I was guilty of the very thing that this
blog has tried to point out in others. Prejudice. I started to watch the video
having already decided that it would portray Thailand in a bad light. I was
anxious to find any slight that I could report. Then the objectivity kicked in
again. There was a half-hearted attempt in the opening scenes, to portray the
tough living conditions in Bangkwaeng Prison in Bangkok. The narrator told us
its western inmates had dubbed it the Bangkok Hilton. This is a disservice to
the creators of the 1980s Australian TV series of the same name, but it gets
the idea across. Thais call it the Big
Tiger because it devours its inmates. Now that is scary.
We were left in no doubt that the prison is
overcrowded, that the inmate population has a raft of mental health issues
(like all prisons around the world) and that general health care is poor. Then
the film took the most bizarre twist, turning into what was almost a promo
video for anyone who might want to take up residence. Mr. Connell from
Manchester got an allowance from a British charity, food and vitamins from the
Embassy and his only complaint was that his leg chains stopped him from playing
football with the other boys. They were
coming off next month, so that would soon be sorted.
Other prisoners were portrayed as losers
who were pretty much getting what they deserved. The sentencing was harsh but
they were self-confessed criminals who seemed to blame everyone but themselves
for their fate. I was waiting for
someone to say, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime”. Even the Thai
executioner was given a top-notch billing and there was a very devout looking
monk who would have made Hanging Judge Jeffries look like an emissary from a
Human Rights Commission. By this time, I
was baying at the screen for them to look at the corruption that favours the rich over the poor but it was not that sort of film. This is a great
collection of interesting clips from inside a world famous prison. It has no
agenda to present a poorly argued smear campaign, but it still fails my test of
good journalism.
You have to ask yourself, how the
production team got unprecedented access to the inside of the prison. You might also wonder what the Thai
authorities thought when they saw the video. My guess is that they would have
been thrilled.
There
are two episodes, watch them here:
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