In this commentary, Ben Harkins expresses his view on how the Book “Who Cares?” highlights the existing structural inequality of Southeast Asia societies, and how the coverage of the social protections in the region is defined by ‘deservedness’ rather than ‘universality’. Leaving the marginalized groups and the informal sector workers become the most painful victims of the crisis, as always.
The education we have been receiving is designed by the military dictatorship to spawn slaves to the military itself. Its under-democratic nature and the intermingled existence of distorted “facts” and discrimination within it have pushed us to boycott this military slave education. One more reason we are boycotting it is that the military dictatorship has murdered thousands of students and teachers and then has reopened schools and universities to make the wheels of their bureaucracy turn. We will not be going to school through the very doors open by bloodstained hands.
