How to change a system

Betrayal. Sweet revenge. Fierce bargaining in a new marriage of convenience. It seems our national politics are back to its nam nao business as usual. What a relief!

We may detest our politicians for putting their self interests first before the nation. We may abhor their blatant greed and total lack of ethics. But the nightmare we've just been through should make everyone realise the danger of impatience and moral superiority under an illusion that politics can be easily cleaned up by just removing one single evil person from the scene.

Nam nao (money politics) should never be condoned. The question now is how to change it when the reckless haste to purify money politics leads to blinding hatred, violence and the country in ruins.

It is like burning the whole house down just to get rid of a few dirty rats.

Don't be fooled, however, by the semblance of normalcy at the moment; it will most likely be short-lived given Thaksin Shinawatra's fierce determination to spend his last baht to return to power.

His well-fed henchmen who oversee the red-shirted army have already declared they won't quit until their nai yai, the big boss, is back to control the game.

Does that mean democracy and peace will continue to elude us?

Most likely, if we insist on blaming everything on corrupt politicians without seeing our own failure to fix social inequality, worsened by our own blind pursuit for money and material possessions that hurts Mother Nature and the rural folks' livelihoods.

Face it, money politics will never go away as long as the patron-client system is alive and well.

When rural folk vote for their patrons' choices, it is only simplistic to blame their decision on greed. More often than not, they do it not for money, but for future protection.

Face it, ours is still a society marked by inequality, lawlessness and the corrupt police system.

When you are in trouble, the law can be bent in one's favour when one has the right connections.

Moreover, upsetting your patrons means risking their wrath and that could put you in a difficult situation. Can we then blame the rural folks for keeping the ties?

This doesn't mean there is no hope.

Democracy is not just about a ballot box game. It is also about having a say in policies that affect one's communities and livelihoods. It is also about being able to take charge to solve community problems together.

And there is a lot of hope on the ground.

Last weekend, community leaders across the country met at the Thailand Research Fund conference to share how they have changed their communities for the better through the power of knowledge. No, we are not talking about textbook knowledge or university degrees, but about knowledge from real-life experiences.

Many villagers are tired of seeing university "acharns" come to study them in their home villages, using information about the villagers and the communities to advance their theories, and then leave.

So they make their own research a communal effort to investigate their community problems, to set priorities, to locate obstacles, and to identify the players and the necessary process involved to redress the situations.

At Nong Sua, Prachuap Khiri Khan, such community action research has helped ease conflicts between farmers and wild elephants.

At Nong Or, Ratchaburi, it led to the setting up of a community savings group to ease the problem of indebtedness.

At Ampawa, Samut Songkram, the research based on local knowledge finally won acceptance from irrigation authorities on how to operate cement weirs without destroying coastal ecology.

At Huay Hom, Phrae, the indigenous Mlabri hunter-and-gatherers are setting up a writing system to record their history and culture to guard their human dignity and cultural identity.

Knowledge is power. Not waiting for the urban elite to recognise their experiential knowledge, these village folk have taken change into their own hands. This is how real democracy grows.