Page 2 of
2 Etymology of an ethnic
conflict By Jason Johnson
In
2009, under the Democrat-led government of Abhisit
Vejjajiva, foreign minister Kasit Piromya
addressed a group of officials from countries from
the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC, now
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) in
Pattani province about the conflict. Kasit, who
was a former leader of the royalist People's
Alliance for Democracy social movement, told them:
"If it were up to me, I would make Yawi an
official language."
On one hand, such diplomatic
niceties from senior Bangkok-based officials
signal a rise in consciousness and acknowledgment
of the Malay language. At the same time, Kasit's
statement demonstrated a deep-seated lack of
knowledge about the local Malay dialect among
Thais and foreigners who
have
worked on the troubled minority region, as most
conflate Yawi with Jawi.
"Yawi" is how Thais pronounce
Jawi. But while Jawi refers to the written form of
classical Malay, Thais mistakenly use the term
"Yawi" to refer to the local spoken Malay
language. Most Thais also incorrectly believe that
Yawi is the written form of the local Malay. Thai
and foreign academics and non-government
organization (NGO) workers have often botched
reporting on the issue by noting that the
Malay-speaking population is fluent in reading and
writing "Yawi".
The pervasive lack of fluency
in Jawi among Malay speakers indicates that the
logic behind some recent efforts to introduce Jawi
may be more symbolic than practical. For instance,
when presented with government-produced training
manuals that included Thai and Jawi versions, a
group of Village Defense Volunteers said that no
one could read the Jawi version. Yet they all
agreed that it was a positive conciliatory gesture
by the government to offer a Jawi version.
Some
of these men and others also recently lauded the
policy of the Southern Border Provinces
Administrative Center (SBPAC) to introduce
trilingual street signs in Jawi, Thai and English.
In another symbolic gesture, the regional
administration center, whose secretary general is
appointed by Bangkok, also recently added Jawi to
the center's main sign at the building's entrance
in Yala town. The SBPAC has also worked with some
NGO-led efforts to change the names of some
villages from Thai to Malay, consistent with those
more commonly used among Malay-speaking locals.
Many local television and
radio programs now broadcast in the local Malay
without government harassment. Most recently, the
National Broadcasting Services of Thailand
announced that beginning next year it would use
exclusively local Malay when broadcasting its TV
and radio programs in the minority region.
Local Malay has also become
increasingly mixed into classroom teachings at
both government and private Islamic schools. In
2006, the Ministry of Education began a project in
which teachers at 12 government schools were
encouraged to use local Malay in preschool
classrooms. Less formally, Malay-speaking teachers
across the region have also been given
dramatically more leeway to use Patani Malay in
their classrooms.
Jawi,
Rumi, or Thai? Some
academics focused on the far south have suggested
that Malay Muslim youth can improve both their
Thai language skills and secular knowledge through
bilingual education. For instance, Bangkok-based
Mahidol University's Research Institute for
Languages and Cultures of Asia has introduced a
program in which the Thai script is used to write
Patani Malay.
The program has been ongoing
at four government pilot schools since 2008, but
this year the Ministry of Education agreed to
allow the program to be expanded to a total of 15
schools. Moreover, Jawi will soon be taught at
these schools beginning in Grade 4, while
romanized Malay, or Rumi, will be introduced in
Grade 5 or 6 as a foreign language.
In
recent years, both Jawi and Rumi have been
introduced at many government schools throughout
the region, though students only spend a few hours
per week on such studies.
The
Mahidol program has won support among government
officials. But because the program uses the Thai
script, it has been viewed by some figures in the
Malay community as another Bangkok-led attempt to
wipe out the Malay language. Some critics have
claimed that the Jawi script would be more fitting
for local Malay youth.
Besides the conflict over the
use of Jawi or Thai script, there are some Malay
Muslims who would prefer to use the romanized
script. This, they argue, would help to facilitate
the learning of not only standard Malay but also
English. (Rumi is official in Malaysia, Indonesia
and Singapore, and is co-official with Jawi in
Brunei.)
Mahidol University research
on the subject revealed that the vast majority of
Malay-speaking Muslim parents preferred a
Thai-based script, since that was the only script
that most parents could understand. Many educated
Malays strongly disagreed, but that criticism has
waned somewhat because the parents of children
involved in the program have been pleased with the
program's results, according to people familiar
with the situation.
Test results have shown that
students have become dramatically more fluent in
central Thai and excelled in mathematics and
social studies compared with students in
monolingual Thai schooling.
Given the program's relative
success, Bangkok could in the future formally
implement the bilingual style of learning
throughout the restive region. In 2010, then-prime
minister Abhisit signed the Royal Institute of
Thailand's proposed National Language Policy,
which provided official support for the use of
languages or dialects other than central Thai in
education, even as languages of instruction.
Current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra
authorized the formation of an implementation
committee for the policy in April.
However, linguist Kirk
Person, an adviser to the Mahidol University
program, said there were still no clear signs on
whether the bilingual education program will
expand beyond 15 schools. Key stakeholders worry
that a rapid expansion of the program without
sufficient teacher orientation and strong
community support could result in a poorly
implemented program opposed by some sectors of
Malay Muslim society and thus prefer a more
gradual roll-out.
Still, many Malay Muslims
remain cynical about government claims of
elevating the status of Malay after decades of
repressing the language. Some have already
complained about the SBPAC's slow movement in
carrying out Malay-related programs, such as
changing the names of some villages from Thai to
Malay.
Malay Muslim cynics are also
quick to note that despite nearly a decade of
extreme violence, state officials deployed to the
region have taken little if any initiative to
learn Malay. But if the region's violence is to be
effectively managed through some kind of eventual
peace deal, the issue of language use in the
ethno-religious minority region will likely be a
key issue at the negotiation table.
Jason
Johnson is an independent researcher and
consultant covering southernmost Thailand. He is
currently based in Pattani province, southern
Thailand, and may be reached at
jrj.johnson@gmail.com.
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