In 1976 Siam experienced its bloodiest coup. Hundreds of students were killed and thousands were jailed. The military burnt the whole stock of Sulak’s bookshop and issued an order for his arrest. Although Sulak was forced to remain in exile for two years, he was able to continue his activist work in the West. He lectured at the University of California Berkeley, Cornell University, the University of Toronto, and throughout Europe.
In 1984 he was arrested in Bangkok on charges of criticising the King, but international protest led to his eventual release. In 1991 another warrant was issued for his arrest and Sulak was forced into political exile once more. He came back to fight the case in the court in 1992 and won in 1995. At the end of that year he was granted the Right Livelihood Award, also known as Alternative Nobel Prize.
He sees Buddhism as a questioning process. Question everything, including oneself, look deeply, and then act from that insight. He is among a handful of leaders world-wide working to a revive the socially engaged aspects of spirituality.
Whatever he does, however he does it, at the core of his work is a mission to build a new leadership for change at all levels, within Siam as well as outside it.
Much pioneer work has been accomplished, and the foundations for meaningful social change have been laid. Now the challenge is whether this spiritual, activist vision can be sustained and kept growing as a stronger and more influential movement in the medium and long-term. As our visionary leader grows older, more and more responsibility falls on the younger leaders and NGO’s he has so carefully nurtured over the last thirty years.
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Topic: Intellectual Pensioner Sulak Sivaraksa, 85, faces jail for doubting Thai history (Read 1641 times)