EDITORIAL: History is no place for hysteria

Published on Jul 1, 2002

While governments engage in propaganda wars, people should remain calm

The tension between Thailand and Burma has gone from bad to worse with the latest exchange in a propaganda war. As emotions run high and no attempt at conflict resolution is forthcoming for the time being, let's hope that the neighbourly relationship will not so deteriorate that it is beyond salvaging. It is important that both governments do not turn the present conflict between them into deep hatred among the peoples of the two countries. After all, Thais and Burmese cannot move their countries away from each other. Despite the ups and downs throughout past centuries, we have always been neighbours.

The salvos of propaganda, first from Burma and then the Thai side, do not help make things better.

All they do is hide the root causes of the conflict, which makes a solution ever more elusive.

When the conflict between governments is turned into popular nationalism, the consequences can become unbearable, even dangerous. Human catastrophe in many major past conflicts, including the Second World War, were partly a result of nationalism that turned ugly.

History is always called into service with a purpose, not always honest. In this case, the Burmese government touched upon Thailand's most revered institution with ill intentions.

But the views of Ma Tin Win, the Burmese historian who authored a series of insulting articles in the New Light of Myanmar, do not necessarily reflect the view of her Burmese ancestors.

In a Burmese royal chronicle, King Bayinnaung of Burma may not have treated our King Naresuan as his favourite, but he seemed to have a lot of grudging respect for the young prince of Ayutthaya.

He sounded irritated when his armies failed to defeat Ayutthaya after several attempts because the capable Naresuan was leading a strong defensive army.

Our own ancestors also knew how to treat historical stories wisely. King Rama V and Prince Damrong Rajanubhap, known as the father of Thai history, commissioned a Burmese scholar to translate Burmese chronicles into Thai.

The king appeared to enjoy reading it as he indicated in his notes attached to the translation. A reprint of the chronicle and the king's writing was released by a Bangkok-based publishing house last month.

Thai historians have repeatedly pointed out that the wars centuries ago were not between Thailand and Burma as two countries but between Ayutthaya and Hamsavati as two ancient kingdoms fighting to gain control over smaller chiefdoms. That's why we saw Pitsanulok, then an autonomous chiefdom, siding with Burma when it attacked Ayutthaya in the 16th century.

The concept of country and national boundaries as we know them today is a newly constructed one dating from colonial times over a century ago. The map of Thailand that shapes our understanding of the country's territory today appeared for the first time in 1893 as a result of negotiations among Siam, Britain and France.

If we read history more critically, we will not be easily provoked by those cheap "historical" plots invented by the Burmese historian. Why should we live with the lingering mistrust that has been created by misunderstandings and distortion of history?

What happened in the past belongs to the past.

Today's reality is that we have millions of Burmese in the country doing hard and low-paid work, fishermen, farm hands, construction workers, manual labourers and housemaids, that many Thais would not even consider.

As neighbours, the two countries are more closely linked by economic wellbeing than their feuding leaders would care to admit.

As peoples, today's Thais and Burmese have no particular animosity between them,

The problem is that there are limited opportunities for people-to-people contact, mainly because Burma is ruled by a dictatorship.

Amidst the propaganda campaigns being waged by Rangoon and Bangkok, the Burmese and Thai publics must remain calm and not allow emotions to have the better of their good judgement. The truth is neither the military government in Rangoon nor Ma Tin Win, who are trying to instigate hatred for Thailand and the Thai people, are at all popular with their own people.

The Nation

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