Resolution for 2003: Join the silent majority

Suthichai Yoon, The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

My friend Daeng has a strange New Year's resolution: He wants to be a good citizen by keeping his opinion to himself throughout Year 2003. "I want to prove that I am a patriot by not expressing my opinion for one full year," he declared the other day.

Is something wrong with his opinion about national issues? He said he thought it was the other way round. In the past 12 months, he thought he was showing his patriotism by airing his views, which often didn't quite tally with those of the powers- that-be. He was naive enough to think that a good, honest citizen should be faithful to his thoughts and that his views, no matter how divergent from those of the mainstream, would be respected.

"Shutting up is hard to do. But it's the highest form of sacrifice of a patriot under the current political atmosphere," my friend said.

He says he is ensuring that the Silent Majority will remain silent. He used to be on the side of the "noisy minority", and it was lonely, frustrating and futile out there.

"Time magazine could go ahead and name three women from the FBI, Enron and WorldCom as Persons of the Year because they were 'whistleblowers'," Daeng said. "But no whistleblowers in Thailand will ever survive, not to mention be recognized as outstanding citizens."

Daeng would be the last person to volunteer to expose wrongdoing in his workplace. He is a typical, spineless, heartless bureaucrat.

"I learned the hard way that by speaking out about what you really think, you alienate yourself from friends. By disagreeing with the government, I am now being ostracized. My friends now look at me with a strange expression when I ask whether the economic recovery will really be sustainable," he reported.

Friends now say Daeng is a heretic who could soon become a social outcast if he doesn't turn over a new leaf.

"Just like the target of the Red Guards of China during the Cultural Revolution, I am now practicing self-criticism every day," he said. "I now call myself a revisionist and next year I am imposing total silence on myself. I will be Year 2003's non- opinion man."

I told him that self-censorship is as bad as, if not worse than, state-imposed muzzling.

"This is the whole point," he said. "Big Brother doesn't admit his existence. There isn't any overt censorship. People don't tell you to stop airing views they don't like. They just tell everyone else not to talk to anyone who doesn't agree with the non-existent Big Brother. Censorship that isn't there. That's why it's everywhere."

I told him that although the Constitution doesn't specifically say so, self-censorship is very detrimental to a democratic system. And I suspect that he is deliberating muzzling himself just to be accepted as a real, good, full-blown Thai citizen again. He is exploiting self-censorship for his own benefit, I said -- and that could go against the spirit of the current liberal Constitution

He said his biggest mistake in the year ending next week is exactly that: He thought he was doing his constitutional bit by speaking his mind. And he got clobbered. Now, he knows better: The problem wasn't that he continued to speak -- the real issue for him was that he was speaking his mind. And that's becoming a dangerous habit.

By muzzling himself, my friend expects to be rewarded with the widely-acclaimed recognition of being one of the 62 million Thai patriots. Nobody wants to be among the remaining one million people in the "gray area".

A year of surviving dangerously for the ordinary people doing ordinary things (such as thinking freely) has finally coming to a close. The New Year promises to be a much less complicated time for those who think they can still afford the luxury of thinking for themselves: Put up, or shut up.