A LEGACY OF RESPECT: DESCRIPTIVE ABOUT THE ROLE OF
RESPECT IN THAI SOCIETY

Achim Koeddermann

Respect is woven into the fabric of Thai culture. It seems to structure the whole society. Manifestations of respect reach from the Wei of the pupil, which -is a sign of respect for the teacher, to the deep respect shown for the images of Buddha or of the symbols representing the King, his image, or the anthem symbols represents the monarchy. Respect is even shown to the statues of former kings while passing in a bus. Normally, respect is expressed by a slight inclination of the head coupled with one's hands being folded in a prayer-like manner. Such respect seems to constitute the core of Thai identity. After a short description of my personal observations of the functioning of respect in Thai society and education, this essay shows how the Thai notion of identity is grounded in this concept of respect. The essay ends with a discussion of the risk that is inherent in basing a society upon such a concept of respect. Respect breeds homogeneity in education and thus risks the exclusion of culturally heterogeneous groups.

As a visiting professor at the "University of the Holy Lotus" in the modem part of Bangkok, I asked the students in the four separate sections that I taught to explain or demonstrate the basis of Thai identity. Intemtingly, only four out of the eighty-seven students in these sections did not choose an official national symbol as the foundation of Thai identity. Two of these four chose Thai food to represent Thai identity. Later, I discovered that one of these four students was from the Khmer- speaking cultural minority found in northeastern Thailand, another was a Singapore student of Chinese origin, one was of Laotian origin who claimed not to be Thai, and one did not understand the assignment but yet was too respectful to let a foreigner know that. All the other students chose the same symbols to represent Thai identity. They chose the gesture of respect described above along with the same tri of symbols representing the nation. These were respect for the King, respect for Buddhist monkhood, and respect for Thailand in its etymological sense as "the land of the free."

Individuals learn from early childhood the importance of "paying respect." Primary school children learn the appropriate gestures. Later, children learn Thai classical dance as a symbol of Thai identity and an expression of respect. Lessons in high school focus on the importance of His Majesty the King to Thailand. Cultural literacy, in its Thai understanding, is based on the teaching and practice of respect. This educational regime for the development of respect arose from the restructuring efforts of the ruling Chakkri dynasty. It consolidated Thailand and created an independent, centralized state. They used not only military means, but educational means as well to consolidate their power. After the deposition of former-general Taksin, who reunited Thai forces after the defeat of the Ayudhaya Thai kingdom by Burma and who was a autocratic and abusive lung, Thai kings and their country seem to live in a form of implied contractarian model of statehood. According to the Agganna Sulta (#2), kingship is benign, especially the kings Rama V and VI, Mongkut, and Chulalongkron. They forged a system of national identity based on respect. Heavily influenced by his Western education, Chulalongkron knew to avoid attempts by the Dutch, English and French to colonize his country by "civilizing" it according to Western models. In the thirties and forties, Luang Wichit Wathakan's famous historical worle as well as his influence on many politicians ended the period when Thailand was ruled by an absolute monarchy. He founded a new form of Thai nationalism, based on the identity of King, Nation, and Culture. In an effort to emulate Western models of civilization, Wichit attempted to create a homogeneous nation based on despotic paternalism (Barme 7). Centralized power was able to "civilize" the country and to establish a modem royalist state. These reforms from the thirties to the fifties, differed from King Chulalongkom's approach. He did not think that Western models should apply to Thailand. It would be "as if one could take the European methods for growing wheat and apply them to rice growing." (ibid.)

