μολις ξεκινησα ενα απιστευτο βιβλιο (στα αγγλικα και ζοριζομαι) μια βαθια ακτινογραφια της ταυλανδικης κοινωνιας!!! αν μπορουσε να εκδωθει και στα ελληνικα
No Way Out
by Chart Korbjitti
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Rating:
Reviewed by: John Walsh
In a tiny shack on someone else's land in a slum in Bangkok, Boonma, his wife, father, and children, try to make lives for themselves that have something more to offer than the endless grinding poverty and misery they have faced so far. Alas, this is not possible. There is literally no way out from this poverty and the cycle of debt into which it leads Boonma. Instead, there is crime, victimisation, prostitution, theft, violence, imprisonment, sickness, and suicide. Faced with these difficulties, Boonma blames his wife and later his daughter for seeking some money for food and necessities for the family. He himself is away for lengthy periods as an indentured fisherman on a rust bucket in the Gulf of Thailand. This occupation eventually brings about the final disintegration of the family when Boonma's ship is taken by the Burmese coastguard after having illegally entered Burmese waters: Boonma is flung into a prison that is nearly the death of him.
We have the chilling ending printed on the back cover to warn us of what lays ahead: "Boonma was sentenced to death, but the court commuted the sentence to lifeimprisonment because of his full confession. He didn't appeal to the Supreme Court. He did nothing, except quietly accept his sentence. Sometimes, late at night, fellow prisoners heard him wailing, like a tortured animal, alone
" In the 150 short pages of this novella, we learn what appears to be the inevitable fate of Boonma and his family and the many others like them condemned to lives of poverty. First written in 1980 and made available in English in 2003 through the mostly spare and elegant translation of David Smyth, Chart Korbjitti's work continues with the demands for social justice and the terrible waste of human aspiration and capital enforced by capitalism that he has written of before, perhaps most notably in The Judgment. This is nevertheless a very stark portrayal of a society in which the poor are not valued and in which no safety net exists to protect the weak.
Has anything changed since 1980, for better or worse? The answer can only be a qualified one since it is still too easy especially since the 1997 crisis for people to slip between the cracks into the worlds of crime and prostitution through losing their job or through the illness of a loved one who needs expensive medical treatment. There are few other options open. However, the introduction of the 30 baht health scheme and the imposition of a minimum wage, however low it might b at US$3.50 per day, have helped some and the increased role of NGOs and the media have raised awareness of the problems. On the other hand, the new plague of HIV/AIDS now disproportionately affects the poor, as bad things nearly always seem to do.
