We had The Swamp.
A small bit of wilderness
in one of Bangkok's busiest
neighbourhoods, The Swamp
had pretensions to jungle-dom. During the day, its copious plant life
bathed
luxuriously under the tropical sun, chlorophyll quietly soaking up
the rays,
converting the energy into biomass.
At dusk and dawn, it buzzed
with bird life. A pair of auburn-winged greater
coucal ruled the roost, soaring from bush to bush in some kind of eternal
mating
game. Sometimes they would disappear into the lush undergrowth, but
we could
follow their trail as they played hide-and-seek among the bobbing fronds
of
swamp salad.
It was at night, however,
that the swamp came alive. Hordes of invisible frogs
managed to out-croak the roar of traffic along the nearby thoroughfare.
Big,
hoary old trees hosted several colonies of bats, which would wing by
noiselessly
as we sat on my balcony underneath the stars, enjoying the cool breeze
and
drinking in the good times.
We lived in a kind of symbiosis
with The Swamp. We would flush all our waste
water into it, and it would give us back cool air and a beautiful view.
It even served as a home
away from home for itinerant monks, who would camp out
under the trees when they passed through Bangkok. I went to visit them
once,
hoping for some kind of spiritual experience. Instead, they offered
to sell me
some wax which would make me a big hit with the girls if I daubed a
little on my
lips. Oh, well.
The Swamp was on private
land, so we always figured its days were numbered. But
it had beaten back civilization before. Smack in the centre sat the
skeletal
remains of an old house, its roof caved in and replaced with a cool,
solid
canopy of vegetation. Nearby stood several lampposts similarly smothered
in green.
More recently, some workers
had set up shacks to live in as they refurbished
one of the shophouses which surrounded The Swamp. We feared they would
stay
permanently, but eventually they left, leaving behind as the only permanent
reminder of their existence a most appropriate totem _ a cement squat
toilet. It
was soon covered by weeds.
Rumour has long had it that
a soaring hotel would be built on the premises. But
development has been blocked by a dispute among the family which owned
the land.
The younger sister has already sold her plot to developers, but the
elder has
refused to sell, reportedly out of spite.
Local gossip-mongers say she is a greedy old hag, but to us she is a hero.
Apparently, however, one
of the owners got tired of waiting. One day about six
months ago, one of my neighbours rushed up to me, eyes gaping in alarm.
``Did you see it?!'
``See what?'
``The Swamp! Didn't you look out the back this morning?'
``No. What happened?' But
a sickening feeling was already
crawling up my throat.
``The bulldozers, man. They came last night. It's all gone!'
Well, not quite all. They
had managed to turn about half of it
into mud, and stripped the old house of its green canopy. But who knew
what would come
next? Rumours flew. It was going to become a parking lot, or perhaps
that
long-awaited hotel.
We soon found out what came
next _ a slum. Well, not exactly a
slum, but a tin-roofed community of workers building a hospital down
the road. At
least they weren't building a condo which would keep us awake every
night for the
next year.
We quickly sat down to drum up strategies for driving them out.
``How about starting up a
protest campaign? Bring in the media,
student activists.'
``Nah. There are too many other environmental crises going on.'
``I know. We'll get those
monks back in here to ordain the trees. We can set up
a kind of forest wat or something.'
``Yeah. Or we can dress up
as ghosts and go down there and spook them out.
We'll say we used to live in that old house and were murdered. Now
we're coming
back to reclaim our land.'
One of the gang got a little
overzealous and chucked a rock onto one of the tin
roofs which had sprouted below. It landed with a thunk, and made a
tremendous
clatter as it rolled off.
The racket brought us to
our senses. It was all wrong to take out our
frustration on these villagers, who after all were just looking for
some honest
work. The Swamp's demise wasn't their fault. Whose fault was it? No
one's?
Everyone's?
We realized there was nothing
we could do. We were caught in the grip of
Bangkok development and there was no way out. There would be no happy
ending.
The birds have now flown
the coop. The monks no longer come. All
we are left with is an Isaan village that tosses its garbage into what's
left of The
Swamp.
Some of the residents who
used to live around the area have started to move
away. The workers look like they're here to stay, and once they're
gone they
will probably be replaced by something worse, perhaps that hotel.
Residents in the neighbourhood are already making plans to move out.
I met a rich guy from an
old and wealthy family who lives in a
huge compound just around the corner, and vented my frustrations. He
tried to reason
with me.
``Look, sooner or later development
will come here, too,' he gestured to his
spacious grounds, and the skyscrapers which were starting to gather
around.
``We'll just have to move. There's nothing we can do."
Easy for him to say. He's
got the money to move his entire
extended family to some equally spacious compound outside the city.
But this attitude lies
at the heart of all that's wrong with modern urban living.
Mobility is great, but we
need roots, too, a sense of belonging.
Humans are social animals. Most of us need the support of a community,
or else we
go crazy and turn into axe murderers. The cult of individualism has
yielded
marvellous achievements in the West, but also created social disarray.
We need
balance.
Communities are fragile.
Difficult to create, easy to destroy, they are
developed when humans share a common history or a common area: time
and
space.
So, faced with displacement
by development, the residents of Ban
Khrua _ a 200-year-old community fighting against resettlement at the
hands of
expressway builders and real estate owners _ have the right approach.
The attempt
by residents of Phayathai District to save a vast marsh that has become
a
kind of public park from being turned into government offices is another
key
battle.
In fact, there are probably
dozens of such undeveloped lots scattered around
the city which could serve as public parks. If you look at Bangkok
from the top
of a tall building, you'll see Bangkok is a green city.
But the greenery is hoarded
behind walls. It's jealously guarded as private
property. There's no mechanism for making it public, no good samaritans
to
donate or buy up land for the common good. The government is supposed
to lead
such efforts, but instead it is developing what land it has _ as with
the
Phayathai marsh.
Bangkok's development is
remarkable. Where once there was only
swamp, we have built great mountains of steel and cement. But instead
of a garden city,
we have a walled city.
The view is great from the
mountain tops. Too bad we can't all live there.