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Injustice
When we first proposed our idea for a new method for transmitting high definition video for the CCTV security market we thought we might get a few orders for it. Instead it looks like it will completely displace the method that was previously used. But only our idea - companies are not buying from us. Instead they chose to take the idea and develop their own version of it, badly. There are now at least four other versions of it in the market, led by the second biggest CCTV manufacturer in China, who not only copied the idea, but even the name we gave it.
Disillusioned by this market - previously our markets had some semblance of integrity - we dusted ourselves down and moved on. But companies have started to come back to us: mostly IC companies, who obviously cannot buy the design from the copy companies and who want to buy the original and the best - as we demonstrably are. The reason I mention this is that, if, and it is a big if given the history of this market, we get these orders, we not only will have a some money in the bank but we will receive a monthly income from the IC sales, which we won't have to do anything to contribute to. We just sit back and count the money. It will give us some freedom of choice.
I can't listen to the BBC Radio on-line - it just doesn't connect. Other websites time out all the time or only partially load. Yet the Internet speed tests seem fine. All reports indicate that the junta is watching us - they have made veiled threats to shut down social media here and have already closed down Facebook once (albeit for a just a couple of hours) before denying they did so. Plain clothes policeman arrest dissenters and bundle them off in cars. Some of Ploy's friends are still in hiding, choosing not to accept the junta's invitation for a holiday. All remnants of the legitimately elected government are being removed as government officials are being replaced. I might have sympathy with the latter course - Yingluck's government were not what you might call the intellectual elite - but to give just one example, one official newly promoted official was the previous head of forensic science here who endorsed the fake divining rod bomb detector (she had been moved aside). No, this not about putting more competent officials in charge - this woman was a supporter of the anti-government protests. The junta, and this is hardly surprising, are just implementing Suthep's wish to eradicate the red shirts and their affiliated supporters. By the time we have new elections there will be no Pheu Thai party in any form, as stripped of money and leaders, they will not be able to form. As with Singapore, there just won't be any option to vote for who you wish. And perhaps as with with Hong Kong, they will further guarantee any election results in the future by having a majority of un-elected ministers in the government. How will the disenfranchised react to this?
I have given up asking Ploy not to read certain pages on Facebook. I understand. She is and always has been strong willed. I recognise it in her because it is within me also. That is why I don't work for any company and why we twice turned down one million dollars for our products- we don't like injustice or stupidity or unfairness - and we don't just pay lip service to that either. Poor but free might be our mantra. So how will we react to living under a police state. Badly is the answer to that.
When Yingluck was detained by the junta shortly after the coup, by all reports she was being held in an army base just north of us. Now I am not a huge fan of Yingluck and certainly not of her government. Indeed, despite writing a book, I cannot find the words to describe the disdain I hold for all politicians of any country. But she was elected. And detaining her was unfair. So it was I that suggested to Ploy we go and demonstrate outside the army base. Ploy persuaded me out of the idea - we both knew the likely consequences - and I have largely taken the view that I stay out of Thai affairs when I live here as it is their country and as they make no effort to embrace me it doesn't seem legitimate for me to involve myself in their crappy politics. But this wasn't about politics, it was about fairness.
What I feel within myself at the moment is what I felt in the latter days at any of the last few companies I worked for. A frustration welling up inside me; a tolerance to incompetence that I couldn't keep inside me anymore. And I know Ploy feels this too. How long before the happy junta come knocking at our door or I step in to stop a student being arrested by under-cover police for giving sandwiches away. Don't tell me what the consequences would be for these actions - I know. But it never stopped me before. That is why we moved here, why we run our own company, why companies copy our ideas and we just accept it or why we turn down large sums of money for our ideas because the company that wants to buy the idea are unethical.
I am not a working class hero. But something inside of me - and inside Ploy - just cannot accept the status quo. I cannot take the 'I'm alright Jack' approach of some, or the 'it doesn't affect me so I don't care' approach of others. I cannot stand by, shut my eyes, and take the salary as it were. I left each company in turn as I couldn't change them. We cannot change this country, so does it mean we have to leave? Without Radio 2 and not wanting to only see Ploy one side of a prison cell, we might just have to.