Administrative, religious, and legal reforms were used as tools to build a modem state. The reform was founded on the growing importance of education. From its religious roots in the monks of the villages to the current educational structure with its modem schools, vocational colleges and universities, the foundation of national identity in respect has remained intact. Even today, the trio Buddhism (sasana), nation (chat), monarchy (phra maha kasat) remain the foundation of Thai cultural identity. This is upheld not by force but by educating individuals so that they willingly pay respect to them. Unlike Western models of statehood, the concept of sovereignty seems not to be founded on force, power over territory, or military flu-eat. Instead, it is based on the education of a entire country to respect what should be respected. A recent maninfestation of this form of willitigly-paid, respect was seen at the funeral of the venerated mother of the current king, who never denied her simple origins. Long lines of mourners waited for day to pay respect to her. It was not her position, but her role and her ability to fill it that evoked the show of respect from her subjects. Showing respect to authority is not inherited and can be withdrawn. However, the Buddhist educational structure allows people of all origins and classes to rise in its hierarchy. The traditional world of Buddhist education is integrated into the active worldly life of the Thai, because many monks return to civil life from their religious life. Most of the male Thai colleagues at Sripatum University have been monks for many years. Thus, the modem and the traditional worlds are interwoven into a common fabric of respect. There has been a growing tendency in Western education to abandon all attempts at teaching respect, whether it is respect among students or colleagues. (See Mary Lefkowitz, Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 20, 1998). In view of this, Thai education with its focus on respect appears a welcome alternative.

My personal experiences with Thai forms of education came in a modem Western shape. Thailand appears to be a highly Westernized and rapidly indushializing country. National clothing has been exchanged for forms of dress that follow global fashion standards. Thailand has a literacy rate of ninety-three percent and an ever-increasing urban population (eighty percent fewer people live in rural areas). Thus, Thailand seems to imitate a Western life-style and Culture. However, while teaching and meeting former students who am now teachers all over Thailand, I found that there is at least one non-Western aspect to Thailand in the honorary title of respect (Ahjam) given to all teachers from the lowest grades to the universities. The link between Buddhism and the educational foundations of Thailand came to my attention first when I delivered a guest lecture at Maha Chulalongkom Buddhist University, a university for monks in the center of Bangkok) I asked why there was no PhD program for their very talented MA students. The answer they gave surprised me. They said that respect for the teacher does not depend upon a title. What turns a MA into a doctorate is pride, a desire for power that is a manifestation of disrespect. Indeed, "power" has no equivalent in the Thai language. Its place is held by the familiar, yet somewhat different, emcept of "potewy,' which is a form of power based on merit. instead of respect for power in a Machiavellian sense, Thai language suggest a basis for power in the merit deserved as a result of fulfilling a function. Since the reforms of Thai Theravada, Buddhism by kings Rama V and VI, the function of Buddhist universities has been educational. They are supposed to spread moral and religious education throughout the country. This form of organized education is today parallel to the secular educational system. However, both are founded on the same value, the teaching and exercise of respect.

According to P.A. Payutto, the Thai have instituted a nationwide return to their Buddhist foundations because "Western society today lacks clarity or a coherent direction in moral issues." (Crambiah 467). This belief comes, however, with the view that democracy, as the rejection of authoritarian rule, requires basic virtues, such as respect and a sense of the importance of the common good as being more important then selfishness. These fit well with the foundations of Buddhist moral teachings. Thai understanding of respect is the response to the assumption that despite a need for such virtues, Western society follows the path of hedonism, fueled by craving, and plagued with problems; on the personal level, depression, loneliness, and nervous disorders; on the communal level, irrational behavior, crime and social unrest. And on the most subtle level, the legacy of the present age is a life out of step with nature, producing the spiritual "angst" which has led to the modern search for enlightenment from Eastern sources. (Payutto vii)

