In Thailand, there’s a darkly humorous saying with a suggestive undertone: “What do stubborn kids deserve?”—a phrase implying that those who disobey must be punished. Whether it’s being caned at school or violently beaten at home, such acts have become normalized in Thai society under the guise of discipline, obedience, and filial piety. But no matter the form of punishment, no one truly wishes to endure it.
Today, in my country, many young people are imprisoned for 3 to 15 years simply for demanding justice. Some are abducted, disappeared, or killed just for speaking the truth. In Thailand, there are countless truths that cannot be publicly expressed—especially through film. Those who attempt to defy this are branded as dangerous threats to the nation, as traitors lacking patriotism. Once, in the not-so-distant past, young men and women were burned alive in the heart of the city simply because they were “naughty kids” who dared to speak the truth. Even more horrifying is the fact that the truth about their deaths was forbidden to be told. Their stories were suppressed, their memories buried, and in some cases, they were posthumously branded as criminals who deserved to die.
This repression continues to this day. Along the northern border, many innocent people have been murdered and falsely accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. In the southern border region, torture and fabricated charges are still used to persecute the innocent. Those in power manufacture violence and then accuse indigenous people of being terrorists, separatists, or traitors to the nation.
In Thailand, being a “good boy” means respecting, accepting, and glorifying military and authoritarian power. Even when these powers break the law, you are forbidden from questioning them. Instead, you are expected to worship these figures who cloak themselves in moral virtue, presenting themselves as the sacred center of faith—molding Thai society into a nation of blind nationalism, hostile to progress and to the knowledge systems of a modern world that values liberty and demands human rights, which have never truly existed in my country.
These are the reasons I continue to make films, even if many of them may never be shown in Thailand, with the little funding I manage to gather.
…This morning, I went to the hospital after breaking my arm while filming a new documentary in the southern border region. My medical records listed me as 51 years and 10 months old. And yet, I only truly awakened in the past 15 years. I wasted more than 35 years of my life trying to be a “good boy” in this country without a future.
Thunska Pansittivorakul
July 18th 2025