Written by Kittiphol Saragganonda
Translated by Tyrell Haberkorn
Illustrated by Summer Panadd

[คลิกที่นี่เพื่ออ่าน “ทารุณนิทาน” ฉบับภาษาไทย]

May the Court Consider Delivering a Guilty Verdict in Accordance with the Rule of Dogs (ขอศาลได้พิจารณาพิพากษาลงโทษตามกฎหมา, 2018), the anthology which opens with Kittiphol Saragganonda’s story, “A Tale of Cruelty,” does not have an introduction. Text on the back cover – “Their bodies chained, our thinking restrained” (“เราถูกจำกัดความคิด เขาถูกลิดรอนเสรีภาพ”) – and the donations of the proceeds to support Red Shirt prisoners in Ubon Ratchathani province firmly situate the authors as critics of state violence prior to and during the regime of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO, 2014-2019) in which they wrote and published their work. Beyond these clues, the reader is left to piece together the book’s raison d’etre. In Kittiphol’s story, what is left unspecified becomes an invitation to the reader to read between, and against, the lines. 

The narrator of “A Tale of Cruelty,” is a self-appointed “good person” (คนดี) who persecutes those he deems lesser. In the story, as well as in the Thai socio-political context of the recent past and present, “good people” deem themselves morally superior and the only individuals worthy of being full citizens.  The narrator imparts this message to those in the  lesser out-group through torture and confinement below ground, and under his feet.

Everything is upside-down in “A Tale of Cruelty.” What “good people” torture and persecute others? Kittiphol’s narrator tells the reader in the first paragraph not to try to compare him to any real-life individuals. Yet this admonition serves as an invitation to precisely do so. What if one reads “A Tale of Cruelty” as both a parable and reportage on life under the NCPO in which those self-appointed “good people” – read soldiers and royalists – imprisoned people in the out-group who dared to express themselves? What if one reads into the narrator a past enlightened Thai monarch? What if one reads the story as foretelling the future, in which this virtuous persecution has continued? In such a time, perhaps the truth can only be written as fiction.

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Some dishes become exponentially more delicious once one learns of the ingredients or the method of preparation. But some taste marvelous if and only if their ingredients or method, however intricate, remains a mystery. The same is true with stories. Some are entertaining if and only if you do not know the truth of how they originated. The story I am telling is of this sort. So, as to let the pleasure flow freely, may you think that it all emerges from my wild imagination. Do not try to search for the truth or trace me to any individual in the real world.

It is as a great philosopher said: our world is too good for bad people. Letting bad people wander around unrestricted is a disaster that befalls the good people who are the only breed worthy of this world.

I love being a good person. Because good people are those able to determine who is a bad person, who is a lowlife deplorable. Accordingly, there must be a limited number of good people. And it is as another philosopher said: good people must struggle so that they can continue to exist. If we must act contrary to goodness to preserve our good people-ness, then it is necessary.

Take lying, for example. Who said that good people do not fib? There is no prohibition against good people telling lies. We may do so as long as we remain precise and no one is able to catch us in a lie. Therefore, if we must get rid of or slaughter every last person who causes our lies to be imperfect, then we must do so without hesitation. 

In the final analysis, good people are born from the carcasses of bad people, those who fail at being good people, or who are too weak to be good people. And that was the forty-five years in which I have preserved my good people-ness stringently and securely. 

Years ago, as a good person I wanted to suss out the beastliness in people. I had read a textbook which discussed this matter in great detail. But I am one who holds to the maxim that if anything cannot be proven before one’s eyes, it remains a vague claim.

Therefore, I took four, five slaves who refused to be free to experiment upon. I brought them to be kept in a sealed room underneath the floor of my study. I arranged for food, drinks, and clothing of the nobles for them to wear.

I read books to them. Sometimes I even threw parties and hired entertainers for them to watch. On the surface, this group of slaves did not seem different from all the good people I encountered at evening balls.

Once a period of time passed, they were able to assume the roles of nobles seamlessly. Some even made snide remarks mocking me such that anyone who saw them would not believe that they had once been slaves. I had to order the servants to drag them to be flogged until they were silenced. 

There was one time, the slave with the hideous face put on a suit and a black bowtie and strode with his chin in the air to argue with me about equality and liberty. He preached at me about why I should treat them like equal humans. All I could do was let it say its piece until I drew out the stingray tail tucked in my waist and whipped it and its associates until blood blanketed the floor. 

I let them party and absorb civilization up to the point that I wondered, if I took it all away, what impact would it have on their being? And it was as the textbooks say: they began to suffer and found it unacceptable that they reverted to being slaves once again.

I swapped the parties for grueling labor. And grabbed them to torture and punish for no rhyme or reason. 

The ballroom was no more. The sound of music was no more. Only the handiworks and the rice pounders were there. And the sound of their screams all day and night.

I reduced their meals and cut out all comforts, even a place to defecate. They had to take care of all their business like animals in a pen. Once all the entertainment ended and only work without end remained, all that soothed them was not being beaten. 

I began to see their beastliness more clearly. It became possible to say that the slaves that were dying from starvation, anger, and pain were beasts in human form that were being tortured and oppressed.

Nowadays, if you ask them, in the language that all of you use, of course, if they still want to be free, they will answer in one voice that it’s good enough to be a slave.

Certainly, I am well aware what animals clad in human clothing are capable of. Therefore, so as to not give them the opportunity to take revenge, I keep them locked up. 

If you ask me whether or not I believe in being human, as in being a noble species, let me say at once that I do not believe so. I do not think that we are all the same noble species. 

So then what do I believe? I believe in being a good person. I believe in being superior to others without any doubts.

You might wonder, what criteria do I use to measure being a good person? What religious teachings, philosophy, or ethical principles? Let me answer that I myself am it. I will not allow anyone to decide this matter for me.