Published on January 31, 2006

Local Muslims have not been swayed by hard-line insurgents, but govt has also failed to address their needs. As Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra struggles to disentangle himself from the scandals of the day, the situation in the deep South appears to have escalated.

There has been a marked increase in frequency and intensity of attacks and acts of sabotage by Islamic insurgents/Malay separatists against security forces and civilian targets. But even before the prime minister was distracted, there was little leadership, no apparent strategy, indeed no ownership of the problem.

Armed militants continue to carry out provocative acts to harass security forces and terrorise the civilian population with impunity, presumably with the aim of inducing the military and police to retaliate and cause civilian casualties, thereby radicalising the Malay Muslim population in the southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. Radicalisation of the general Muslim population has not yet been achieved, although pockets of militant Muslims are active.

The Islamic militants’ lack of success to date can be attributed to these rebel groups – who claim to be religiously motivated – being considered too extreme by the majority of peace-loving local Muslims. Local residents have traditionally subscribed to an Islam that is tolerant and fully capable of peaceful coexistence with other faiths. Worse, the armed militants do not appear to have a coherent ideology or political agenda to offer the Muslim public. Thus, most Muslims increasingly find themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place.

The Thaksin administration has promised to find a solution to the complicated social and economic problems, compounded by ethnic, religious and cultural factors, faced by southern Muslims, who feel neglected and marginalised by mainstream society. But two years after the escalation of violence that has turned the region into a war zone, more than 1,100 people have been killed, and a solution seems as elusive as ever.

Security forces and government agencies have failed to convince local Muslim communities that they are capable of ensuring public safety and enforcing the rule of law. After two years of fumbling, it has now become clear that whatever measures have been carried out are not working as intended to enlist the support of the Muslim majority in isolating and eradicating the militants.

Even an independent body like the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), consisting of leading civic leaders and Muslim scholars, has proved ineffective as honest brokers attempting to reconcile differences among people in the region. That is partly because the commissioners have shown a tendency to view the Muslim population inaccurately, romanticising them as unique by virtue of their religion and strong attachment to their traditional way of life.

In reality, the southern Muslims suffer economic and social problems that are not much different from those found in other parts of the country. The key to successful communication is an ability to overcome cultural barriers and speak to them with language they can understand.

The NRC also suffers in terms of credibility in the eyes of both southern Muslims and mainstream society when commissioners indulge in political posturing that stems in part from a holier-than-thou attitude. Some of the scholars-cum-activists claim to know southern Muslims even better than the Muslims know themselves and take it for granted they can speak on their behalf without consulting them first.

It was that sort of political posturing by the Thaksin government, which desperately lacks the sophistication needed to establish an adequate policy for the deep South, that quickly sparked anti-government rhetoric and negatively affected working relations.

These mistakes point to the fact that Thai society as a whole must become involved in finding a solution to the southern troubles. It is too important a task to be left in the hands of a few government leaders, politicians, academics and activists. Given that both mainstream Buddhist Thais and the southern Muslim majority have successfully coexisted peacefully in the past, there is no reason why they cannot do so now. Despite religious and cultural differences, both sides possess a common human decency that must not be destroyed by hot-headed zealots – either religious or political.

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