Negotiating Thainess : Religious and National Identities in Thailand's Southern Conflict

Negotiating Thainess : Religious and National Identities in Thailand's Southern Conflict Nilsen, Marte 2012 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Nilsen, M. (2012). Negotiating Thainess : Religious and National Identities in Thailand's Southern Conflict. Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Download date: 08. Oct. 2021 Contents Map of the Patani Region 7 Preface 9 Introduction 13 Three Approaches to Understanding the Conflict 15 Research Questions, Aims and Objectives 17 Theory and Method 18 About the Dissertation 21 Part I Historical and Ideological Transitions 27 1 Early History 29 Historical Sources 30 Patani—Siam Relations 32 2 Becoming Thai 34 The Mueang—a Micro Cosmos 34 The Geo-Body of Siam—A Response to Colonial Pressure 36 Modernization and the fall of Absolute Monarchy 38 3 Thainess—Nation, Religion and Monarchy 43 Dhammarāja Buddhism 44 Shifts of Legitimacy 44 Impacts for the Patani Region 46 The Many Features of Thainess 48 4 The Southern Unrest 53 Diplomacy and Resistance 53 Haji Sulong and the Resistance of the Ulama 56 The Separatist Movements of the 1960s and 1970s 59 Resurgence of Violence at the Turn of the Millennium 61 Explanations of the Resurgence of Violence 66 5 The Religions of the Patani Region 72 Islam 73 Buddhism 80 Chinese Religion 86 3 6 Nations, Nationalism and Ethnicity 92 Nations 93 Nationalism 94 Ethnicity 100 7 Methodological Reflections 103 Qualitative Research Methods 104 Formal Interviews and Participant Observation 104 Sampling 106 Data Collecting, Analysis, and the Reliability and Validity of Data 108 Research Ethics 110 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Research 112 Part II Religious and National Identity in the Patani Region 119 8 Ethnicity and Thainess 121 To be Malay in Thailand 121 Ethnicity and Religion 126 Redefining Thainess 128 Loving the Nation the Muslim Way 131 Negotiating Thainess 133 Exclusionary Thainess 135 Competing Nationalist Narratives and Reflections on Gender 137 9 Language and Identity 140 Language Challenges 140 Thai on the Rise 142 The Lack of a Local Malay Script 143 Uneven Levels of Language Skills 145 Concerns about Decline in Local Malay 145 Thai Prejudice 146 Language as Marker of Identity 147 The Controversy of Malay 149 The Southern Thai Dialect 151 The Importance of Language 153 10 Religion and Identity 156 Religion as Moral Guideline and Shared Community 157 The Muslim Revival 160 Local Impacts of the Muslim Revival 164 Increased Buddhist Religious Consciousness 170 Religion and National identity 174 4 Part III Interethnic Relations and Local Interpretations of Violence and Conflict 177 11 Negotiating Interethnic Relations 180 Interethnic Tension 180 Contributors to Interethnic Tension 183 Protecting Religion and Culture 189 Rural Grievances and the Struggle over Natural Resources 191 Relative Deprivation among Urban Malay Muslims 193 Thai Buddhist Grievances 195 Shifting Identities 196 12 Restoring Relations 199 Preconditions for Peaceful Coexistence 199 Regaining Trust 202 13 Local Views on the Patani Conflict 206 Conspiracy Theories 206 History and the Question of Independence 210 The Military and State Violence 219 Political Reform 222 Reach Out, Understand and Develop 227 Socioeconomic Challenges 230 Conclusion 239 Summary in Norwegian 247 List of Interviews 251 References 255 5 6 Map of the Patani Region Source: International Crisis Group 7 8 Preface Only weeks after I returned from a three-month research trip to Thailand’s northeastern city Khorat in 2003, where I had studied magical elements in contemporary Theravāda Buddhism, Thailand suddenly made headlines in the international media. Following the raid of a Narathiwat army camp on January 4 th , 2004, and the subsequent wave of arson attacks, sabotage, bombs and shootings, the long-forgotten Patani conflict had once again come to public attention, as newspaper articles and TV-reports from around the world tried, with varying degrees of success, to make sense of this resurgence of violence. Despite my many visits to Thailand and studies of Thai language, history and culture, it struck me how little I knew about this long-term and quite severe conflict. Since then, I have closely followed the developments in the Patani region, the southern frontier bordering Malaysia. Two and a half years later, after a long night out in Oslo, I switched on the television and tuned into BBC World News, only to find video images of tanks and armoured vehicles rolling into the dim streets