I enjoyed reading this letter to the editor today in a Thai newspaper.
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Christian missionaries should desist

The occasion of Buddhist Lent seems an opportune moment to address all pious preachers who smugly hand out Christian leaflets with intent to convert. Have they learned nothing from the catastrophic lessons of colonial history? Have they considered that the consequences of their actions might actually be utterly disastrous for the same people whose souls you seek to save?

The very fabric of Thai society is woven principally from the silken threads of Buddhism. If they unravel that, Thailand will certainly begin to fray at the edges. Over the last few hundred years, Thais have had to repeatedly defend their integrity and culture, whereas many other countries in Asia have collapsed under insensitive assault by the West.

The missionaries should consider this: might they not feel a little insulted, even resentful, if Buddhists descended en masse on their own home country and attempted to convert them to their Eight-Fold Path?

A moment's Deep Thought might reveal to them that our European cultural grass isn't always automatically the greenest. It would be monstrously arrogant to persist in racist assumptions and Eurocentric thought habits like that. Could it be that resentment about conversion is one of the factors fuelling terrorism?

Please consider the novel idea of loving (and respecting) your neighbour enough to cease interfering and disrupting. In fact, breaking free of Christian herd mentality may well be the hardest (and the most caring) thing the missionaries will ever achieve. Fundamentalism in any form is the Wrong Way. Go back.

PETER GORE-SYMES
Chiang Mai
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These are important things to consider in ones life. Hello Pat Robertson and others! Are you listening? Unfortunately, I doubt it.