138 Patrick Jory (Ed.) the Literature on the Three Southern Provinces

138 book reviews Patrick Jory (ed.) Ghosts of the Past in Southern Thailand: Essays on the History and Historiography of Patani. Singapore: NUS, 2013, xxix + 336 pp. ISBN 9789971696351. Price: USD 30.00 (paperback). The literature on the three southern provinces of Thailand tends to be repeti- tive in data but diverse in approach and this book is no exception. ‘Ghosts of the Past’ is at least the third publication on the region which has the word ‘ghosts’ in its title. It would seem that there is something about the region that makes authors view it to be somewhat ungraspable. This book brings together 12 arti- cles focusing on rather diverse aspects of the history of the Malay Kingdom of Patani. It is divided into four parts which develop the history of Patani chrono- logically from the early period until recent historiographies of the area’s past. The first part holds contributions from well established historians of South- east Asia but who are not experts on this particular region of the Malay/Thai world. The early period of the kingdom’s history (seventeenth century) was, as Reid’s article portrays it, a flourishing multicultural and open place hosting diverse communities engaged in commerce. Reid constructs his picture from Jacob van Neck’s 1602 account. A complete English translation of Van Neck’s account is added as an appendix to Reid’s contribution. His paper contests the view that the early kingdom of Patani was a Malay ethnic monolith. In addi- tion to Siamese, Europeans, and Japanese merchants, there were also Chinese visitors, some of whom never left. Jeff Wade’s article (the third chapter) provides snippets of Chinese descrip- tions of the region dating back to the sixth century. Some of the late seventh century reports of a coup in Ayuthaya that mention a rebellious Patanian queen (Raja Ungu) seem to refer to events that occurred much earlier in that century and which were also recorded in the Hikayat and confirmed by European sources. Barbara Andaya (Chapter 2) focuses on the Hikayat representation of royal symbols and sound. Andaya suggests that these symbols and sounds would have given the people of Patani a sense of communal identity. Her argument is that a communal (even somewhat ethnic) feeling emerged around these royal symbols and sounds. By contrast we can argue that the royal symbols and sounds were symbols of hierarchy and power, and Patani did suffer from internal rebellions as well as from rebellions instigated by outsiders. As Philip King points out in his article, Patani most probably fell due to internal dissent just as much as it did to Siamese conquest, suggesting petty internal squabbles as well as relative political diversity within the kingdom. This version of history is also recorded in the Hikayat Patani. Andaya as well as Chris Joll’s contribution both overlook what may be an © nathan porath, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/22134379-17001011 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License. Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:26:18PM via free access book reviews 139 important reference relating to identity in the Hikayat. They both mention that the Hikayat refers to one of the local-born religious teachers mentioned in the text as being Malay. In fact, in the original Malay and not the translated version, the Hikayat calls this man Jawi and not Malay. The only other place where Malay is mentioned in the first book of the Hikayat is in reference to Johor, where there seems to be an attempt to maintain Patani’s identity as something other than Malayu of Johor. Thus we must be careful not to read present Malay ethno-identity work back into the Patani past. Section 2 focuses on Patani’s regional and global Muslim network that emerged in the late seventeenth century and developed in subsequent centuries. The three authors Azyumardi Azra, Numan Hayimasea and Chris Joll are specialists on this branch of Patani and Islamic studies and they show that Patani was a centre of Islamic learning in Southeast Asia and that it played a central role in the development of a thriving international global network of Muslim scholars reaching as far as the Middle East. These authors provide novel insights into some of the Patanian scholars’ lives. For example, Joll makes a point that has not been made in these types of studies, namely, that these Malay scholars were not ordinary Malays but of mixed heritage and wealthy background. He calls them Creole ambassadors of Islam and this view fits nicely with the multicultural picture of Patani that this book is trying to give (see the introduction by Jory). Unfortunately, Joll ends his article by stating that Patani was no different from any other Southeast Asian port city state, a comment which may be applicable to an earlier period discussed by Reid (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), but definitely not for the period discussed in his paper (mid eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries). From the late eighteenth century to the first decades of the nineteenth century Patani suffered devastating defeats by the armies of Siam. The rise of the Ulama in Patani coin- cided with the destruction of the kingdom and this made Patani unique. The Ulama gave the people religious solace as well as a re-orientation towards the Middle East. This argument is made by Francis Bradley in his widely read PhD thesis, from which his chapter is drawn. Using the Siamese/Patani wars as his example, he challenges the established view originally put forward by Reid that warfare in Southeast Asia had low casualties because victors were con- cerned about obtaining labor. Instead Bradley argues that Patani’s five defeated wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were far more vio- lent and much more systematically carried out than previously thought. He argues that the Siamese army massacred the men while taking the women back to Bangkok. Such violence, he suggests, occurred throughout the five wars in which Siam totally crushed the kingdom of Patani and thus eliminated it as a threat. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 170 (2014) 133–173 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:26:18PM via free access 140 book reviews After Patani was broken up into seven principalities the area remained quiet for the rest of the century although it became a site for possible economic exploitation. One of the principalities was Raman. King points out that very little is known about the interior of Malay kingdoms and he tries to reconstruct Raman through the nineteenth century British reports and legal contestations over territories that harbored tin and mineral deposits. The last section of the book, consisting of four chapters by Dennis Walker, Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian, Aik Arifin Mansurnoo, and Duncan McCargo brings us into the twentieth century, and focuses on the different attempts at politically controlling Patani as well its historiography. McCargo’s contribution is particularly of interest as he focuses on the use of Patani history in political leaflets that are disseminated in the region, allegedly by separatists. What he shows us is that the leaflets range from those produced by separatists to those produced by Muslims opposing the insurgency as well as leaflets possibly produced by the Thai security to counter separatism. The leaflets show us that Patani’s history has been claimed by different political players in the region. One important fact about the book should be mentioned. The conference which produced it, ‘The Phantasm in Southern Thailand: Historical Writings on Patani and the Islamic World (2009)’, was held in Bangkok. The fact that such a conference could be held in Thailand is further evidence showing that the country is moving towards a more open, if not liberal, understanding of the Deep South and its history.The book is an important contribution to the history of the region and will also be of interest to scholars working in Malay studies as well as on the political violence of the region. Nathan Porath Walailak University, South Thailand [email protected] Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 170 (2014) 133–173 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:26:18PM via free access.

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