A plot to keep the Muslim South down?

A plot to keep the Muslim South down?

Pravit Rojanaphruk, The Nation, Asia News Network

Nearly six months have passed since the latest cycle of
violence erupted in the deep South on Jan. 4. Perhaps it's time
to face the fact that any solution to end the conflict will
require a fundamental shift in the thinking of not just the
government, but the public and the mass media as well.

The fact that violence continues unabated on a near daily
basis points to a failure of the government's crisis management.
While the leaders continue to juggle the hot potato, the public
and the media should perhaps pay attention to two important
issues.

The first is the need for empathy by the Thai Buddhist
majority, to put themselves in the shoes of Thai-Malay Muslims in
the deep South.

Many Muslims feel that they are being treated as second-class
citizens in their own hometowns. These people, who do not support
separatism or violence, also feel that there exists some sort of
conspiracy to keep Muslim people in the area down.

Take for example the call for the establishment of a
Department of Engineering at Prince of Songkhla University's
Pattani Campus. Locals say the government rejected their demand
by reasoning that the climate was too humid for metal tools to be
installed. The department of engineering was given to the Hat Yai
Campus of the same university in Songkhla province, which is
predominantly Buddhist.

The suspicion may be true or unfounded -- but the fact that
there is a perception that the Buddhist majority is trying to
undermine Thai-Malay Muslim minority is itself a big problem.

Then comes the second and equally important issue of the lack
of understanding about Islam and especially the history of the
Thai-Malay people in the South. Thai Buddhists simply take it for
granted that they don't have to understand minorities, be it
Muslims, hilltribes or whatever group.

In the predominantly Muslim deep South, governors and
officials are mostly dispatched from elsewhere, often with little
knowledge or sensitivity about the cultural, religious and
historical differences. To make it worse, locals believe that
many of these officials are corrupt.

An example of the insensitivity is seen in a big shopping mall
in Pattani, which doesn't provide a prayer room for Muslim staff
and discourages female Muslim staff from wearing headscarves.

Thais often celebrate their tolerance towards minorities. But
tolerance doesn't have to be accompanied by ignorance and
stereotyping of others. Instead, what is needed is education of
the Buddhist majority about minority groups, and vice versa.

The same ignorance and stereotyping are echoed in the way the
media, which is very Bangkok-centered, portrays Thai-Malay
Muslims as being violence-prone, troublesome, backward,
intolerant and unpatriotic.

Although the mass media have been giving intense coverage to
the deep South, it appears that the region only deserves
attention in times of crisis.

While there doesn't appear to be any conscious effort to bar
any Thai minority from working in the media, an affirmative-
action policy could help make the media more inclusive and
diverse. In the meantime, journalists from Bangkok are simply
dispatched to the deep South, often carrying with them their
Bangkok-centric worldview.

People in the deep South end up as passive subjects being
reported about, not so different from the way they are being
ruled by Bangkok-appointed governors.