This evaluation of Western society coincides with a widely-shared skepticism concerning the existence of common moral values that led to the development of Western critical traditions. Buddhism seems to provide a strong background to Thai society in a manner similar to the way in which Catholicism provided unity to Europe before the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Although insufficient in Thai eyes, the respect for humanity that is taken to be the foundation of Human Rights is seen as the common foundation for the belief that there is a fundamental form of respect that should be shared by all cultures. In Thai, thammasat stands for eternal law and is applied to the "fidelity to the dharma of the kingly office." (Tambiah 486). However, despite their fundamental acceptance of the basic principles of Human Rights, Thai scholars see them in their historical Western context as strategies developed to justify a right to rebel against institutions in order to defend personal liberty. The Thai understanding of morality does not include such a justification though. In its deontological form, Thai secular and Buddhist teachings appeal to a universal foundation - the notion of paying respect - which is not grounded in Christian ethics or natural Law theory. The most recent strains of Thai Buddhism that have been developed by reformers such as Buddhadasa. Bhikkhu' and P. A. Payutto claim that "Buddhism is a religion which puts wisdom to the fore rather than faith. Accordingly, it seems possible that a comparison of is possible without a need for dealing with the overarching religious superstructure. Respect is a precondition for Buddhism and not just one of its teachings. One aspect of respect, derived in Western thought from the fundamental right to liberty, is at the very core of Thai identity. So much so that it led to the old designation of Thailand as Siam being replaced by its current designation, which means "the land of the free." It expresses the pride that the Thais have in the fact that they were never colonized. The Thais were spared colonial oppression because they were able to partly assimilate to Western ways. In the tradition of the Thai kings of the Chaklai Dynasty, Thailand has defined itself as a modem sovereign state. It rejected slavery before the U.S. It assumed that the notion of liberty must apply equally to all members of society. The hypothesis defended in this paper is that the concept of liberty that is at the core of Thai identity is a cultural value different from its Western counterpart in that it is not ndividualistic but societal. It is not considered a right of the individual who is threatened by the community but as a means by which the community can protect the individual insofar as the fundamental virtue of respect governs society. This respect is seen in a tradition that does not know the Western distinction between body and mind or self and community. These are typical Western distinctions and are concerned with determining whether we are "natural Beings" or "usurpers-" 10. A debate involving the discussion of man's position within creation like the Western debate about the role of Christianity in the degradation of the environment seems impossible. Savage nature is not contrasted with the responsibilities of the Good Shepherd. Thai Buddhism displays dichotomies. On the one hand, it is highly structured into four regionally organized sanghas (monk orders), serving Urban Thailand as well as the communities and villages. However, the concept of the recluse Samana-parisa, as a monk that is at home in the wilderness, exists outside of the hierarchy. Forest monks, like Ahjarn Man have been the educators of the country, laying the foundation for the recent reform in Thai Buddhism. Wilderness, as the home of the recluse, is not seen as a concept of utility, but as part of a whole, and the very notion of "environment," as distinct from the participating human, seems not to make any sense. Thai forest monks who live in the devastated forest close to the Golden Triangle have raised the objection that Human Rights do not include any environmental rights. Such concerns are based on the fundamental assumption of one nature, of which we and civilization are an integral part. This view is derived from the Thirteenth Century Buddhist concept of forest-dwelling monks in Ceylon and is equally valid in Thailand today. Monks living in the forest are not seen as a threat to nature but as an integral part of it. The set rules obeyed by Thai monks, Thudong (Pali Dhutanga), includes living and meditating in wild nature. It is striking to see that those parts of the forest "used" by the monasteries are not devastated like the national forests, which were formerly pristine but are now plundered, and the respect for nature seems to be taught effectively to the neighboring communities.
The education in annata , the Thai translation of the Pali Buddhist concept of "non-selfhood," appears to be the foundation of the difference. Even though Buddhism and the Hindu-Buddhist form of Thai religion are found all over Asia, it is important to note that they were not introduced by military conquerors. Instead, they are expressed in an Indian-derived literary culture that was adopted by choice. Considered from a continental European perspective, it is interesting to note that Thai identity was formed in a manner similar to the way that German cultural identity was formed. German culture identity was based on Luther's translation of the Bible. King Rama Khamheng devised, so it is told, the first system of writing for the Thai language. This is documented by the first dated document of Thai literature. Respectfully thanking the "venerable preceptor" king for his protection of the forest monks, 12 this document starts a record of Buddhist culture of respwt that was imported from Southern India via Ligor. It culminated in the recreation of the Hindu Ramayana as Thai national epic, the Ramakien, which was written and revised by a nineteenth-century king just as contemporary Thai music was composed by the current king.

