Passing
by a kindergarten or elementary school one can observe that the children are no
longer capable of talking to each other or to anyone else. Instead they make
sounds more meaningless than a flock of crows or a pack of barking dogs,
competing to make the loudest noise. But now this malaise has spread to
university students as shown on a video of a welcome for new entrants by the
students of Thammasat University;
See http://www.bangkokpost.com/vdo/thailand/632560/youth-gone-wild
This
is glorified idiocy. Perhaps one can excuse it on the ground that any rational
and sensible exchange between students and new arrivals would be suspect.
Thammasat students have a glorious history, perhaps their present day avatars
are screaming in frustration at the anomaly of pursuing an education in an
atmosphere of illiberal repression. A few days ago I visited a political
prisoner; a student prisoner walked by but turned to greet us with a three
finger salute. All hail, student, your salute was more eloquent than the screams
of the mass of frenzied Thammasat neophytes.
