In this country that I grew up in, the wonderful Thailand that I’ve been raised to love, is full of rich culture. The people around here are nice most of the time. However, every good thing will always have a bad side to it, and Thailand does too. Back a few months ago, I had to go do a group project in Sociology class in interviewing the local Thai people about what they think about society. In one interview with a Thai lady, we found out about her view on the criminal justice system.

There is an injustice lying behind the “justice”. The lady, probably somewhere in her 40’s and 50’s, talks about her experiences with the justice system as she mixes coffee and Thai tea for her customers (which was us). She told us about how the rich people can get away easily from punishments that they were convicted of by paying the people in power, while the poor will have to accept the punishment because they have no money to bribe anyone with. At that point, she paused, as if remembering something, and spoke in a huff about a particular famous person who had recently escaped punishment from the court. The corruption of justice systems will often benefit one group of people but take away from another. It is not seen only in Thailand, but in other countries as well, because corruption is caused by the fall into power. Those who don’t know how to handle the power will often fall victim to its charm.

In Thailand, there is also a corruption in the system that people have been talking about lately. Even before we knew the result, it seems that everyone has already known that this one specific person will win either way. The tactics that politicians use take advantage of the way the rules are structured in the government. In the latest election, the person who was previously in power had gone and took advantage of equal voting for all members of society (poor and rich). Because the poor were often not educated, they will be more easily tricked than the rich. Also, the poor are also easily bribed with less money compared with the rich. If politicians go for the bribing route, they will most likely bribe the poor.

In Thai class, we learned that Thailand became a democracy due to people who caused a revolution by tricking those working for them. I was surprised to find out the reason as to why the king at that time did not want to give the country democracy was because he knew that the country was not prepared for that system since our education was not as advanced as western countries. We were raised to believe that democracy is good, and those who fight for it are the good people, while those who go against it are bad. But in Thailand, those who “fought” for democracy only wanted democracy so that they’d have power. They were corrupted, and they corrupted the country.