How does this rdate to respect as the foundation of education today? Respect as understood by the Thais is the driving force behind many forms of daily education. Once a year, an entire day of class time is dedicated to the teacher, who is one of the most venerable institutions of the state. In my personal experience, I had to hand out threads to literally hundreds of incoming freshmen who were asking for a blessing while paying respect. Respect is not addressed to me as a person, and it is not a form of submission. The intention of respecting the institutions counted by correct dress and correct manners. The Wei, I learnt, is never a gesture of submission. The spine stays straight. In my attempt to return respect, I told each student something that could serve as a motto of his/her life. Later I found that hundreds of students attempted to memorize in English what I said.

The expression of respect as the foundation of education is also practiced very early in the morning in a almond-giving ceremony involving monks from a neighboring temple. This ceremony is repeated on the foundation day of the university. The idea behind "merit making" is an appeal to morality, not its teaching. The attendance of such events is optional, yet overwhelming. It equally applies to the ancestral/spirit houses on the university grounds, showing that respect is not restricted to Buddhist religion. However, the attendance of events in which respect is paid to his majesty the King is an obligation that is taken seriously by all.

The students pay respect to Royalty, Monks, and elders with gifts. To avoid the presumption of corruption, gifts to teachers are purely symbolic or are given privately after grades are assigned. The ritual surrounding the payment of respect to teachers is a form of exchange of blessings. The individual pays respect to the teacher, not the person represented teachers. In exchange, the student asks implicitly for forgiveness, receiving a form of protection and group esteem in exchange." As a "role model," worthy of respect in virtue of ones knowledge and exemplary conduct in life, bun stands for the ideal motivation of a good teacher or professor, which is to perform dana and charity. Therefore, Thai respect does not come in the Western form of a code of conduct. Instead of coded prescriptions, it is thought that the motive of respect for persons, for life in general, and for the teacher who represents it, is sufficient. In view of the fact that there is pollution and deforestation in modem Thailand, it is obvious that without codes respect is not enforced. Respect for the environment is increased when the very young are taught the importance of respect. Respect for nature is represented in the black picture of a Panda on a green shopping bag and in the abstracted Buddha eyes that watch over one's every step. By such means, respect for nature is brought into kindergarten education in the hope that the respect for authority will be extended to include respect for the environment.

Respect in the Thai sense has a non-governmental aspect. Even the forest monks who are most remote from the centralized power of the Thai sangha practice it. The most influential recent reform movements of Thai Buddhism spread from forest monasteries in the northeast of Thailand. The wondering monk movements that had Ahjarn Man at the center and the Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's socially influential movement developed from the forest to national movements. All of these are equally focused on respect with earthly and spiritual freedom as their goal. Movements openly critical of governmental policies, the 'Ajahrn Man' (-back to nature') movement concerning the environment equally claim respect in the form of respect for nature as their foundation. Suppression of nature is perceived as a violation of the very idea of Thailand as the "land of the free". - The model of the Thai forest monk, Pra Paa, differs slightly from its Ceylonese model, which is the purely contemplative Tapassin. Thai forest temples are centers of education, giving the recluse a large audience. Similar to Protestantism, the claim to the right to interpretation of vinaya, the monastic code of conduct, leads to not only diversity but also sectarianism and segmentation. Are the centralized Thai ecclesiastic and civil authorities justified in suppressing such movements on the grounds that they are disrespectful? Are they justified in prosecuting rebellious monks for the crime of lese majestee? It remains to ask how free the expression in such monasteries can be, if the education in respect for nature leads to rebellion against environmentally damaging projects and deforestation. It is questionable whether culture can ever be possible without oppression. Is education in respect a tool of forced acculturation? Even if compliance to norms is understood as a dutiful response to a legitimate authority, such a reciprocal relationship still requires homogeneity. It functions in the same way that loyalty does in the military. However, those who espouse different values could call into question the pattern of respect that is supposed to be based on voluntary compliance. The sanctions against noncomplying members of Thai buddhism and against the environmental movements were public disgrace and imprisonment.

In closing, I would like to make a side remark about a frightening parallel between the U.S. and Thailand. In its struggle for cultural identity, the Thai language has been the most dommant tool of integration. Thai unity is justified and perceived as based on respect for the King, respect for the Buddhist hiemrchy and teachings, and respect for Thai culture as being distinct from other Asian cultures. in its attempts to unify and to avoid colonialism by forcing a Thai identity, tendencies similar to the ones that Allan Bloom and E. D. Hirsch described in the Closing of the American Mind appear.

