Responsible History Education Action
  • ไทย
  • บทความ
  • About
  • Links
  • Educators
  • Action
  • Stuff
  • Blog
  • บล็อก
  • QR

A Tale of Two Maps

3/27/2014

0 Comments

 
Thailand is well-known as a nation that is welcoming to foreign tourists. Data displayed in the map below from the Washington Post agrees. 

Thailand is a great destination for tourists, as it is indeed friendly and it welcomed twenty-two million foreign tourists in 2012 according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.  Twenty-two million people is an especially sizable amount in a country of sixty six million.  The impact of tourism is not seen in all places in Thailand equally, as tourists tend to congregate in specific places that are marketed to them. 
Picturehttp://all-that-is-interesting.com/25-maps-make-sense-world/25-maps-welcoming-foreigners









Does this mean that Thailand is a tolerant nation?  Acceptance of visitors is not the same, as this map below shows, with many countries as well as Thailand.

Picturehttp://all-that-is-interesting.com/25-maps-make-sense-world/25-maps-racial-tolerance
"Another race," is not defined further on this map as 'race' is a difficult thing to define. 

What do you think may account for the different information given by these two maps?

0 Comments

Some Tips For Teaching History in Thailand

1/26/2014

0 Comments

 
slavery-Chulalongkorn- Thailand- 100 baht- note- moneyThe back of most 100 baht bills shows King Chulalongkorn freeing the slaves in Thailand.
History can be a challenging subject to teach in Thailand for a number of reasons. The vocabulary is often about processes that are sometimes hard to make visual or translate for English language learners. Students can also find it difficult to relate to some of the material or understand its value.





Relate Ideas to What Students Know

Student centered teaching methods have been popular in Thailand for some time (even though many educators can't agree on what the term actually means.) It helps to use something familiar or interactive to engage the students on a topic.  For example, when discussing slavery a teacher could show a 100 baht bill, something the students have seen many times.  Asking the students' Thai Teacher what he/she is doing in class may also help you find material that the students already know. 


Use Media


Some teachers may have a projector or smart board in their classroom which can help to make ideas more visual. Photographing and projecting the back of the 100 baht note will be much more visually compelling and show the image more clearly. Google Earth is free and also works well in teaching Geography, you can start from where your school is and enter the country that you are studying and the globe will spin to show you the location searched.  Younger students enjoy pretending that they are 'flying' there.  Video is also a great tool but unfortunately some of them are narrated to fast to be understood by English Language Learners.  Many free video programs can be used to slow down videos to make them more understandable and YouTube has automatic voice captioning (which will make some mistakes that can be corrected when uploading videos.) 


Use Humor


Horrible Histories is both a video series and a book series that students enjoy.  There are lots of other ways to try and add humor to lessons whenever possible.  Adding humor when the subject is appropriate helps to keep students interested and when the subject is too serious for humor the seriousness is emphasized by the absence of humor.  Again, media and video editing are useful in using humor as funny history is easy to find.  Below is an example cut from Monty Python's Life of Brian that was used in a PowerPoint to review Roman inventions in a unit.  While showing the entire film would not be suitable, this short clip with text added for clarity and review helped students remember. 


Make Interactive Displays


While not every school has a projector in the classroom, interactive displays can also be made from paper.  Timelines can be hung up as a border around the room with the years that you will study written on them.  Once a new event is discussed in class, students can pin it on the timeline making a visual display that they take part in.  Maps can also be interactive as borders change and sometimes overlap in history.  Kite paper readily available in Thailand is semi transparent which can be cut and tacked to a map marking a place, people or event and blue tack can also be used to move labels, pictures and borders around on a map.  
Picture
Map display for a Grade Five US History class.
We will be adding more suggestions and resources as we find them.  Please let us know if you have things that you would like to add or your own teaching tips to share!
0 Comments

Bringin' Reason Back is Sadly Not Sexy

1/19/2014

0 Comments

 
Hitler- Mustache- Thailand- Thai- Abisit- Thaksin- Nazi- Politics- Newspaper- Bias- Nazi chic
It was bound to happen again.  Thursday, in an online 'survey' Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck overtook Adolf Hitler as "The World's Worst Leaders," former Thai PM Abisit was also listed at number thirteen.  The survey was from the optins.com, an entertainment site that does not claim to be scientific or news based. This has been restated as a reputable source and disseminated into the political discussion.  [Link to the Bangkok Post article at the end of this post.]

No, just no.

We are very opposed to these comparisons being made as they spread ignorance and signal the end of reasonable discussion.  We are very pro-reasonable and believe that facts, empathy and understanding History are ways forward for all. 

Godwin's Law has faded from popular use on the internet, but it was an informed idea that perhaps needs attention again. Godwin's Law is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1989 which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."[3][2] In other words, Godwin put forth the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all online discussions—regardless of topic or scope—inevitably end up being about Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin's law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread Reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued[4] that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact. [Italicized text from Wikipedia.]

