(Original title: Thai netizens "discriminate against northeasterners"? Why are honest northeasterners trampled at the bottom of the chain of contempt? ）
"Regional discrimination" is the innate root of inferiority of human beings, no matter what country, what era, what political system, it carries this stinky disease.
China had the North-South War, the "Manhole Cover Killer" and the "Look at You"; the United States had the "Red and Blue Confrontation", and the East and West Coast White Left War "Red Neck" in the Midwest.
Even if the territory is as small as Japan and South Korea, there are "Kanto people" who ridicule "Kansai people", and "Gyeonggi Province" and "Jeolla Province" are opposed. Even within a province and within a city, it is necessary to divide the northern and southern Jiangsu and the eastern city and the western pass, and despise each other behind closed doors.
This is about the BUG that comes with human genes, and if you don't get together to spit on others, you will be overwhelmed.
Now, it's Thailand's turn.
In recent days, a group of Thai netizens opened a chat group called "#Clubhouse Toxic" on the social platform "Clubhouse", and threw map cannons wildly inside, fiercely triggering a wave of online civil war among Thai netizens.
The target of these Thai netizens is "Northeastern Thais".
In Thailand, there is an exclusive term in the northeast called "Isaan", which is transliterated as "Isan" Chinese.
On the Internet, those netizens did not know which door they smoked, and carried out crazy insults and attacks on the "Yishan people", and specifically picked the most ugly words.
What "uncultured illiterate", "flat-nosed gorilla", "poor ghost who grows rice for rich people", "savage eating dog meat", "black Thai", "unmarried pregnant girl base", etc., scolded quite vigorously.
Not only did it list the garbage vocabulary of the Northeasterners in Thai society at one time, but it even invented several new words.
In addition to these stereotypical influence words, netizens have also involved some well-known Northeasterners in Thailand.
For example, Lisa, the most popular Member of the Korean Girl Group in Thailand, was born in the northeast, so it was said: "If the Isan area is a place for individuals to stay, why does LISA not go back to her hometown to stay?" Fortunately, she went to Korea, which was much better than staying in the Ishan area. ”
Such a blatant, concentrated regional attack, unprecedented, provoked public outrage in Thailand.
The trash talk in this chat room, after being exposed on Twitter, not only angered the Izan people, but also made the non-Isan people angry.
Even the head of thai government and opposition leaders have come forward to take a public stance on the wave of invectives.
For example, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha personally stated that although Thailand is divided into different regions, every Thai person is the master of Thailand, and they are all compatriots linked by blood, and they should treat each other as equals, overcome difficulties together, and not engage in internal division at this difficult time.
Former exiled prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck also came forward and got involved in the war of swearing.
Thaksin said: Some people with small bellies and chicken intestines always like to engage in discrimination and confrontation, and they are not satisfied with provoking political divisions among the Thai people, and they also want to engage in class antagonism and regional antagonism.
Then he turned sharp and began to connote the Prayuth government.
"The reason why the northeast is backward is not that the people of the northeast are not good, but that the northeast lacks development opportunities, and Thailand's national budget is spent in the capital Bangkok, which really discriminates, and should also discriminate against the Thai Government's long-term favoritism and corruption, rather than discriminating against those people in the northeast who have been disappointed by the government..."
Yingluck said: The villagers in the northeast are simple, kind, sincere and generous people, everyone is Thai, and they should not discriminate against each other.
Thailand is now facing global competition, and should have united to compete externally, to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor internally, and to unite together to promote national development.
Northeast Thailand, and northeast China, have a very similar place - comedy bigwigs emerge. Turn on the TV, what variety shows, sketches and cross-talk, basically all are ruled by "Northeasterners".
Therefore, the famous Thai comedian "Mum Jokmok" (if you have seen the "Thai hilarious movie clip" on Douyin, you will remember who he is when you look at his face) also came forward to confront netizens and asked " What is the northeast where are you sorry for you, to be so humiliated by you?" Thailand's four districts, each with its own way of life, as long as you are happy, love the land! ”
Netizens from all over the northeast have also come forward to call the battle.
"I'm a northeasterner, and I don't know what those Thais who curse the northeasterners grew up eating?"
"Although we are not rich, but our parents have taught us to respect others since childhood, what about you (swearing netizens)? Did Daddy teach you? ”
"All day long I asked me, 'Do you northeasterners eat dog meat?' I never eat dog meat, when I was a child, my family was poor, what wild mushrooms, bugs, lizards I have eaten, even if there are northeast people eating dog meat is not strange, not to mention that the vast majority of northeast people have never eaten dog meat in their lives! ”
A war of online invective that has evolved into a nationwide online rebellion, even in Thailand, is rare.
However, freezing three feet is not a day's cold, the invisible discrimination of Thai society against the Northeast Isan people has always existed, and it is only a matter of time before it breaks out.
