Southern Thailand

This study addresses the competing histories of Thailand and Patani beginning in the fourteenth century up to the mid-twentieth century. It provides an explanation of the causes of ongoing political conflict between the Malay Muslims in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand and the Thai government, against which "separatist" movements fought in the 1960s. Even though January 2004 marked the beginning of the current violence that now plagues Thailand's south, most people in and outside the area still believe that the nature of such conflict is internal and could be resolved peacefully. The major contention in the competing histories of Siam and Patani revolves around national policies that resulted in discrimination and destruction of the Muslim's cultural identity and rights. In the early twentieth century under the rule of King Chulalongkorn, which was characterized by centralization and cultural suppression, Patani was reduced to a mere province. Further forced assimilation occurred under the Phibun government in the 1940s, at which time Islamic practices and the use of the Yawi language were curbed. The sources of political conflict—including the political status of Patani, ethnic identity, Bangkok politics, and bureaucratic misconduct in the south—have historical roots. Understanding and appreciation of each other's culture and ethno-religious identities could lead to positive political will on both sides for peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Scholars have given questions about the perpetrators of nameless violence in Southern Thailand little consideration, leaving the motives that drive Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) heavily cloaked in secrecy and speculation. This book offers a rare glimpse behind the veil that shrouds BRN-Coordinate. Using exclusive access to and detailed interviews with BRN-Coordinate members, this book analyses the communicative dimension of the insurgency. It depicts the hidden channels and organized violence that drive the regions enduring rebellion as well as BRN's dichotomous existence between silence and communication.

At the heart of the on-going armed conflict in southern Thailand is a fundamental disagreement about the history of relations between the Patani Malays and the Thai kingdom. While the Thai royalist-nationalist version of history regards Patani as part of that kingdom "since time immemorial," Patani Malay nationalists look back to a golden age when the Sultanate of Patani was an independent, prosperous trading state and a renowned center for Islamic education and scholarship in Southeast Asia — a time before it was defeated, broken up, and brought under the control of the Thai state. While still influential, in recent years these diametrically opposed views of the past have begun to make way for more nuanced and varied interpretations. Patani scholars, intellectuals and students now explore their history more freely and confidently than in the past, while the once-rigid Thai nationalist narrative is open to more pluralistic interpretations. There is growing interaction and dialogue between historians writing in Thai, Malay and English, and engagement with sources and scholarship in other languages, including Chinese and Arabic. In The Ghosts of the Past in Southern Thailand, 13 scholars who have worked on this sensitive region evaluate the current state of current historical writing about the Patani Malays of southern Thailand. The essays in this book demonstrate that an understanding of the conflict must take into account the historical dimensions of relations between Patani and the Thai kingdom, and the ongoing influence of these perceptions on Thai state officials, militants, and the local population.

"This is a remarkable piece of scholarship that illuminates general and specific tendencies in Islamic education in South Thailand. Armed with an enormous amount of rich empirical detail and an elegant writing style, the author debunks the simplistic Orientalist conceptions of Wahhabi and Salafi influences on Islamic education in South Thailand. This work will be a state-of-the-art source for understanding the role of Islam and the ongoing conflict in this troubled region of Southeast Asia. The book is significant for those scholars who are attempting to understand Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, and also for those who want deep insights into Islamic education and its influence in any area of the Islamic world." - Raymond Scupin, Professor of Anthropology and International Studies Lindenwood University, USA "Few books address the sensitive issue of Islamic education with empathy as well as critical distance as Joseph C. Liow's Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand. He examines global networks of religious learning within a local Thai as well as regional Asian context by brilliantly revealing the intersections between religion, politics and modernity in an accessible and illuminating manner. Traditional educational institutions rarely receive such sensitive and balanced treatment. Liow's book is a tour de force and mandatory reading for policy-makers, academics and all of those interested in current affairs." - Ebrahim Moosa, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religion, Associate Director, Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), Duke University, USA "Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand is Joseph Chinyong Liow's critical attempt to map out the reflexive questioning, locations of authority, dynamics and contestations within the Muslim community over what constitutes Islamic knowledge and education. Through the optics of Islamic education in Southern Thailand, Liow manages to brilliantly portray the ways in which Muslim minority negotiate their lives in the local context of violence and the global context of crisis of modernity." - Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Senior Research Scholar, Thailand Research Fund, Author of The Life of this World: Negotiated Muslim Lives in Thai Society

Current unrest in the Malay-Muslim provinces of southern Thailand has captured growing national, regional, and international attention due to the heightened tempo and scale of rebel attacks, the increasingly jihadist undertone that has come to characterize insurgent actions, and the central government's often brutal handling of the situation on the ground. This paper assesses the current situation and its probable direction.

Since January 2004, the three Muslim-dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in the Thai south have been ablaze with political violence. This title examines the reasons behind the unrest in south Thailand from a variety of perspectives.

This monograph examines the tragic conflict in Thailand's southern Muslim-majority provinces near the border with Malaysia. Although the conflict has attracted wide national and international interest, no agreement exists on the cause of the resumption of violence in an area that had remained free of major conflict for two decades. This monograph critically examines explanations for the conflict and traces its evolution from the early 1990s to the beginning of the Samak government in 2008. The study points to a wide variety of factors that were important in the resumption of the conflict, with policies of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra being critical in determining the timing and intensity of the violence. These conditions include: (1) the resumption of an age-old conflict between Malay Muslims from Pattani, Yala, and Narithiwat Provinces against a discriminatory central government; (2) entrenched problems of criminality in an area far from the capital and with a porous border with Malaysia; (3) the disbanding of important conflict resolution institutions by former Prime Minister Thaksin, who then gave priority to hard line (sometimes extrajudicial) security policies; (4) growing Islamic religiosity, influenced by regional reform movements and international developments, including the example of extremist movements such as Jemaah Islamiyah; and (5) the growth of southern insurgent movements--which have never issued public demands and whose real leaders remain unknown. In this complex setting, no resolution to the violence appears likely in the near future, as Thaksin's main policies have been retained since the September 2006 coup that ousted his government.