Flip references to Hitler and Nazis also diminish the understanding of the twelve million civilians that died, those that suffered under the Nazis and those that lost their lives on the Western Front during WWII. It is a lesson about the danger of considering any human any less than human and it is one that the World needs to know.  Crimes against Humanity still continue today and knowledge is the best and first defense any society has to prevent them. 

We are promoting reasonable, empathic discussion and education. Perhaps that isn't as sexy as memes that attract attention or impassioned speeches given to people that already agree. But reasonableness is sugarless, has no trans fats, gluten free and a good value too.

Bangkok Post article: Thaksin Worse than Hitler, Give Us a Break
Quick Review: Our Who is Not Hitler video
0 Comments

Nazi Chic, Nazi Memorabilia and Oddness

11/5/2013

0 Comments

 
November 5, 2013
Last week, while looking for Nazi items for sale from Thailand available internationally, we found more than a few odd items.  Some were not objectionable, some were the Seven Star merchandise we've known about and the others show a general lack of knowledge about the symbols and usage (see below.) 

Swastikas- Thailand- Odd- Nazi Chic- Nazi- Hitler- Bangkok- Thailnd- Pins- Amazon- Seven Star- sale- Gegen- SS- nazism
Who would buy this collection? Click to see this seller's items.
There are two sellers we found on Amazon from Thailand that sell various items that include Swastikas (and we don't mean the Indian version) and the other items that they sell represent a vast array of themes. This indicates to us that these sellers do not fully understand the historical context of the images.  The seller above, AWESUMS  sells pins with a variety of themes including bands like Linkin Park, Justin Beiber and the Bee Gees as well as other figures like Che Guevera, Mao Tse Tung and Paris Hilton.  We are not by any means writing this as a free advertisement, just giving the context.

Nazi- Swastika- Thailand- Thai- Amazon- Marylin Monroe- Disney- Swastikas - Eagle- Thai
What do Disney princesses, Liverpool FC and Nazis have in common? No idea really.
Above is a screenshot from THAISTUFF 168's Amazon shop that once again shows these items surrounded by a bunch of other non-related things.  We linked these pages on the day of writing which show the items only to show that these screenshots are real.  You can decide for yourself if you wish to write to the sellers or Amazon about the issue.  [Full disclosure: we do receive a small percentage of money for items bought on the Literature page of this website from Amazon, but not these items linked above.]

All of the items above have been produced recently, are not historically important nor informed.  But what about the buyers, why are they buying these items?  To find out, I looked at a Nazi flag that was linked on all of these pages under:
Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed  and found these:  (Click on the picture for the actual page.)
Amazon-nazi-flag-Thailand-Thai- Bangkok
Three of the reviewers feel the need to explain their verified purchase of this item by telling the reader that it is part of a collection about history, some to the point of nearly apologizing.  One says it is for an event (somewhere there's a blog with a post, "Why I Fired the Party Planner,") and another taste-challenged individual hung it in his room and describes it as, "Quite a head turner."  While most of the motives of the buyers here seem fine, a few fetishize the images which desensitizes a serious human rights issue and dehumanizes those that suffered the Holocaust.

Nazi memorabilia is banned by law in Austria, France, Germany and Hungary and the major auction houses in the UK will not sell even the genuine items.  Aside from the general offensiveness of the symbolism these items hold, there were several reasons for this legislation- they do create a platform for hate by clearly showing support for it exists and it is sometimes questionable who profits from the sale of these items. 

In Israel and the US, the symbols are not banned because it is considered a restriction of individuals' freedom.  People that use the symbols openly are part of a subculture that knows its origin and are generally detested by the majority of the population.  Hate speech and hate crime laws are complicated in both countries but generally large private communications companies tend to have rules in place that prohibit hate speech. 

In Thailand, the symbols are not banned but past international controversy forced sellers of Nazi and Hitler themed items to be a bit less blatant about it.  In the past the images would surface and an incident would gain international attention, the people involved often apologize and the cycle repeats itself.  Our concern is that the incidents are more and more common and the controversy fails to have a lasting effect.  We do not advocate the banning of the symbols in Thailand for two reasons.  First, some of the swastikas in Thailand originate from the Indian symbol and while it is often obvious which is which, there can be a grey area.  Bans also are ineffective in Thailand, they backfire often and things that are explicitly banned can become more popular.  The song "One Night in Bangkok" was banned in 1985 here and it still enjoys popularity here, probably more than it would have without the ban.

People decide to collect these items for various reasons, some of them collect for legitimate reasons and those people are often allies against bigotry.  While we find the idea of a hobby collecting the items a bit off-putting and odd, we aren't against off-putting and odd. (What do we like to look at and talk about outside of work?  Definitely not Nazi stuff.)  So, here is our latest infographic on the issue and next time we will blog about Nazi swastikas versus Indian ones.
Nazi- nazi chic- thailand- thai- Hitler- Hipsters- History- UK- France- Germany- Hungary- China- Taiwan- Korea- Japan- India- infographicClick for interactive graphic

0 Comments

Talking Subculture

10/7/2013

0 Comments

 
PictureFrom Japan, but really!? We're speechless.
It seems that the group of people in Thailand that consider Nazi and Hitler items to be fashion are part of a subculture. That may sound like good news (and it is partly because not everyone is wearing this stuff) but it is harder in some ways to reach out to a smaller more niche group.  Globalization and the retro craze have made all sorts of things crossover and things get a bit complicated.