Similar to Hirsch's proposed curriculum, Thai official history is taught in order to integrate the Thai nation. Thus, it excludes much of the history of Thai minority groups. To this day, the program of integration for the so-called "hill tribes" in the northern part of Thailand between Chiang Mai, Mehong Song, and Chiang Rai seem to follow the pattern of integration that the Americans followed with respect to the Native Americans through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Thai cultiuml unity by means of a strong, centralized educational system is an answer to the same threat the Bloom and Hirsch feared. They both feared a national deficiency in culture in the absence of a standardized educational canon.

Around 1650, King Narai standardized the cultural components in the Pali education of monks. Since then the acceptance of particular behavioral patterns, such as the one for respect, have been at the core of the canon that defines an individual as Thai. It replaced race as a criterion for national identity. The strength of this policy has allowed Thailand to integrate many different languages from Lao to Khmer. It has also allowed a largely successful integration of Chinese immigrants. Put in the context of the Westernization of Thai administration, politics and military since the Nineteenth Century, it can be understood as a reaction to the threat of colonization.'. However, it has, in turn, endangered and continues to endanger the cultural identity of those "hill tribes" who propagate a different lifestyle and cultural identity. This includes Large segments of Thai society that have a different cultural heritage, as seen in the 1889 protests against the Thai central government in Chiang Mai. It must not be forgotten that Thailand has Thai-speaking language groups (Siamese/Central Thai, Isan Thai, Thai-Lao, Phu Thai, Lue, Shan), groups (Mon, Khmer, tribal Lawa, Thin, Khamu), Malay, and other tribal language families, such as, Hmong Miau, Meo, Mien (Yao), Lahu, Lisu, and Akha. The latter, now residing in the northwestern hills of Thailand/Myanmar are representative of the typical conflict arising when the pattern of homogeneity in Thai society is broken. These are migrant, non-Buddhist tribes who do not belong to the Thai-speaking language group and who deliberately maintain a social structure based on small groups. Their survival as indigenous peoples in the hills shows the limits of the pattern of respect. As in the past, remote tribes are still following the tributary system in which taxes and forced "respect" (i.e., forced labor on the King's birthday, for example) maintain a feudal Structure of tribute and Corvee`. In such cases, respect is replaced by force. Their lifestyle, which knows an unbroken ancestry, defies the Thai conception of hierarchy conceived as being handed down from above. The traditional, semi-sedentary style of life defies Thai identity as symbolized by adherence to Buddhism, the "Wei" gesture, and the cash-oriented twentieth-century society. in this context, the attempts to impose Buddhism as the state religion on the hill tribes can be seen as a threat to the cultural identity of these "indigenous" peoples. When King Chualongkorn restructured the sangha, education became one of its primary missions. Thu seems to parallel the European model of cultural identity that was imposed by the unifying force of Christianity, as used by Emperors since Charles the Great. The Thai attempts to unify the country since 1902 culminated in the 1965 missionary projects aimed at integrating the hill tribes by encouraging them to take up Buddhism.

In conclusion, the initial criticism by Thai Buddhist scholars seems to be applicable to Thai identity itself. In a modem, Westernized legal and moral system, liberty and the right to be different are guaranteed and defensible by Human Rights. However, groups, indigenous or not, cannot (since they are acting as a groups and not as individuals) by definition claim such individual rights. Therefore, they are potential victims of forced integration. However, because they are remote, because they lack desirable land or resources (legally their settlements are considered state land), and because King Bhumibol Adulyade's mother intervened in their behalf, some of the indigenous culture has been left in tact. in this case, I fear the efficiency of the wellmeaning educators who have been partly trained in the U.S. In their rush to bring Human Rights and civilization to these people, they may destroy the very notion of respect, which can come only from the heart. The Thai concept of respect is a ritual reflecting the "ideal relationship between units," as Tannenbaum states. It is founded on the assumption that the ideal is the same for everyone. Since this idea of conformity differs from the Western, individualized understanding of liberty, the Thai version of respect in education cannot be seen as the solution for Western complaints about the lack of respect in education.

