Page 1 of 2 Missing the nuance in south Thailand
By Jason Johnson
PATTANI - Since the dramatic upsurge of violence in the predominantly Muslim
provinces of southern Thailand in 2004, many have simplified portrayals of the
ethnic Malay Muslim population. That's led to widespread misconceptions about
the spiraling conflict, including that nearly all of the minority group harbor
Patani [1] Malay Muslim nationalist sentiment and resentment towards the Thai
state.
Whether the international mass media, counter-insurgency experts, human-rights
activists, or even accomplished academics, it has become commonplace to assert
that Malay Muslims resent the Thai state for its culturally insensitive
assimilation and heavy-handed security policies that over the years have
undermined their identity and aspirations.
Although these portrayals hold true for many Malay Muslims, they
also overlook the affective connection that many in the region have for
Thailand, the dearth of passion for the grand narrative of a Patani Malay
Muslim nationalist struggle versus the Bangkok-centric Thai state, and
widespread animosity towards the insurgents, who have played a prominent role
in transforming the region into a war zone.
Patani Malay Muslim separatist movements have long mobilized ethno-religious
nationalist sentiment by emphasizing the extensive history of discrimination
against and repression of Malay Muslims since the Patani sultanate's loss to
Siam, present day Thailand, in 1785, and formal annexation in 1909. Despite
this, over the past decade, several researchers have shown that Malay Muslims
are not a unified mass that resent the Thai state and aspire for autonomy or
some form of special administration.
A few anthropologists have found both rural and urban Malay Muslims who have
shown no interest in the historical narrative of Siam's colonization of the
Patani sultanate, expressed a fondness for being citizens of Thailand, shared
no cultural bond with other ethnic Malays in northern Malaysia, and believed
Malay Muslim separatists - who claim to represent the greater interests of this
ethno-religious minority - to be a threat to their security.
After spending two-and-a-half years in Pattani town, which has given this
writer a perspective with an urban bias, my encounters with Malay Muslims have
also confirmed that the "Thai-ification" of this region is not always met with
animosity. Many Malay Muslims not only seem to straddle Thai, Malay, and Muslim
identities, but do so without resentment towards the Thai state for its
centralization policies that have indeed marginalized Patani Malay Muslim
identity, most notably through educational and political institutions.
Scholars have asserted for decades that Malay Muslims view Thai government
schools, which require the compulsory learning of official Thai and have
historically offered no Islamic education, as an assault on Malay language and
Malay Muslim culture. With the expansion of the private Islamic schools in
recent decades, Malay Muslim parents have preferred to send their children to
these increasingly popular educational institutions, which approximately 75% of
Malay Muslims in secondary school now attend. Although urban parents with
limited education have emphasized to me that they send their children to these
schools because they provide both an Islamic and secular education, no one has
ever mentioned any animosity towards Thai government institutions for
marginalizing Malay identity.
Mixed grievances
As for Malay Muslim concerns for acquiring some kind of special administrative
zone for the region, at some coffee and tea shops (and, of course, at seminars
and conferences) one often may hear Malay Muslims rail against the government
for not allowing Malay Muslims to have more authority over their own affairs.
Several recent university graduates from the Prince of Songkla University,
Pattani campus, have even commented that they dream of seeing the region become
autonomous from Thailand, and jokingly refer to this university as "Patani
State University". Some of these same individuals as well as others are also
pushing to see the expansion of sharia law - which is strongly opposed
by some sectors of the Malay Muslim population.
At a tea shop I regularly visit, for instance, almost every Malay Muslim
ardently opposes this law, which would require a stricter observation of Islam.
Moreover, none of these people - who are not university-educated - has
mentioned any concern for a special administrative organization that addresses
Malay Muslims' unique identity.
Though these same Malay-speaking Muslims frequently discuss their grievances
towards the Thai government, they are almost always economic ones. In fact,
according to survey research by the Prince of Songkla University's Center for
the Study of Conflict and Cultural Diversity (CSCC), socio-economic dilemmas
such as widespread unemployment and rampant drug abuse significantly trump the
"fire in the south" in terms of the every day concerns of most people in the
region.
To be sure, for many Malay Muslims, especially those well-educated, political
issues that center on Patani Malay Muslim identity and the Thais state's
refusal to decentralize political power are major concerns. Many of these
people fear that if left unchecked, the processes of Thailand's nation-state
building will only further erode the use of the local Malay language, which is
widely spoken but has no written form. CSCC survey research indicates that in
approximately 30% of Malay Muslim homes, local Malay is now mixed with
Thailand's official language, central Thai.
One young Malay Muslim English teacher even revealed admiration for separatist
groups' efforts to protect and salvage the local Malay language. Many others
resent that Thai Buddhists and even uneducated Malay Muslims refer to the local
Malay language, or Patani Malay, as pasa Islam" or pasa Yawi when
speaking Thai.
And for those Malay Muslims who have spent time in the broader Islamic world,
other Muslims usually call them "Patani Muslims", thereby heightening their
consciousness of being a Patani Muslim. However, it seems that for some Malay
Muslims, both educated and undereducated, and especially women, the meaning of
"Patani" in the local Malay only refers to Pattani province, not a Patani Malay
Muslim nation.
To varying degrees, some of the people who have revealed Patani Malay Muslim
nationalist leanings also take exception to the imposition of Thailand's
national identity, which centers on the quintessential symbol of the monarchy.
While some of these same people have stated that they have respect for the
current King Bhumibol Adulyadej, many others - from maids, security guards,
teachers, businessmen, school owners, village headmen, construction workers to
unemployed drug abusers - have claimed a strong affection for the king.
Presumptuous observers
Portrayals of Malay Muslims that fail to dovetail with the conventional
notions, however, are not always readily accepted in intellectual circles.
Several Western journalists and academics have played down anthropological
observations apparently because they do not fit with their idealist and often
simplistic assumptions about an aggrieved minority.
In the highly charged context of "separatist" insurgents fighting to gain
political autonomy and to protect and salvage Patani Malay Muslim identity,
many intellectuals cannot manage to perceive Malay Muslims at worst as anything
less than innocent victims of a Thai state that has treated them as
second-class citizens and disregarded their grievances, or at best as noble
resistors to the state.
To a large degree, these presumptions of Malay Muslims are acquired through the
literature on the conflict and violence, which is almost always written by
people who have little, if any, exposure to ordinary Malay Muslims and pay
little attention to research on the region that falls outside of these two
dominant themes.
For instance, counter-insurgency expert, Peter Chalk, from the RAND
Corporation, writes that the current violence in the region reflects "a steely
determination on the part of the [my emphasis] local Malay-Muslim
population to maintain their unique way of life" [2]. Similarly, Joseph Liow,
from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore, states "the struggle of the [my emphasis]
Malay-Muslims of southern Thailand has always been a mass movement based upon
the hope of a mass uprising among the Malay-Muslims of southern Thailand" [3].
A recent article in the New York Times epitomized this romanticized vision of
group boundedness by reporting that Muslim villagers are angry at the army for
detaining their "brethren" [4].
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