By now many Thais might have already decided as to where they stand on the fiercely emotional debate over proposed amendments to the controversial lese majeste law. After all, there are only two choices: will you or won't you sign and support the proposed amendment presented by the Nitirat group of law lecturers?
I, for one, have already decided.
Regrettably, though I am confident that Nitirat and the Campaign Committee to Amend Article 112 (CCAA) have good intentions, I cannot sign a petition that would legitimise criminal penalty for an act of lese majeste, even though the maximum penalty might be cut to three years as opposed to 15. My principles and conscience will not let me sign because I do not believe in criminalising free speech.
Whether you support Nitirat or oppose them, you should carefully read through their proposals and related literature from all perspectives and not fall for conspiracy theories that do not come with supporting evidence or that might be part of a hate campaign.
Nitirat and the campaign committee's proposed three years maximum penalty is possibly a pragmatic concession to the royalists. We can always debate as to whether another, albeit much less talked about, proposal from the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) is more pragmatic and realistic, especially since they propose that the maximum penalty be reduced to six years instead of three. However, where do we draw the line between principle and pragmatism?
Perhaps there's never a satisfactory answer to all this as it depends on where one has placed his or her priorities. I received an angry e-mail from one well-known scholar, who is a member of CCAA, after I made it known publicly on prachatai.com online newspaper that I'm far from satisfied with the way the campaign is being run. I feel that the whole process could be much more participatory, transparent and that the proposal from Nitirat had "already been completed" without any public deliberation.
Members of the general public are, therefore, just facing a ready-made top-down passive choice on whether or not to sign the petition. This is unfortunate because the involved groups could have made the campaign process an act of participatory democracy and public deliberation.
The angry academic, whom I have known for years, wrote to me in English, saying: "CCAA is not public-financed, not run by tax money, not an elected office. Nobody paid them to do this. It is a temporary campaign by private citizens. It is not a secret campaign … What the CCAA have done is as OPEN as a campaign is supposed to be. They hope that once the draft is presented to the public, then the public can debate … Then it's up to the Parliament to bring this draft up for discussion or not."
It is obvious that I and the scholar, who shall remain anonymous, see things differently. It may be inefficient to involve more people, including members of the general public, to form small groups for deliberation even before the proposals are made and take part in selecting the first 112 committee members. Often times, the general public is left with little or no choice but to passively support one group or the other.
Such passivity and dependency through a top-down approach cannot bring about a democratic culture. Whether the law is amended or not is important, but the democratic and participatory process in driving or opposing the campaign is no less important.
The public deserves to be treated better than having to choose between one group or another, with little or no say in how the stance of each group is formulated.
