Graft won’t go away

An old friend of mine, a reformed addict, used to tell me that denial wasn’t just a river in Africa.

I bring this up because I have an awful feeling the Thai people are in one of the most serious cases of denial any country has ever suffered.

They appear to have the misguided belief that corruption is not a big problem and will go away if you don’t talk about it. Sadly, corruption here is not just part of the system, it is the system, and everyone from the village headman up in local government is working on ways to transfer funds into their personal bank accounts.

The military, police and government have far too many individuals who could never explain the source of wealth that has brought them multiple houses and cars, but that’s OK because they will never have to do so. Banning open discussion is the government’s way of solving the problem leaving little chance that any real proactive agency will ever be initiated to fight corruption.

It has taken a bunch of students and a few elderly activists just to get this subject aired and only then after threats of arrest and incarceration.

Is Thailand really so short of citizens that permanently fail to see the elephant stampeding through the china shop or has the threat of jail been enough to silence the honest?

Foreign authors that have been here a few months write far more honest versions of what goes on here than anything I read locally. Deny it all you like but Thai officials and corruption are presently so closely joined they could be called Siamese twins.

LUNGSTIB