Thai Pragmatism

That famous Thai Smile, known throughout the world, is supposed to broadcast "friendly, relaxed, welcoming" to the rest of mankind. However, that is really just a marketing ploy. The Thai smile actually means "disarming, masking, wiley".

Underneath the thin veneer of civility, Thai people share the same pragmatic brutishness as the Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Burmese of recent history. All they need is the people in charge... the government... to tell them to drop the pretense, and you will have a country of little brown psychopaths on your hands.

And the Thai government tends to do that with lethal guile: First it was the war on drugs, where the government winkwinked and nodnodded the message "the only good drug dealer is a dead drug dealer." Bam: 1,300 drug dealers off the streets... with bullets.

Now the Thai government is turning its focus to the unrest (read: terrorism) in the south of Thailand. Not only is the message, "the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist", but they are arming civilians down south as well.

About 20,000 residents will be trained and armed in the three southernmost provinces enabling them to defend their villages and spy on the movements of insurgents in the restive region, commander General Ruangroj Mahasaranond said yesterday.

Well, I never said it wouldn't work: Maybe 20,000 armed villagers with a license to kill is just the kind of enema that Pattani needs.

And yes: Those 20,000 Thai people will have a grin on their face a mile wide as they gun down the terrorists, and pretty much anybody else who they think needs killing. It just won't be the same smile you see in the tourist brochures.

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UPDATE:

So as not to scare off the tourists... (1) The Thai people are a communal people. Civility, service, and respect are utmost in their attributes. Violent Thai people, as a rule, are rare and frowned upon by Thai society. They would only practice violence en masse, such as is described above, with permission from community leaders (as is the case with most civilizations on earth). (2) Pattani is a world away from Pattaya and the rest of Thailand, and Muslims who are up to no good would have a very difficult time sneaking their way up the very narrow isthmus of Thailand through Buddhist (i.e. foreign) lands to cause mischief outside of their own provinces... and the terrorists have shown no indication that they ever plan to even make the attempt.