BOOK INTRODUCTION

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In Southeast Asia, it was not only the economies that were on fire in the 1990s. The countryside also burns, quite literally. Every year during the dry season, forests and farmland are set ablaze. The fires of Borneo and Sumatra are already infamous for spreading an annual haze across the region. But in Thailand, as well, the central plains are set alight to burn off the stubble from the previous harvest, and highland forests are scorched by hunters seeking to smoke out game or slashed by farmers trying to clear more land. A dwindling supply of nutrients is left behind in the ash, while a heavy smog collects in the leaden sky.

One scene seared into my memory came in early 1998, following a trip to the site where the Burma gas pipeline was being laid down in western Thailand. It had been a long and emotionally draining day, visiting protestors who had camped out in the hills but seemed to know their cause was doomed, seeing the route of the pipeline take shape as a swathe of dusty red clay twisting its way into the jungle. Now it was nighttime, and a fellow journalist and I were making the long drive back to Bangkok. But the hills were streaked spectacularly with light. Hunters had set off blazes to spook out their prey, and the lines of fire had turned into eerie snakes of flame crawling across the dark, brush-covered hillsides. Occasionally we’d pass through a great strand of fire that had leapt the highway, and imagined we were feeling the hot breath of dragons lurking by the side of the road.

In Buddhism, fire often represents our insatiable desires for physical, mental and emotional fulfillment. It’s said to be a destructive force, scorching the world around us as we “crackle, snap, and blaze away in our endless pursuit of… ultimate satisfaction”. Viewed in this light, Thailand’s manic push for modernity can be seen as a society simply giving in to its baser instincts. But that seems unduly harsh. There was a brighter side to the boom, as well.

A Buddhist parable, called appropriately enough “The Fire of Knowledge”, hints at this ambiguity. It’s the story of a monk struggling to understand the Buddha’s teachings. He sets out for a monastery and along the way comes across a major forest fire. Watching from atop a mountain as the blaze spreads, he suddenly realizes that just as the fire burns everything up, the development of insight within him can destroy the fetters of his life. The Buddha appears to him, and tells him he is on the right track. Eventually, he makes it to a kind of saintliness.

The monk achieves the knowledge he is seeking, but it does not come without a cost. The fire has consumed the land around him. In the same way, Thailand achieved some real gains from its rapid development–gains in education, in wealth, in dreams realized and opportunities opened up. My great fear is that much of its potential gain was squandered through corruption and excess–symbolized by the empty real estate projects which now dot Bangkok’s skyline--that it didn’t use those gains to make the necessary investment in its people, particularly in education, which is vital if the countries of Southeast Asia are to follow in the footsteps of Taiwan and South Korea and become more prosperous and progressive societies. That, however, is not what this book is really about.

Rather, A Land On Fire is about how Southeast Asia, and Thailand in particular, simultaneously seemed to consume itself through its breakneck pursuit of progress. It can serve as a role model, both a positive one for its openness and its vibrant society, and a negative one for its corruption and mismanagement. Thailand has squandered many of its resources and destroyed many of its communities, but it has also made significant democratic advances, and served as an island of peace in a region torn apart by war and civil strife. It’s my hope, of course, that other countries will learn from these mistakes and achievements.

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