Bangkok Rebellion

It's distressing to see the pictures of fires burning under the Bangkok Sky Train and in the most expensive, modern and important shopping and commercial buildings in the city. I have been to Bangkok three times and like it very much. The aura of Bangkok was always that it is a "safe city" for locals and tourists. Walking about at any hour of night was not a big concern wherever one went. Unlike some other S.E Asian countries, Thailand has always had the rightful reputation of being a mellow and tolerant place where gentility is the rule. It's the "Land of smiles". Perhaps that is not the case anymore.

I haven't figured out why the rioting and opposition to the government has crested so suddenly in a nation where peace is far more often the rule than is opposition and violence. Is this a "poor peoples' uprising" against the inequities of a modern emerging nation? Is it a political outburst by a crazed rabble of poor people who came to the city from the under-developed north expecting much, and who flaunt their love for a former, but not overthrown prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and being paid to make trouble to express their desire for his return to the government?You choose or give me another explanation.

Bangkok has had protests before, and Thailand had coups and a number of constitutions since it was declared a constitutional monarchy in the 1930's. But the so called "Red Shirt" violence is random and seemingly arbitrarily cruel. This is a different kind of protest than seen before in Thailand. It would be a tragic outcome, regardless of what political position wins (and it looks like the reigning government is the victor), if Bangkok and Thailand were to now be seen as just another nation, if the uniqueness of Thailand is lost.

While the country re gathers itself, the overwhelming number of ordinary Thai's who are not connected to the protest or even interested in it, wait to be given the word that they can return to work, to grocery stores, and to recreation as before. But will Bangkok be the same to them? Will they face more political disarray and uncertainty. And what of the image of Bangkok, the happy stereotype the world has of it?

We know hot and sticky Bangkok as a great city, an inexpensive place to eat wonderful food, 5 star hotels at 2 star prices, silk suits made in an hour, sexy transvestites who make even the most masculine male doubt his sexuality, smiling beautiful people, bawdy sex districts, a bustling multicultural aura of tolerance, cheap but skilled surgery and more.

Long live Bangkok, in whatever form it chooses to take.