Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok Thailand, has been closed by protesters

Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok’s new International airport has been closed for 4 days now by a group call PAD, the People’s Alliance for Democracy. 

I’ve been anxiously searching for and following news from many different sources because I’m concerned about the chaos that’s going on. The result is I found a lot of disturbing blogs and Twitter postings. These are some examples:

“Thai Government should break down the protests with violence,”

“PAD are the terrorists,”

“Thai people are so uneducated that they let PAD rise to power,”

and worse.

As I am Thai born and raised, their comments show little knowledge about Thai political history. Some of the bloggers even admit that they’ve never been to Thailand.

I’m surely not a PAD supporter,n nor do I support the UDD, the United Front for Democracy Against the Dictatorship, either. There is another group in Thailand who, even though they are anti-corrupt government, seek peace. They are known as the “White Shirt” group.

I know America is a free country and people can say whatever they want about anything but let’s face it, Thai government and PAD leaders will not make any decisions based on your suggestion. Rather, what you expressed might disturb Thai people, as it did me.

I would like to ask a favor of you. If you are not Thai or at least do not clearly understand what’s going on in our kingdom, please keep your opinions to yourself and do not publicly express uninformed comments. Please, do not insult people that you do not know. Please do not suggest violence just because the result of it doesn’t affect you or your family personally or even your country of citizenship.

Why would you make yourself sound ignorant when you do not need to? By not posting a casual opinion on something that you do not truly know about, at least you do not cause irritation and indeed insult to the Thai people, who all hope that this chaos ends peacefully.

Comments

[Alan Cordle]

Asking people to not express opinions on their blogs and twitter accounts is a bit odd. If you are offended/troubled by the postings, why not just search google news instead?

[cat]

Being in Bangkok for during that time was... not scary, but tense. My fingernails are still growing back!

The first thing I did was go to the Thai expat forum.

So yes, I do know exactly what you mean.

People were mouthing off and the majority didn't know what they were talking about. They were just being hurtful.

I didn't know what to make of PAD, so had to wade through post after post to get what little real information there was to be had.

I'm glad I did as I now know more. But it was irritating to read so many nasty opinions.

At one point a lady started mouthing off and... the forum monitors had to edit my reply... ooops.

I regret jumping on her the way I did as I totally lost my temper (as you know, it's not well thought of in Thailand).

And as a westerner getting upset, I can only imagine how the Thai people felt reading the same cacca.