Ink and Blood

The ways of the world are funny.

On the news this morning - I read about an Australian writer in Bangkok who has been imprisoned and sentenced to three years of rigirous imprisonment.

His crime was violation of a constitutional dictat that mandates a term of 15 years in prison for anyone who defames or insults the King, the Queen or an heir apparant to the royal throne.

Wow...

The writer in question, an English Teacher in Thailand and wrote a book that he self published 50 copies of, selling only under a dozen copies found himself arrested while boarding an plane for a trip back home.

I dont know the name of his book .. or its contents .. maybe there were severely inflammatory ..maybe not .. but a prison sentence ?

His book was a fictional story based in Thailand.

I am sure one could argue that there are groups in India as well, that would get upset and display far less than rational responses in similar situations .. Theres several cases in question.

When the legal/admnistrative system jumps in and takes an official stand of this nature .. what it does is infact, send a very strong messsage .. to anyone .. from reporters, to people, to bloggers - about the exact and precisely narrow limits of their freedom of speech.

As a writer, and unarguable an often opinionated one at that, its no surprise that I have strong feelings about this.
What bothers me is the shocking irony and double standard that is displayed by political systems and parties in their war against ink.
And yet, unknown to the common man, there are groups that wage a far more serious battle..archiving their stories, demands and details in blood.
Somehow, these latter battles dont motivate the same harsh responses that the former do.
And yet, one cannot ignore the reinforcing relationship between ink and blood.
Often, its the battles that are fought in blood that result in pens being picked up, keyboards being plugged in and words being written. Those words cause or call for more agression and the saga continues.
When small nimble hands arent allowed to hold pencils but are instead pulled out and given more subjectively powerful weapons, its then that wars wage as long as they do.
Last year, I read Friedrich Niche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" where he elaborated the concept of the Ubermensch and philosophized on how "God is dead". Highly moving, highly though provoking and highly controversial. One book that you just cannot ignore. There are some that say that there is conclusive evidence of Niche's theory in Mein Kampf.
I've read "Thus spake" back and forth and at length and re read it after becoming aware of the theory. And for the life of me, I just could not see how.
For one, the entire book is in poetry format. Which also means that only half of what you understand is what the author wrote, the rest is your interpretation.
And if infact, its your intrepretation that is controversial, whats the poor writer going to do?
Ofcourse I am not suggesting that their should not be governance of facts or libelous remarks in literature. To conclude that based on this post, would be to dilute the argument.
That having been said, I dont have an answer.
Just questions. Many of them.
Ink and Blood.
When did they become mortal enemies ? And how do we make it stop ?