สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume II - 2010 Towards A Culture of Peace in Thai Society equilibrium and harmony. A fair, equitable and a modern participatory society, develops only where the needs and expectations of the individual and that of society at large are balanced. To this end, the roles of all parts of the social chain (individual- family-group-community-nation) need to be strengthened. In particular, the link between family and social units above all must be augmented and thus the latter strengthened. Thailand’s Unexpected Conflicts This may not come easily to a society characterized by uneven relations, where someone is always higher, the other lower, someone senior, the other junior. Under such conditions a society of equals hardly can emerge, rather one of patrons and clients, of leaders and followers, of those who control and those that are controlled. Distrust and discontent is likely, pent-up frustration and anger on part of those less or not at all entitled can be bottled up too long and in the absence of a security valve can erupt amidst much fury. Despite – or because of – these inequalities Thais were not ‘familiar’ with strife or open conflict, neither in their private nor in public lives. Only recently has this begun to change, though: now dissent and unrest seem to be ubiquitous as illustrated by constant public bickering, pervasive distrust and suspicion. Continuous attack and counter-attack have become commonplace fueled by mutual reproach and recrimination at the level of politics, even unrest and open conflict has broken out in the South. While its neighbours suffered major internal unrest, even civil wars, Thailand did not face domestic problems of such scale nor open strife for many decades. However, quite ironically, just as the turmoil in those countries seems to be abating, within the past five years civil strife has erupted in the country’s South. Moreover, at the same time, broad economic disparity and sharp political divisions between Bangkok (and other urban centres) and the rural provinces with a host of multi- faceted adverse consequences have now surfaced and become all too visible. Thailand then needs to search for and arrive at a distinctively Buddhist solution that can help to resolve the current quagmire. However the towering role and mitigating influence of Buddhism per se is under an onslaught of ‘modernity’ and ‘urbanization’ and its ‘out of the world’ doctrine collides with the ‘within this world’ message of other religions and, specifically, of Western culture. This culture’s perennial propagation of and relentless drive towards economic progress at any cost (with its core message warmly embraced by a significant part of the young generation) has brought about