Weblog for Andrew Biggs

I am like you. I read the news about the killings in the South, and I don’t think much about it. I know that the situation is terrible, but with the killings going on every day, I start to get used to the news. We call this being “desensitized”. And I think that’s the way I have become with the news in the South.

However … last Friday I must admit I was extremely upset by the news of Khroo Juling, the beautiful young teacher from Chiang Rai who went to Narathiwat to help teach the little children there. This amazing teacher spent a year of her life teaching the kids, even though the area she was in was a very dangerous part of the South. She did it because she loved the kids, and she herself was poor; part of her monthly salary was sent to her parents in faraway Chiang Rai.

Last Friday local villagers, angry at the detention of two people on a completely different charge, surrounded the school where Khroo Juling taught. It was lunchtime. These evil villagers ordered all the Muslim teachers home, and detained the two remaining Buddhist teachers. Despite screams for help from these teachers, none of the villagers helped them. Finally, the two teachers were beaten up so badly, Khroo Juling is in a coma and it appears as though she is now brain??dead.

Why does this madness continue? Why do we tolerate such terrible situations to happen? Why do these terrorists choose to attacks schools, teachers … and the children of our nation? And wait a minute … why are Thais attacking Thais? How can an innocent young teacher be a threat?

Islam does not teach this violence. Islam teaches people to love one another and be good. So why, why, why are these horrible people committing such disgusting acts?

It’s time for us to sit down and work out how the three provinces in the far South can live peacefully. It’s also time for villagers in rural Narathiwat to take a good look at themselves. The actions of those villagers last Friday were the actions of crazed animals, not sensible human beings.