Hat Yai bombings | 3.04.05

There have been two explosions at the airport and at a Carrefour store in the city of Hat Yai (Songkla), South Thailand’s business hub.

Details are still very limited at the moment, but local TV stations have reported that both were caused by cell-phone–triggerred bombs.

By the time you’re reading this, things will probably be clearer…

Or not. The media both Thai and foreign will be singing the same tired tune that the government’s “hard-line policies” are somehow to blame for these terrorist acts — oh, sorry, insurgencies.

Let’s pause and think about this word choice for a moment, because I really don’t have time to thoroughly debunk the “hard-line” myth. To this very moment, the government still chooses not to call the perpetrators “terrorists” (“ผู้ก่อการร้าย”), opting instead for “ผู้ก่อความไม่สงบ”, which translates litterally as “ones who cause disorder”. And when I said this very moment, I meant this very moment that the Army-run Channel 5 is reporting the news on TV. The word “terrorist” slipped out of the anchor’s mouth once, but just once, and it was a slip. Who can blame her, really?

While we’re at it, we may also look back at the Operation Origami Birds Drop, which Democrat Deputy Leader Surin Pitsuwan no criticized: (as quoted today by the Bangkok Post)

Local people may think the government regarded them as enemies of the state or the relition and so sent paper birds to attack them.

So perhaps this is “hard-line”, too.

The question is: now that the causers of “disorder” have moved up from the fringe of the south (four provinces at the country’s very southern tip) to the very heart of it, will this sort of “hard-line” mentality persist? I hope not.

22:36 ▪ politics

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