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Malay identity; the religious demand was recognition and enforcement of the Shari‘ah. His “mysterious” death in 1954 transformed him into a symbol of resistance to the Thai state. Over the years this struggle has engendered many political movements: the Association of Malays of Greater Patani, the Patani People’s Movement, Barisan Nasional Pembebasan Patani, Barisan Revolusi Nasional, the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO), and Barisan Bersatu Mujahideen Patani (BBMP), all of which were formed during the 1960s. During the 1970s the resistance movement evolved into a nationalist irredentist movement. In the 1980s and 1990s, new groups emerged: Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), Pemuda, Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani, and Bersatu (New PULO). The present insurgency, an ethno-religious nationalist one with a strong emphasis on Malay Muslim ethnic and religious identity, remains largely faceless. Although it calls for separation from Thailand, true autonomy might be acceptable. In the past, Pattani was an important and respected center for traditional-conservative Islamic learning. The people’s close identification of Islam with Malay ethnicity makes religion, along with language and education, strong identity markers. Thousands of the region’s young Muslims pursue higher religious studies in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Influenced by the religio-theological trends of Islamic resurgence while abroad, upon returning home they try to promote Islamic reform and resurgence along puritan and sectarian lines. Yet this does not make all of them insurgents. Recent events in the Deep South have destroyed the centuries-long social relations between the region’s Muslims and Buddhists. Bangkok’s calls for national integration or encouraging the region’s Muslims to enter mainstream Thai society are seen as entailing their own cultural disintegration for, according to them, Thai Buddhism and Malay Islam belong to two different cosmological orientations. Given the largely ethnic orientations of these two communities, each of them has been described as a “closed system.”
Recent History On 28 Apr. 2004, insurgents attacked 15 security posts and police stations in Yala, Songkla, and Pattani. In the ensuing battles, 107 Muslim “militants” and 5 securi-
ty personnel died; 17 were arrested. Thirty-seven of the Muslims were killed in the blockade of the Krue Se mosque, where soldiers were given shoot-to-kill orders. All of this was a reaction to Prime Minister Thaksin’s imposition of martial law on the grounds that the region was a “local front” in the “war on terror.” A 34-page Jawi/Malay language booklet, “Berjihad di Pattani,” found on the body of a dead Muslim called for a jihad to separate Pattani, killing non-Muslims (even one’s parents) if they leak information to the government, and forming a constitutional state of Pattani based on the Shafi‘i school of law. Those killed during the “Krue Se mosque incident” were treated by their relatives as martyrs (shahid). The chularajmontri (the Shaykh al-Islam of Thailand), the national chief official representative of the country’s Muslims, along with the Central Islamic Committee, called for the booklet’s destruction and appointed a nine-member committee to write a Thai-language rebuttal: “Facts about the Distortion of Islamic Teachings as Appeared in ‘The Struggle for Pattani’
Thai Muslims have coexisted with Thai Buddhists for centuries, but their relationship has been put to the test in southern Thailand. (Berjihad di Pattani).” This incident led to a large public media debate about the methods employed and a wider policy debate on how the government should address matters in the South. Surin Pitsuwan, a southern Muslim, former Thai foreign minister, and present secretary general of ASEAN, criticized the Thaksin government’s move to implement a CEO style of leadership and promote tourism, the cultural and religious insensitivity of which offended the southern Muslims. He also issued a seven-point plan for long-term development and called for a unified analysis of the problem and conflict resolution via protecting human rights, encouraging local participation, focusing on human resource development before embarking on grand economic and materialistic
schemes, and cautioning Bangkok to realize that the Muslim world is watching. Another incident took place during Ramadan (25 Oct.) 2004 over the killing of 84 Muslims who were protesting outside the Takbai district police station against the jailing of some teachers in a local pondok (Islamic school; madrassa) suspected of being behind the violent incidents in the South. Six persons died on the scene, and 78 suffocated to death after being piled upon each other while being taken by truck to a military camp. This incident set off charges of excessive use of force, harsh methods, and neglecting human rights. Despite calls from the public, Thaksin refused to apologize for mishandling the incident. The government-appointed independent fact-finding commission, while criticizing the mismanagement, ruled that the deaths had been caused unintentionally. It also faulted some senior security officials and suggested that compensation be paid to the families of those who died, were injured, or went missing. In light of the arrest of these four Islamic teachers, Bangkok assumed that the pondoks were a breeding ground for insurgents and initiated the policy of streamlining them within the general educational system. This is not the first time that Bangkok has tried to assert its control over this system of religious schools. Pondoks have played a formative role in the indigenous Muslims’ educational development for many years. During the 1930s and 1940s, Phibun Songkram’s government decreed that they should use Thai instead of Malay and Arabic. Seeing this as a threat to their ethno-religious identity, the schools started to disseminate panMalay nationalist and Islamic revivalist ideas. As Bangkok does not recognize these schools, many graduates go abroad to further their education and, upon return, set up their own pondoks. Today there are 500 pondoks, most of which are registered. The Thaksin government wanted all of them to register themselves; some, however, preferred to dissolve or retreat. On 28 Apr. 2004, the government adopted a pondok-watch policy. It has been suggested that Bangkok leave religious education to the religious scholars so that graduates can pursue higher education within the Thai educational system. Recent events have shown that there is great variety in the type of Islamic education in Pattani, which means that blaming the pondoks is not enough. The issue of education JULY/AUGUST 2010 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 55