Katalyn Voss on Compassion and Morality: Divergences in Perspectives from the Poor in Thailand and the United States

By: Katalyn Voss

January 4, 2010

My final days in Thailand were spent in collaboration with a small, rural community in the northeastern province of Loei in Thailand. The village I worked with, Na Nong Bong, has seen its life utterly destroyed. In 2004, Tungkum Limited, a mining company, began operations of a gold mine approximately 1 kilometer away from the village. Since the start of operations, both the ground and surface waters of the region have become contaminated, the farm yields have consistently declined, and the villages have experienced numerous health problems, such as cyanide poisoning. Villagers have been forced to pay for medical treatment, a weekly water tank from Loei City, and, based on new results from scientific testing of potential crop contamination, the villagers may have to buy all food from outside sources. The increased costs of living have led many villagers to seek additional employment to supplement their farming incomes. Many have left the village for Bangkok or other cities. But many remain on their land, their heritage, and continue to fight for their basic human rights to food, health, and, most importantly, water.

In the United States, there is a community that leads a parallel life to the village of Na Nong Bong. In Floyd County, Kentucky, where the heart of the Appalachian Mountain Range stretches, the landscape has become scarred with over 900 mines. Similar to Na Nong Bong, but more advanced in its decline, Floyd County is a glimpse of what is to come should the Southeast Asian Gold Belt be developed. In this area of Kentucky, over 30 percent of the population lives in poverty. The environmental impacts of the coal industry have obliterated the water sources of the region, caused chronic illness, and slowly degraded the culture of the region. Despite efforts to push the local government and the mining companies to assist and compensate the people of Floyd County, little to no help has arrived.

Two days before my program in Thailand came to a close, I had the chance to connect two worlds literally on opposite sides of the planet. As a conclusion to our final project, my group and I set up the first of what will be many dialogues between Floyd County, Kentucky and the village of Na Nong Bong via the internet tool, Skype, and the help of Council on International Educational Exchange staff for translation. Before the discussion began I predicted that the conversation would give both a sense of solidarity and that, hopefully, Na Nong Bong could learn awareness and media strategies from Kentucky, which I had assumed would be the better off of the two communities. I was wrong.

Throughout the conversation a sense of solidarity did bloom, with both sides laughing together while also discussing the more solemn and distressing issues at hand. One of the main themes was both communities’ efforts to incite change through the local government. Kentucky has seen little progress with this strategy as most of the county's economy is supported by the coal mining industry. Na Nong Bong explained that their method was to protest and to draw on the constitution as well as the morality and compassion of the government officials. They have seen success despite the fact that the local and national government receives over 10 million baht a year in royalties from the mine. The Kentuckian response to the Thai leaders of Na Nong Bong will forever burn in my memory: “"Our government doesn't give a f*** about the constitution or morality”." How could my government, which is publicized as the greatest democracy and one of the most powerful nations in the world, fail its citizens to the point that they are left with no faith and no hope in the government system? When did the United States lose its roots in the constitution and morality? Is there compassion in our democratic system? For the people of Floyd County, the answer is no.

In Thai society, Buddhism seeps beyond the daily lives of individuals and into the fundamental operations of the country. A community such as Na Nong Bong can draw on Buddhist principles to communicate its struggle to a broader audience and garner support for its cause. Two of the main tenants of Buddhism, compassion and the interconnectedness of all human beings, can be used to incite action from others. Of course, this strategy does not always work, and it may only be successful at a local level, but it has had some success. So why does morality and compassion fail to translate to the United States? Why can a small village in a country that is rampant with corruption and has seen countless coups and new constitutions effectively invoke its constitutional rights, but the people of Kentucky, who live in the preeminent democracy, fail?

Maybe part of the answer is in the difference of the role of religion in the two countries. In Thailand, most of the population maintains a standard set of convictions and beliefs, and religion is integrated into both the private and the public sphere. In America, our diverse religious traditions are separate from the public and from the state's operations. There is an inherent connection between religion and morality. Many times, it is from religion that we cultivate our morals, and the entire concept of morality is often tied to one's religious beliefs. But the two are not entirely interdependent. An atheist can be equally or more morally just than a zealous Christian. So, where did we fail? At what point did we lose our morality? Has religion in the United States failed us? Or is morality, like religion, now separate from the state?

Whatever the answers to these questions may be, it is clear that something needs to change. Compassion and morals must be reinstated in our government system. Never in our country should a population feel so isolated and powerless that they lose complete faith and hope in the United States of America. That is not the foundation upon which our nation was built, but it could easily be the crevice through which our nation falls.

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