Day 4 – the voice of Youth

Today is work day.

We spent the entire day at Chiang Mai university, first attending a lecture followed by conducting focus group discussions and interviews with students and faculty of CMU.

We conducted our focus group discussion with a group of 3 CMU students, majoring in political science. Their command of English was impressive. I was very excited to interact with them. Our discussion lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, during which we discussed questions relating to Youth culture and the usage of social media as a platform for expressing personal opinion. Listening to these students once again highlighted the differences of our cultures. In terms of governance, culture and education system. I learnt that it is Thai culture to be more conservative of their thoughts, as Thais are intolerant to minority views. Due to the messy political situation in Thailand, people are also wary of voicing out their opinions online in fear of negative repercussions. For this, they value security over freedom of speech. It is, again, like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basic security has to be fulfilled first, before they can even think about rights such as freedom of speech. In CMU, the students are also not educated on media literacy, causing them to misuse some online political postings. From the interview, I gathered that it is the fear of the government, lack of platforms/education, and years of conservative Thai culture that led to self-censorship and the lack of expression. These youth, like the students we spoke to are passionate and concerned, they have strong opinions, but yet they lack the adequate platforms to voice out the changes.

I do not wish to place us “above” Chiang Mai, neither am I implicating that the Singapore system is better than Chiang Mai’s. But as the day draws to an end, I think about how lucky we are, for the education we receive in Singapore, our stable political scene, our strict but democratic and orderly governance. Sometimes, I feel like we may be too privileged that we don’t know what it is like to fight for such basic rights. I myself am guilty for taking these things for granted.

Education is such a precious opportunity.

Janice Leong