*This article was written in collaboration with Duangkae Aunnu, Rajabhat Institute, Chandrakasem.

"Thank You" to Dr. Michael Green, SUNY Oneonta, for his stylistic assistance

1. Since a descriptive essay on moral, cultural issues can, in this framework, not claim normative statu , personal experience as Visiting Professor at Sfipatum University, Bangkok for the academic year 1996/97 forms the foundation of this study.

2. Proawwisak Sakon, University History, Bangkok 1929, by Luan Wichit Wathakan; Compare Scot Barmd, Luang Wichit Wathakan and the Creation of a That Identity, Social Issues in Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 1929.

3. On Thai nationalism and genesis of Thai identity, see S. J. Tambish, World Conqueror and World Revnover, a study ofBuddhm andpolay in Thailand against a historical background, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976, p. 467-483.

4. See National Profiles in Technical and Vocational Education in 7hailand, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Bangkok 1995.

5. See the work of Pmmhaa-Uthai. Nantro, Phut Vitti Heng Song Kum, Buddha Path Follower, Bangkok, Thailand 1993 (in Thai).

6. Phra Dhammapitaka (P. A. Payutto), 1994 award winner of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, published extensively on the missing link between Western Society and Ethics. See the introduction by Bruce Evans, translator, in his Good, Evil and Beyond..., Kanuna in the Buddhas Teaching, Buddhadhamma Foundation, Bangkok 1995, 2nd ed., vi.

7. See the survey by Jere Paul Surber, Culture and Critique, Westview Press, Boulder/Oxford, 1997.

8. Phra Thepwisutthiemethi, No Religion, transl. Bhikkhu Punno/Samticaro, tribute from the Dalai Lam, Sublime Life hfission Press, Bangkok 1967; 2nd ed., 1993.

9. Ibid., vi. In his "AcItnowledgenwnt" the author sanctions the authenticity of the alterations by the introducing translator, giving new meaning to the Western concept of authenticity: instead of a debate over 'translatability," the author sees his individuality as far less important than the mission of his teachings. The criterion for this mission is a mconcerted effort, based on

a desire for true benefit' as criterion (xi). The implied meaning is that respect for the teachings, not the individual person of the teacher, is the ultimate norm.

10. Supra 7 see Surber on the typical dilemma faced by anthropologist like Levi-Strauss, p. 174.

11. "When transcience, unsatisfactoriness, and non-selfhood are perceived with insight, that is the Path," translated by Buddhahadasa Bhikku, Handbook for Mankind, Mahachula Buddhist Univ. Rress, What Mahadhatu, Bangkok 1956, 3rd ed., p. 188.

12. Trevor Ling, Buddhism, Imperialism and War, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1997, p. 11: wro the West of this city of Sukhodaya. there is a monastery of forest monks. King Rama Ikamhaeng founded and offered it..."

13. Nicola Tannenbaum, Who Can Compete Against the World, Association of Asian Studies, Univ. of Michigan, 1995, pp. 73-5.

14. Allan Bloom, 7he C16sing of the American mind. How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, New York 1987; E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Boston 1987.

15. Charles F. Keyes, Thailand, Buddhist JUngdom as Modem Nation State, Westview Press, Boulder/Oxford 1987.

16. See the anthropological Akha field study, 'Putting the Mandala in its Place," by Deborah E. Tooker, 7he Journal of Asian Studies, 55 (2), 19969 pp. 326-9, and Nicola Tannenbaum, mHouseholds, and Villages," Ethology, 32 (3)9 pp. 259-75. On the history of forceful resettling under Sarit neo-traditional nationlism, see Tarnbiash, p. 433. Recently cited motives for forced education and resettlement were communist infiltration, environmental damage and flooding of the settled, yet by definition pristine, areas by dam projects.

17. On the ongoing implementation of the 7hammajhud Program under the 4th branch, Hilltribe Relations, Thai Government agency, see Nicholas Trapp, Sovereignty and Rebellion, 7he White Rmong of Northern Thailand. Singapore/New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, p. 85 ff.

State University College at Oneonta