HONOLULU (May 24) \u2013Despite the ousting of the government of Thailand\u2019s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) in a coup last September and the stepped up reconciliation efforts of the new government in Bangkok under Surayudh Chulanont, the killings and attacks engulfing Thailand\u2019s southern border region, home to over a million Malay-speaking Thai Muslims, show little sign of abating.<\/p>\n
Identifying the causes of the unrest, let alone finding a solution, is not a simple task.<\/p>\n
Marc Askew an associate professor at Victoria University\u2019s School of Social Sciences in Melbourne, Australia, notes, \u201cFinding the causes and culprits of the ongoing violence in Thailand\u2019s Muslim-majority south is a highly politicized process.\u201d A process he points out that has been made all the more difficult over the past three years by the \u201cconfrontations generated by (ousted Prime Minister) Thaksin Shinawatra\u2019s controversial mode of governance and policymaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Askew says, \u201cIt is clear that Thaksin\u2019s attempts to restructure the state from 2001 to 2004 \u2026 (and) extrajudicial kidnappings and murders under Thaksin\u2019s aegis clearly played a role in alienating southern Muslims.\u201d But he adds, \u201cThe panic and fear surrounding um kha (abduction and murder) has also been spread effectively by a militant network that employs rumor as a strategic weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBranding Thaksin as a key culprit in sparking the current \u2018fire in the south,\u2019 though partly valid,\u201d Askew says, \u201cis also oversimplified.\u201d<\/p>\n
He notes that in 2004 and 2005, the largely-southern based opposition Democrat Party (DP) \u201cbereft of policies with which to counter Thaksin\u2019s populism, managed to retain its electoral heartland via a campaign that demonized Thaksin as a cause of the southern unrest, conveniently downplaying the DP\u2019s own incapacity when in government to fully address the complex dynamics that keep the borderland volatile and vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conspiracies, dirty politics, and common criminality, not only along the border but also in Bangkok, certainly are major factors in Askew\u2019s view of the disorder.<\/p>\n
\u201cEfforts to comprehend the dynamics of the current violence have been informed by narratives of conspiracy,\u201d Askew points out. \u201cThough some of these theories are outlandish, their plausibility \u2026 derives from knowledge of the well-established and complex ways that power has been deployed in the borderland by overlapping interest groups (including politicians at all levels) and underworld networks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Askew notes that it is \u201csignificant that Muslim critics in the south who opposed Thaksin\u2019s policies also argue that entrenched DP-based interest groups have been a key element in weakening the region.\u201d Although as Askew points out, \u201cThey conveniently exclude Wadah politicians (influential Muslim politicians in the south) and their networks from the equation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Askew notes \u201ca number of former military and intelligence officers emphasized that the southern violence emerged and persisted because of the inability and unwillingness of successive (national) governments to address a disorderly state that has rendered the borderland vulnerable through pervasive corruption, predation, and competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Askew, a senior Muslim police commander in Pattani, one of the three violence-torn southern provinces, says \u201cthe borderland has been manipulated and abandoned \u2026 the border provinces have for too long been a dua prolong (testing ground, or playing field of competition) for rival political and interest groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, the long-standing situation has made it easy, according to Askew, \u201cfor insurgent groups to exploit the already low popular-trust thresholds and succeed in implicating officials (both local and in Bangkok) as the perpetrators of attacks.\u201d This is despite the fact, Askew says, \u201cthat Muslim separatist groups and leaders have long functioned as another vested interest group \u2026 drawing material sustenance and advantage from instability and conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
That attitude allows the conflict to be painted as a \u201cbinary portrait \u2026 such as \u2018hegemonic Buddhist State vs. Oppressed Muslim Borderland\u2019,\u201d according to Askew. An attitude that, he says, \u201ccasts blame on a Thai Buddhist ruling apparatus rather than acknowledging a problem of corruption\/criminality that crosses ethno-religious boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imtiyaz Yusuf, head of the department of religion at Bangkok\u2019s Assumption University\u2019s Graduate School of Philosophy and Religion, addresses the religious and ethnic aspects of the problems in southern Thailand, too. Although in his view religion and ethnicity have been given short shrift.<\/p>\n
In a recent study, Yusuf notes that most commentators and analysts neglect \u201cthe role of religion and ethnicity in the crisis.\u201d He says, \u201cThe phenomenon of ethnification of religion is very much evident in Southeast Asia where religions function along ethnic lines.\u201d He points out, \u201cHere a Malay is a Muslim, a Siamese\/Thai a Buddhist and a Chinese either a Christian or Tao\/Buddhist syncretic \u2026 ethno-religious constructs shape identities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yusuf is quick to point out this characterization is not set in law. While Thailand has a Buddhist majority population of 94 percent, he notes \u201cthe Thai constitution does not declare Buddhism as the official religion \u2026 and the Thai king is held as the patron of all religions.\u201d But, he adds, Thai identity revolves around concepts of Chat, Sassana, and Pramahakasat or Nation, Religion (Buddhism) and the Monarchy. The unassimilated southern Muslims contest this concept. They maintain the identity reference should be pluralistic in spirit, it should include all religions not only Buddhism.<\/p>\n
Yusuf says to the southern Muslims \u201ctraditionally, ethnicity, language, and religion have served as important determinants of identity \u2026 to be a Malay means to be Muslim only, just as being a Thai means being Buddhist.\u201d They do not buy into the concept that the modern definition of the terms Malay and Thai include \u201creligiously pluralistic identifications in terms of being identified as citizens of modern states of Thailand and Malaysia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Distinctive political cultures that bring their own cultural understandings of power, politics, and religion in an interconnected relationship do not make a solution to the problems in southern Thailand any simpler.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Thai state today,\u201d Yusuf points out, \u201cdemands equal loyalty from all its citizens irrespective of their ethnic or religious affiliations, be they Chinese or Malay Muslims.\u201d What this means is that Thai Muslims have to \u201creinterpret their Malay-Muslim political philosophy so that they can adjust to the political loyalty demands of a modernized Thai state.\u201d<\/p>\n
That may be easier said than done.<\/p>\n
Yusuf says the conflict in southern Thailand \u201chas to be understood in a cosmological and ethno-cultural context which needs more than mere political and security response to solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
What both recent studies make very clear is that citing simple solutions to the ongoing conflict in southern Thailand will only add to the complexity of the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HONOLULU (May 24) \u2013Despite the ousting of the government of Thailand\u2019s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) in a coup last September and the stepped up reconciliation efforts of the new government in Bangkok under Surayudh Chulanont, the killings and attacks engulfing Thailand\u2019s southern border region, home to over a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[10,11,12,38],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}