of a city I recognized as Bangkok. At dawn on September 19 th , 2006, the Royal Thai Army was staging a coup d’état to oust the controversial, yet highly popular, Thaksin Shinawatra from office. Junta leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, the first Muslim Commander-in-chief of the Thai army, was quick to point out the devastating deadlock in the Patani region as one motivating factor for the coup. Despite the fact that, for weeks, rumours of a coup had flourished in Bangkok due to the severe political crisis following the conflict between the Thaksin administration and the traditional Bangkok elite, including the upper echelon of the army, it still came as a shock. After all, fifteen years had gone by without such unconstitutional interference on the part of the army, a rather long period of time in the Thai context. Nonetheless, while going to bed that night I had more or less resigned myself to the situation, thinking: “Well, this is how it’s done in Thailand.” That thought, however, did not last very long, and the 2006 coup became the event that triggered a prolonged interest in Thai politics in general and the Patani conflict in particular. Two weeks after the coup, I submitted my Ph.D. proposal to Lund University, of which this dissertation is the result. 9 I wish to express my gratitude to a wide range of people without whose help and assistance this dissertation would never have been finalized. First of all, my profound and sincere thanks goes to my supervisor Professor Olle Qvarnström at the Department of History of Religions at Lund University, and assistant supervisor Professor Torkel Brekke at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, for safe and sound guidance from beginning to end. Without their continuous encouragement and support throughout the process, this dissertation would never have materialized. I would also like to express my deep appreciation to Lund University and the Department of History of Religions for accepting my proposal, and to Leif Stenberg, Jonas Otterbeck, Ann Kull, Kristina Myrvold, Jürgen Offermanns and Philip Haldén, for well-needed guidance and assistance. My heartfelt gratitude goes also to my colleagues—all Ph.D. Candidates in History of Religions and Islamology—for their invaluable feedback in seminars and workshops, and equally invaluable off-campus quality time in Lund and Malmö. The always friendly and accommodating administrative staff at the department deserves my warmest appreciations as well, particularly Ann-Louise Svensson, whose remarkable ability to answer any given question at any given time never ceases to amaze. I would also like to thank Allan Andersson for excellent and efficient proofreading of the final text. Furthermore, I am indebted to Ph.D. candidates and researchers at the University of Oslo, especially at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, who included me in a much appreciated academic community while away from Lund. Thanks also to the Faculty of Humanities for providing access to all necessary facilities. Repeated visits to the Patani region have been a vital part of this project, and without generous grants from the Crafoord Foundation, Birgit and Gad Rausing Foundation for Research in Humanities, Andreas Rydelius Foundation, Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, and Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, these research trips would have been impossible and this dissertation could not have been conducted. Many thanks for the support. My research trips to Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat have been the backbone of the entire study and I am truly indebted to all those who contributed to my fieldwork. More than anything this applies to Ajarn Srisompob Jitpiromsri from the Department of Political Science and primus motor of Deep South Watch. Despite his busy schedule, Srisompob always took the time to discuss various problems with me, give me advice, share his expertise and introduce me to a range of interesting people. He even took care of numerous practical matters, which made my visits both 10 comfortable and efficient. Srisompob served as an inexhaustible source of knowledge, excellent analysis and great conversation. Another highly appreciated conversation partner has been Shintaro Hara, in whose interesting company I have consumed buckets of tea and trays of the most delicious Pattani roti. Jason Johnson and Chris Joll are other Pattani-based foreign scholars I have had fruitful and invaluable discussions with.

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