Thais’ Distrust of the Uneducated Runs Deep

Do you think the supposed political rift between the urban middle-class and the rural villagers in Thailand is a relatively modern phenomenon? You also think that the PAD’s infamous 70-30 proposal was the ultimate manifestation of the urbanites’ contempt towards the “uneducated” Thaksin admirers? Think again.

In the 2008 book How East Asians View Democracy by Chu et al., the editors compile results of many ground-level studies in several Asian countries on the topic of people’s attitudes towards democratic values*. Of all the findings reported in the book, the one that particularly strikes me is the respondents’ answers to this question:

“Do you agree or disagree: People with little or no education should have as much say in politics as highly educated people?”

The replies, grouped according to countries, are presented in the table below. The figures represent those who agreed with the above statement.

Yes you read that right. Only 15% of Thai respondents agreed that people with little or no education should have as much say in politics as highly educated people. What is most interesting here is not really the shockingly low figure but the fact that respondents had been chosen using a sampling procedure random enough so as not to create a bias toward either the urbanites or the countryside inhabitants. Most importantly, the Thai part of the study was done way back in 2001, when Thaksin was actually a hero for many in the Bangkok middle-class fed up with the previous Democrat regime. No one was complaining about stupid villagers back then.

So what does this actually mean? I would say that one conclusion we can reasonably draw from this finding is Thais, whether from urban or rural areas, tend to over-value education, believing that people with degrees are the most capable of solving political problems. Readers may still remember the notorious clause in the 1997 Constitution which required MPs to hold at least a Bachelor’s degree. The finding also shows that this distrust of the uneducated is part of the Thai mindset which began long before the Thaksin era, although arguably the rise of Thaksin exacerbated it.

Of course, the way the question was phrased may have been a problem. The “have as much say in politics” part may have been interpreted by respondents as “to have the same amount of input into discussions” or “to be given equal importance in policy-making” rather than something more concrete such as “to have equal political rights” (which the PAD’s 70-30 plan explicitly set out to undermine). Yet it does not change the fact that education (or more specifically, degrees) forms an unreasonably big part of most Thais’ judgement of a person.

Complete a doctorate from abroad, and you are set for a life of joy and easy success  in the Land of Smile.

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NOTES:

* In the book, the authors reveal that the Thai part of the survey was carried out by the King Prajadhipok’s Institute, which they describe as “an independent, publicly-funded research institute chartered by the Thai Parliament.”

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