Cod Satrusayang: To Thailand in the coming times

All that is missing is a homeless man on a street corner holding a “The end is near” sign.

But take a look around the country, at the images on TV and in the newspapers. For all intents and purposes, the end is already here for most of the country. Even our token homeless doomsayer can’t exist because if he did he would drown.

I have heard many stories, many of them from close friends who have lost much of what they’ve been building for the past few years. Others have lost not only their livelihoods but their homes too amidst the worst flooding the country has seen for at least 70 years. 

So then what avails us through the night? What light guides those who lost their way? In tragedy and despair, where do we lay our hope?

It is true hope may be hardest to find in this dark hour, but hope is exactly what we need. Perhaps we find solace in some of the images that have come out from this disaster. There have been many that have moved us to tears and sorrow, of flooded streets and sunken homes.

But the images that move me most are the ones that bring me hope.

For what is more inspirational than the pauper, the old beggar, with nothing more than his clothes upon his back, emptying his cup of alms into the donation box?

What is more inspirational than two steadfast political enemies, one an intellect of haughty disposition, the other the heiress-sister, joining together in time of need and putting aside their differences to work as one?

These images and more showed that we were united in our grief and suffering, as well as our efforts to alleviate the suffering of our countrymen, now more than ever.

I am guilty of not always being the most optimistic about Thailand’s present or future. Oftentimes it is our divisions, our differences that seep through the cracks.

Oftentimes our pride and our greed take center stage in even the best of us. There was something about politics and business at home, which brought out the worst in us.

Perhaps the biggest regret amidst the lost, the pain and the suffering is that now we finally stand united.

Only by straying from providence have we found our salvation. Did we really need a natural disaster to make us see that our greatest strength lay not in the fairy-tailed rhetoric of one-sided politics or the mad schemes of some corporate tycoon?

Does it always take some form of tribulation for us to recognize that our best attribute lay in plain sight all along?

When the floodwaters recede and we begin to rebuild our country we can only hope that the goodwill continues. Perhaps it is naïve and foolish to think that political bickering and partisanship will not return, that the greed of men will be superseded by the warmth of brotherhood. Perhaps.

But let us hope against hope that we finally see that our future lay in the arms of one another.

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

- John Keats