Why discriminate against Northeasterners?
It is not so much a "geographical conflict" as a "political agenda".
The reason why Northeast Thailand is discriminated against is cultural, economic and political.
The most fundamental reason, in one word: poor.
The Itan region in northeast Thailand, located in the Oh Ratchasima Plateau, is deep inland, with poor resources, and has nothing to do, since ancient times, it has been a land of poor mountains and bad waters in Thailand - even "mountains and rivers", and tourism resources are about equal to zero.
On the plateau of the Hirakawa River, there is only one thing to do, and that is to cultivate the fields.
As a result, the densely populated, economically single northeast Thailand, the economy has always been the most backward area in thailand, the only thing produced, is rice, and population.
In the eyes of the rest of Thailand, especially the wealthy Central Plains residents, northeastern Thailanders are a group of "hard farmers" and "poor migrant workers."
The roots of discrimination are laid.
Economic poverty has political consequences, and high levels of geographical disparities often turn into class conflicts.
Since ancient times, the people of northeast Thailand have revolted, and the entire Isan region during the Cold War has almost become the base of the left-wing revolution, and every three to five minutes there are oppressed peasants, fiercely fighting with the landlords.
After the collapse of the Thai Communist Party in the 1980s, the "revolutionary tradition" of the people in northeast Thailand was endless, and gradually evolved into today's "red shirt army", the political stance of "anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism and anti-military government", is the most resolute attitude and the strongest wave of anti-system forces in Thailand, some red shirt branches still retain armed forces, and some bomb attacks in Bangkok in the early days of the Thai military coup may have been done by the red shirts.
After Thaksin's birth, through a series of policies to benefit the people (such as providing loans to farmers), he won the enthusiastic support of farmers in northeast Thailand, and the result was that in every election, Thaksin would win.
Anti-Thaksin Thai townspeople feel that Thaksin is "bribing the people" and using money to buy tickets, resenting the peasants in northeast Thailand for selling their votes for "a little money", so they hate the Isan people even more.
Culturally, the Yishan people of northeastern Thailand actually belong to the same ethnic group as the Laotians. Language and culture, living habits, food and music are relatively close to Laos, but they are estranged from the mainstream of Thai culture.
Economic differences, political antagonisms, and cultural barriers have led to the increasing exclusion of Northeasterners by Thailand's so-called "mainstream population."
There are knots in the heart and no mercy on the mouth. People in central Thailand often ridicule northeasterners for "collapsing nose bridges", "black skin", and "eating dog meat" (in fact, there are very few northeasterners who really eat dog meat), from differences of position to personal attacks, so the beams are more and more knotted.
As for the Northeasterners themselves? In fact, there is also a breath in my heart.
In the face of the "city people" in the central and southern regions, the northeast villagers are half inferior, half unhappy, poor people can only leave their hometowns, send people under the fence, how many of them are sad and happy, bitter and sad, so that the northeast folk songs are always a sad relation, a mouth is "brother I quit my family and go to the west, sister you marry far away to Europe", desolate and complained.
The northeast woman is very beautiful, and her hometown cannot be retained, so she has to go far away to Bangkok, and even marry europe. No matter how Izan lang sings in a low voice, he can't stop the northeast girl from sitting on the wedding car in Bangkok and becoming the bride of Europe.
This, in turn, has become another major excuse for Bangkokers to despise the Northeast Isan people, similar to the contemptuous ridicule of "Beigu" in Early Hong Kong movies.
Men sell coolies, women sell uterus, dialects are not understood, voting is too impulsive - this is basically the Thai "decent people" view of the hearts of the villagers in northeast Thailand, but just put it in their hearts and do not say it.
After all, I couldn't hold back and accidentally said what I said in my heart, which became today's "online insult to the northeast" major incident.
In the human world, there are always all kinds of unfair things, a place, a race, whether it is "despised because it is not in contention", or "because it is snubbed, it is always a paradox of chicken and egg that is not clear.
But for whatever reason and background, it is unacceptable for people in one country to insult another group of their countrymen.
From 2011 to 2014, I taught Chinese for three years in Sarakhan, northeast Thailand.
If you have to let me, an outsider, evaluate, I can only say: I can't see at all that the Yishan folks in northeast Thailand have any reason to be insulted.
It is true that they are not rich and not so polite, but their minds are like the endless plateau of northeast Thailand, with the power of simplicity and innocence.
To put it bluntly, the purity of the folk customs and the sincerity of the people's hearts in northeast Thailand are by no means qualified to be ridiculed in a place like Pattaya, Bangkok.
Poverty itself is not worthy of praise.
But the antagonisms and conflicts arising from poverty should never be used as a reason to despise and ridicule the suffering.
Fortunately, the Thai people still understand this truth.
Looking at ourselves with this mirror, do we really understand this truth ourselves?
Text: Thai net Yue Han