War of words

Sombat Boonngamanong and Seri Wongmontha give their views on hate speech from opposite sides of the political conflict. From War of Words by Kaona Pongpipat in today's Life Section.

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War of words

The main story in today's "Life" section of the Bangkok Post is by Kaona Pongpipat and it is entitled War of words and it is about "hate speech", language which causes people with opposing ideas to hate each other. The story is rather long and you might want to begin here with the ideas of two people on the opposite side of the current political conflict. You can then read the full story here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/lifestyle/family/391644/war-of-words

Red Sunday group leader Sombat Boonngamanong. Photo by Apichit Jinakul

''Hate speech is words that promote hatred and aims to create the justification for violence in the end. It's something that reduces the level of reason. For example, if we are to discuss something and we are called kwai daeng or 'Thaksin's servants', then we can't discuss it with reason anymore. It's just a waste of time.

On protest stages, it's a show – not an academic seminar. There's the light, the microphone and the people and it's a place that can create you or destroy you.

It's hate speech when the speakers start to get personal [using something] like someone's gender, family and children and giving out the address or phone number of the person.

Hate speech is an important tool, otherwise how could people come out and sleep on the street? It's building up the emotions in people.

I have to say that this is true on both the yellow-shirt and the red-shirt stages and that is natural. But even though it's an important tool, I really think it can be replaced with the art of rhetoric.''

Mass communication academic and anti-Thaksin protest leader Seri Wongmontha. Photo by Somchai Poomlard

''Hate speech is something that creates hatred, but on the stage we're not trying to do that because the hatred is already there. There are words like gu or meung [informal and impolite Thai pronouns] and some people might say that it's rude, but we just can't use words like pom or khun to people like Yingluck and Chalerm.

People who stand down there listening might criticise, but if you were to play our roles you would realise that you can't talk about bad people [using] respectable terms.

''About the saying that Yingluck is stupid and a liar, it's not to create hate speech – we want people who criticise us to think that we're simply sharing attitudes and truth.

People say that this is creating a divide, but the fact is the divide is already there. We talk about the truth that may sometimes be verbally aggressive, but hate speech is bringing up something that's false to make people hate each other.''

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