The closest comparison with this subculture would be to punk, as the music and the crossover into art seem similar (disagree? Let us know in the comments!)  And so, we're off to study this working theory and this Thai subculture further.


Picture
Picture
Perhaps with the Worldwide retro fashion craze nothing is dead (even though we're really hoping harem pants are.)  Originally, a few of the early punks of the 1970s did wear swastikas on shirts, usually they were handmade and almost all of them were destroyed after the marker fumes wore off and people came to their senses.  The one thing the retro craze can't bring back is context, and that is something that gets lost in time and translation.

Our next project is still being researched, and it's on this very subject. While its necessary to give the history and context, we want to lighten things up and make it fun and hopefully reach the people that might be influenced by punk.  We're by no means anti-expression nor anti-punk but a good look at meaning and message is necessary.
red hair post punk
The author, if only to prove that we're totally okay with looking funny.
0 Comments

An Infographic for Clarification Purposes

9/15/2013

1 Comment

 
It started as a flowchart, but that became so complicated that it looks like it should be a video, not an infographic. 

Even this chart ended up having an 'interesting area' where the yellow and blue overlap, which is not easy to explain.  Things that parody would often fall into this category, which can be a grey area.  A few references we won't even weigh in on- an example being Seinfeld's 'Soup Nazi'.  It is not glamorous, it is based on a real person while some find it amusing and others find it de-sensitizes people to the issue. 
infographic-RHEA-Hitler-reference-History-Responsible-Education-Venn-Action-guide-Hitler-reference-Seinfeld
Thailand-Thai-Nazi-Hitler-Adolf-Bangkok-On Nut-Tee shirt-swastika-fashion-controversy-hate speech-Bang NaSpotted in On Nut, Bangkok.
The image on the left is more along the lines of where our concern lies. There is no context in the image that says the image is a comment or a parody.  While sometimes English language can be mangled on tee shirts in other cultures, we still scratch our heads as to why these images and this language is chosen.                                                            

Symbols are sometimes misused when used outside of the cultures they came from, and when they are people often get offended.  As the World continues to get smaller, we all benefit from learning more about each others' values and sensitivities. 

1 Comment

When is a Hitler joke okay?

9/5/2013

0 Comments

 

What do you think?  Give us our very first comment, respond, pontificate, write a song, speak your mind, have a dialogue (keep it respectful please.) 
And while we shouldn't have to say this, any and all hate speech will be pointed at while laughing and then unapologetically deleted.

Perhaps a flowchart is in order?

Since we're asking, we thought some media that is funny should be included.  Be advised that the last youtube link has a fair amount of bad language.  Video clips after the jump.


Read More
0 Comments

    There is only 'us'

    We strongly dislike hate.  We want to be rid of 'us and them' thinking.  So join in and join us!

    Tweet
    stuff-lady-3d-cyan-red-toaster-retro
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    April 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Action Requested
    Campaign
    Culture
    Discuss!
    Discuss!
    Education
    Even We're Shocked
    Is It Art?
    Media
    Poll
    Poster
    Teaching Tips
    Thailand
    We Do Have A Sense Of Humor

    Thailand- nazi- blog- thai- hitler- adolf- rss- arrow

    RSS Feed

Want to use some content from this website?
We're flattered!  Go ahead and use content here for good (not evil, please) and we'd really just like a citation/link/statement of your undying love.  Go forth!

หากคุณต้องการใช้เนื้อหาจากเว็บไซต์ของเรา?
เรายินดีเป็นอย่างยิ่งที่คุณนำไปเผยแพร่ในทางบวก  และเราจะปลื้มจิตมากถ้าคุณจะกรุณาให้เครดิตเว็บไซต์เราด้วยนะจ๊ะ



Disclaimer: We are a non-partisan, non-profit, non-sectarian organization.  We make good-faith efforts to verify the information provided in content and links, however links do not constitute endorsement.

Privacy Notice:
Any personally identifiable information supplied by persons or organizations at this site may be used by The Responsible History Education Action and will not be sold to unaffiliated third parties.

ข้อจำกัดความรับผิดชอบ: เราเป็นองค์กรไม่ขึ้นกับพรรคการเมืองใด ไม่แสวงหากำไร และไม่แบ่งแยก เราพยายามอย่างเต็มที่ในการตรวจสอบข้อมูลก่อนจะนำเสนอเนื้อหาและอ้างอิงลิงค์ในเว็บไซต์นี้ และเรามิได้ใช้ลิงค์ที่อ้างถึงเพื่อการโฆษณาแต่อย่างใด

นโยบายสิทธิส่วนบุคคล: ข้อมูลส่วนตัวที่จัดทำโดยบุคคลหรือองค์กรต่างๆในเว็บไซต์นี้อาจนำไปเผยแพร่โดยองค์กรของเรา แต่จะไม่ถูกจัดจำหน่ายให้แก่บุคคลที่สาม