Re: "Looking for 'Asean way' in Rohingya crisis", (Opinion, March 26).
Johanna Son's article is a good piece of mindful reporting on the Rohingya issue. This is far cry from the Buddhist-bashing, hectoring style of journalism from the Western media on the issue.
Her article reflects the "mindful, critically appreciative" style of journalism a number of us who are Asian communication scholars are trying to introduce into Asian journalism programmes, as we believe that the Western model we teach is too adversarial and promotes conflicts rather than solving them.
Johanna's article reflects the values we are trying to inculcate into young Asian communicators, to be mindful and critically appreciative of the socio-economic and cultural sensitivities of the issues you cover and contribute toward understanding the complexities and nuances of working out a solution.
Her article does not talk about a Buddhist-Muslim conflict but looks at the deeper issues that underline people's concerns from all sides.
The article also does not use words such as "war crimes", "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" -- which are adopted by the Western media. It points out various ways Asean countries can learn from each other as well as cooperate to help resolve the problem.
She also rightly points out that it will take years to resolve the problem and most Rohingya will never return to Myanmar as part of a deal.
Perhaps the Asian media could start discussing issues such as whether Muslim Malaysia could help out by taking Rohingya refugees and settling them there as Malaysia faces a huge labour problem. Sometime ago, the Malaysian prime minister and Islamic groups showed great concern for the plight of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar. Will they now make a positive contribution to help resolve the conflict?
Also, Australia has expressed human rights concerns about the Rohingya refugee flow. They have huge tracts of ideal land in Queensland and the Northern Territory around Darwin where Rohingya could be settled and trained to become farmers of tropical produce. Who knows, they could one day contribute to making Australia the breadbasket of Southeast Asia.
Kalinga Seneviratne
UN hypocrisy on pay
Re: "UN staff stage strike over 'unfair' pay cuts", (BP, March 22).
The UN is practising considerable hypocrisy in its approach to general staff salary rates. Just a few years ago, most UN agencies moved to standardised salary rates for consultants, arguing that it was "exploitation" to pay different rates for similar work. This was despite the fact that potential consultants were often willing to accept such a disparity, largely as a result of differing purchasing power in their home countries.
Now, the UN seems to have tossed aside its own well-trumpeted principle of "equal pay for equal work" where it should matter most -- when all of the affected workers are living in the same country and facing similar costs for items. Surely, the UN can find other areas to cut costs without destroying staff morale and demonstrating such hypocrisy!
Samanea Saman
Staying alive on roads
Re: "Highways of inequality", (PostBag, March 26).
John Kane makes some good points but many of his ideas for better driving rely on catching offenders. This being Thailand, where the police face the serious challenge of doing their job when it is more profitable not to do so, I would suggest education of the young and social enforcement.
Use of the highway needs to become a school subject. Kids should be encouraged to bring bicycles to school and do training, then move up to motorbikes and be properly instructed. All schools need to enforce helmet and two-on-a-bike-only rules coming and going from school. No teacher should allow under-age, unlicensed riders through the school gates.
This is about staying alive and undamaged, which is far more necessary than much of the rubbish presently taught in local schools. Thai society has to come to grips with this road slaughter as it's quite obvious the government and the police are not motivated to do so.
Lungstib
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