist." I mean, isn't "social critic" how the media label Noam Chomsky?
Tettyan
This guy is no left-wing activist, although some members of the extreme left, sounds like right-wingers to me.
He is certainly on the right, far off in cuckoo land.
Amarin made this point long time ago in a Thai Post op-ed that was reprinted in an anti-privatization leaflet. Let me see if I can find it for you.
This is one of the countless things that I never got around to blog about. Thanks, JW.
JW, news organizations practice self-censorship all the time without government intervention. The effect is the same - a view point is not presented to the public.
I agree though that newspapers, being limited in column inches it can print, should excercise discretion on what gets out there.
I guess I should trust your assessment of him as and a crackpot and fool, but I'm reluctant to as I haven't seen his work too much.
Naphat
Not wanting to go to off-topic but this is related to our previous debate about the cartoons.
To me, the cartoons stopped becoming merely cartoons after the protesting started, they became news.
Yes, newspapers need to make choices on which columnists to publish. I wouldn't necessarily call this self-censorship, but this is different from news reporting. I don't want newspapers censoring the news (or facts), but I don't mind them limiting opinion pieces by crackpots. This is not news, it is opinion.
I am sure Tom can dig up some articles by Amarin and then you can pass judgement yourself. I am not pointing to an article in particular, but as subscriber to the BKK Post at the time, I do remember he wrote a number of opinion pieces. I am sure in parts he had a good argument, but I found most pieces just deteroriated up into an anti-IMF, anti-western, and anti-Soros tirade.