YouTube banned in Thailand

So Thailand has been hitting the headlines a lot recently. What ever happened to those quiet days when you never heard about Thailand and was quite happy to be from the country with good food, good weather and good boxing? (oh alright…good prostitutes)

So YouTube has been banned in Thailand? Why? A video of the showing the defacing of a King’s picture and later that same person stomping on it has been posted. After reading the post on DailyTech (which was not so surprising) I read the comments by the readers. At this point my thoughts are racing. Yes, I am upset here’s why.

A quick question about prostitution in Thailand

A few days ago I got an email from a college student asking for help on one of her papers.

“…quick question…okay so i am writing a research paper on types of slavery that sitll occur today, sexual exploitation being the focus. My research shows that the highest occurances are in the Thai culture. They say that young girls, who do not have opportunities for education, use sexual favors as a source of income to provide support for their fam. Have you heard anything about this, or if it was an issue in Thailand when you lived there? I am just interested in hearing the opinion of someone who wasn’t IN the environment that bread such horrific acts, and see if it played a role in her life at all. “

What follows is my answer :

What’s up with Thailand?

So I talked to my mom in Thailand today. She told me about the new bomb warnings for tomorrow (or is that today with the time change) in Bangkok. Since the bombings this past New Year there hasn’t really been any new infromation about who is behind all this. Theories are that its Thaksin’s cronies (but seriously, what would he hope to gain from the bombings) or the Muslim insurgency which is very troubling to me as Thailand has always been a country where people of different faiths coexist side of side peacefully. That is what made Thailand a great country despite its many shortcomings. It has always been a peaceful nation…now I am not so sure anymore. Anyways the theories seem to change weekly. Right now its the islamic insurgents being blamed.

A month ago I recieved a very disturbing email from a long chain of emails. The subject was simply “soooo bad” I read the attachment (see the Email attachment in Thai). It was basically ways in which the Thai muslim community should act so that the influence of the muslim community grows within Thailand. One instruction advised muslims to have as many children as possible to enlarge the Muslim community, urging the buddhist monks to fight amongst themselves, ’stealing’ more buddhist children to train for bomb making (since apparently they only have a couple of hundred trained ones left) It made me very sad. Although I am not saying this is true, the fact that something like this is sent around really makes me wonder what is happening to Thailand?