Religious divide grows amid
Thai unrest By David Fullbrook
BANGKOK - Though southern Thailand's
ethnic-Malay Muslims are drawing closer together in the
face of heavy-handed government tactics to quash a
simmering separatist insurgency, religion is splitting
them as Islamic fundamentalists, or reformists,
challenge the prevailing Sufi Islam.
Ethnic-Malay and Thai Muslims traditionally
practice Sufism - Sunni Islam with a mystical, moderate
edge - which has prevailed in Indonesia, Malaysia and
Thailand since Islam supplanted animism, Buddhism and
Hinduism a few hundred years ago.
"There is the
traditional kind of Muslim beliefs common in the region
and there are the newer beliefs, reformist ideas brought
back by those who studied in the Middle East," says
Michiko Tsuneda, a University of Wisconsin cultural
anthropologist studying Thai-Malay Muslim communities in
southern Thailand.
Over the past few decades
fundamentalist Islam has taken root, with perhaps as
many as one in 20 now following this strict and, some
Islamic scholars would argue, erroneous interpretation
of the Koran.
That fundamentalism should appear
is not surprising. It is strikingly visible in the men's
dress, which is more Afghan or Middle Eastern than
Malay, and the face-covering chadors worn by
women. Increasingly they can be seen in Tak, Chiang Rai
and other parts of the country, not just the south.
Fundamentalism's rise in the Middle East took
off early in the 20th century, if not before, but only
really started to reach the Malay Peninsula in the
1970s, as cheaper travel allowed more Southeast Asian
Muslims to seek higher education in the Middle East.
"Usually Islamic schoolteachers, if they've had higher
education, they usually studied in the Middle East,"
says Tsuneda. Some returned preaching fundamentalism. A
few became followers while fighting the Soviets in
Afghanistan.
Thailand's Muslims are a mixed
bunch, comprising ethnic Malays, Thais, Indians and a
smattering of others. "Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala,
most of the Muslims there are Malay, but there are Thai
Muslim communities there as well, some local and some
from other parts of the country," says Tsuneda.
Their traditional Sufism struggles in the face
of the slicker fundamentalism, just as traditional
religions among Thailand's non-Thai mountain peoples are
giving way to various brands of hard-sell Christianity.
"If you hear people talking about these things,
they are emotional. From the perspective of the
traditionalists, what they have believed all their lives
is being attacked. The villagers, the traditionalists,
don't really have the social capital to back their point
of view. The reformists have higher education, they have
been to the Middle East, they can claim they know better
than the traditionalists, leaving the villagers in a
difficult situation," says Tsuneda.
Further
complicating the picture, some Muslims mix and match
elements from traditional and fundamentalist Islam. So
far the two co-exist peacefully, if awkwardly. "In some
villages they have two mosques, one for reformists and
one for traditionalists," says Tsuneda. "I wouldn't say
the majority of communities are split but they are
feeling the pressures of this."
Rising
fundamentalism - commonly associated, but not always
correctly, with Islamic terrorists - is probably a
factor attracting the attention of foreign militants. In
2003 police arrested four men in southern Thailand,
charged with membership in Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which
is fighting to create a fundamentalist Islamic state in
Southeast Asia. That led to the arrest of JI's
operations boss Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, now in US
custody, location unknown.
However, while
Hambali apparently spent some time in southern Thailand,
there seems little evidence to suggest foreign terrorist
cells are actively raising legions of jihadis in
Thailand.
"I don't think that really has
happened, but if this situation continues there may be
more room to manipulate the local frustrations. If
somebody was to come in to try using these feelings
against the state to their advantage, they might
succeed. The majority of people would not be taking part
in violent acts, but you may be able to find some groups
of people who are angry enough," Tsuneda says.
Dispelling that anger, listening sympathetically
to complaints and working hard to find a middle ground
would go a long way toward repairing relations with the
Muslim community in Thailand. It is almost certainly
cheaper in lives and baht and would probably deliver
reliable intelligence, now in short supply, rather than
trying to control and subdue people through cracking
heads.
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