Since the ceasefire was enforced a week ago, I cannot tell you how I should feel about the whole situation. My compatriots were filled with hate you would not have seen since Germany had its pogroms against the Jewish population of their own in WW2. It was frightful to see the horrors of history being repeated here in Thailand. Those who deny the history of World War II are deemed to repeat them again, and for my country, that kind of parallel history is indeed a thought filled with fear. Now, I wished I could tell you how I feel about this. As a person studying International Relations, it felt like I’ve been cursed with the knowledge I attained. Looking at how history is being repeated in your own country, especially when you know that any pro-peace stance, or the calls for compassion and understanding have been met with a resounding parade of pitchforks and torches, at least metaphorically on social media.
The worst part of it all? Not only my Thai friends and close relations seemed to go along with the crowd. The fact that my Cambodian classmates, many of whom I have cordial relations with, all seemed to eat it all up. Their education, no matter how high it is, felt irrelevant when compared to the nationalistic fervor they’ve subscribed to. Nationalism, on display in the past few weeks and months, have been thought to be a senseless drive for violence, and yet it was here, clear as day, and intended to entrench even deeper than one could imagine. Even with the horrors of history, the past that began from nationalism did not help them steer clear from the fact that their consent was manufactured from the very start. It can be considered self-serving, on my part, for many of the readers who may comment that my saying all these things are nothing but the ravings of a naive, starry-eyed student. But if that is the case, then why do we study history at all in the first place? Why is it that we studied errors of history, both ours and the others, only to repeat them again? At the end of the day, people died on both sides. Whether deliberate or not, that fact remained. My only question remained as well: Why then? Why send young people to die in a senseless war where armchair generals just sat their heavy bottoms in the air-conditioned offices, when the soldiers were being dragged away from their loved ones only to die in a conflict no one asked for, and nothing was gained.
I do not care who started it. I only care about one thing: What of the dead people? Their families? No one knows. Merely a statistic on the board that no one bothered to read. I could only implore that whatever peace that was holding now continues to be held, I only wished people who cheered for war, as disgusting as it was, will now realize the true cost of it all. We made mistakes, we erred. We’re capable of coming out of it. But for those who did not heed the warnings of history, are doomed to repeat it, again and again.