Re: Iconoclasm & Heresy in Bangkok

Thank you, Bhante, re:

> On the day after the incident the man's
> father testified that his son had had a decade-long history
> of mental illness.

None of the newspaper accounts I read mention this (your mention of it
here is the first I've read of it) --and so I remain at doubt as to
whether it is fact or rumour.  I am also very much in doubt as to
whether two street sweepers were so highly motivated at to kill the
fellow, or if this was a swarming by a crowd, but only the street
sweepers were charged with the crime.

> Given the problems in the South of the
> country it was prudent of the local media to emphasize his
> being mad rather than the fact that he was a Muslim.

What seemed to me remarkable was that they emphasized that *he* was
mad, not the people who decided to kill him; the shifting (social)
definitions of madness are of interest to me, and it seems that a man
who destroys a "unique" statue is deemed mad, while a human life
(presumed to be of no such unique value) is of little significance
when destroyed.  Thus, "madness".

There still has not been a single arrest or investigation for the more
than 2,000 murders that were carried out in the first months after
Taksin's election --despite condemnation from everyone from the King
to Amnesty International.  Thailand has an interesting mix of
attitudes toward murder; they remain, e.g., extremely sentimental
about killing stray dogs, but not about stray people, nor cows, etc.

E.M.