Time for a Reality Check

Hard to see in the Bangkok pollution but you are looking at Icon Siam.  

 Icon Siam is the latest addition to Bangkok's shopping malls.  This could be named the mother of all malls.  It is huge.  The architecture is distinctly unique.  The cost of up to US$2billion matches the size of the complex.  No doubt at all, this is yet another mall for the wealthy but this one takes the cake, at least for now.

The home for construction workers in the shadow of Icon Siam.

While I am looking at Icon Siam from the platform of the nearby, local skytrain station, I look down to see another typical sight in Thailand, makeshift housing for construction workers.  The contrast between the two sites in front of me is stark and striking.  It reflects the reality of life in a Thailand - the huge gap between the "haves" and "have nots".

There is huge wealth here.  You see the the new and high condo buildings; you see the luxury cars; you see the fashion.  The reality though is that too much of this wealth lies in the hands of a few, an elite class who enjoy more than their share of the fruits of this land.  Thailand is named as the country with the greatest disparity in wealth in the world.  The pertinent report named that 1% of the population owns 69% of the country's wealth.  Of course, the government was quick to go public, deriding such statistics as ridiculous, but that does not take away from the reality. 

True, by far this is not the poorest country in the world.  Still this does not take away from the harsh reality defined by ownership of wealth.  Beyond this reality, what really concerns me is a mindset that supports and sustains it.  This mindset says it is okay for the few to own so much at the expense of others.  The few do not care.  They lack a sense of the other in their community.  The lack of solidarity, the lack of any interest in others, the utter sense of entitlement and being overcome by pursuits for self-aggrandizement are what concern and overtake such an elite set in society. 

The concentration of wealth and power are the fruits of such a narrow and self serving mindset which acts to allow such a social wrong to continue.  An elitist mindset is for the good of the select few and not for the common good; it serves the status quo and not good change.  It acts not only against the good of society but ultimately against the good of the elite themselves.   I say this as the basic question ever remains - what is it to be human?  And forever, it seemingly will remain unanswered in a world ruled by elites.