I was planning to write a long entry today on why I think Thailand’s Southern unrest is hurtling towards a religious jihad situation in a matter of months, but I’m too exhausted from a long week at work. And the more I think about it, the more depressed I get.
So I’ll just make a specific prediction here: I believe Thailand will face a religious jihad situation by the end of June, 2006. By “jihad” I mean the “Muslim holy war” : the situation in which a significant number of Muslims feel that they are being discriminated against, ignored, or outright oppressed because of their religion. (I am aware of other meanings of jihad, e.g. the ‘spiritual jihad,’ which doubtless are the higher form; I’m simply using this term in the same sense as the press when they talk about terrorists who claim they are carrying out a jihad). When this happens, the situation in these Southern provinces will be very similar to West Bank in the Palestine-Israel conflict, we will see suicide bombings in Thailand, we will see intensified violence as militant jihadist organizations like Al-Qaeda begin to get involved, we will see a whole lot more people fleeing to seek a political asylum in Malaysia, and Thailand will be in the media spotlight as the current ‘hotspot’ of ‘terrorist activity.’
All of this will happen primarily because Thai government will not admit that it has made numerous unforgivable mistakes in trying to stamp out violence. And most importantly, because it will not apologize to Thai Muslim villagers who have been killed ‘by mistake’ by the army, and whose lives have gotten a lot worse since Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime Minister.
As I mentioned earlier on this blog, there are separatist movements that have been active for centuries, and yes, there are Muslim militants who must be stopped. But “it takes two to tango”: the government’s costly missteps are making more and more Thai Muslims think they are being discriminated or ignored because they are Muslims. It’s gotten to the point where many Thai Muslims simply don’t trust the government anymore – or Buddhists, for that matter.
And the worst thing is: the government is trying very hard to hide the truth. Since they pretty much control most of the media and has threatened the few remaining independent ones into silence or going ‘underground,’ they are quite successful at keeping the country in the dark and polarizing the already volatile situation even further with polemics, distortions, and lies.
I was planning to write a long entry today on why I think Thailand’s Southern unrest is hurtling towards a religious jihad situation in a matter of months, but I’m too exhausted from a long week at work. And the more I think about it, the more depressed I get.
So I’ll just make a specific prediction here: I believe Thailand will face a religious jihad situation by the end of June, 2006. By “jihad” I mean the “Muslim holy war” : the situation in which a significant number of Muslims feel that they are being discriminated against, ignored, or outright oppressed because of their religion. (I am aware of other meanings of jihad, e.g. the ‘spiritual jihad,’ which doubtless are the higher form; I’m simply using this term in the same sense as the press when they talk about terrorists who claim they are carrying out a jihad). When this happens, the situation in these Southern provinces will be very similar to West Bank in the Palestine-Israel conflict, we will see suicide bombings in Thailand, we will see intensified violence as militant jihadist organizations like Al-Qaeda begin to get involved, we will see a whole lot more people fleeing to seek a political asylum in Malaysia, and Thailand will be in the media spotlight as the current ‘hotspot’ of ‘terrorist activity.’
All of this will happen primarily because Thai government will not admit that it has made numerous unforgivable mistakes in trying to stamp out violence. And most importantly, because it will not apologize to Thai Muslim villagers who have been killed ‘by mistake’ by the army, and whose lives have gotten a lot worse since Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime Minister.
As I mentioned earlier on this blog, there are separatist movements that have been active for centuries, and yes, there are Muslim militants who must be stopped. But “it takes two to tango”: the government’s costly missteps are making more and more Thai Muslims think they are being discriminated or ignored because they are Muslims. It’s gotten to the point where many Thai Muslims simply don’t trust the government anymore – or Buddhists, for that matter.
And the worst thing is: the government is trying very hard to hide the truth. Since they pretty much control most of the media and has threatened the few remaining independent ones into silence or going ‘underground,’ they are quite successful at keeping the country in the dark and polarizing the already volatile situation even further with polemics, distortions, and lies.
One example out of many is the government’s horrendous mishandling of the protest at Tak Bai on October 25, 2004 that left 78 peaceful protesters dead because most of them were stacked on top of each others on trucks, like canned tuna (you can download a video footage of the incident here, among others). What really happened is now well-established from videos and numerous eyewitness accounts, such as a man named Rusalam who gave an interview to Slate.com in September (emphases are mine):
…around 2,000 people were gathering outside the police station to protest the arrest of six village defense volunteers who were accused of handing their weapons over to Islamic insurgents. So, Rusalam forgot about getting something to eat and joined the protest.
“I only wanted to see all six alive, but we weren’t allowed to see, so no one would leave,” he said. By midday, the army surrounded the protestors and fired water into the crowd. Then the soldiers switched to bullets. Several of the protestors were shot, others fled into a nearby river. Both ends of the sandy road were blocked by tanks. Finally, the soldiers stopped shooting and decided to arrest the young men. They began by separating those with beards (that is, Muslims), from the other protestors…
…”I had bruises from the soldiers’ boots on my back. They kicked me too many times to count. I couldn’t walk.” Rusalam was lifted into the empty truck and placed on the bottom of what would become six layers of people…
On the way to the army barracks, the truck kept stopping, and more men were loaded on top of Rusalam and the others. The drive usually takes about an hour; that afternoon it took almost five. About two hours before they reached the camp, the young man next to Rusalam said he couldn’t breathe and pleaded with the person on top of him to lift his bodyweight up if he could. It was the last thing Rusalam heard him say. When they reached the army camp, the young man was dead.”
Contrast this with the “official” explanation of the incident, as seen from a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted here to your left. This letter was sent to brokerage companies (why? Because the stock market is a major source of ‘campaign finance’ for this government and wealth for many politicians, so first they have to pacify foreign investors who might sell Thai stocks in panic, causing the market to plunge), as well as many other firms that may be in constant contact with foreigners. Just click on the picture to download the full letter in PDF format.
I think this statement from the same series of Slate.com articles sums up my thoughts quite well:
“The insurgency is growing worse as a reaction to Thai missteps. It might not even exist if it weren’t for government blunders,” Sidney Jones, the South East Asia director of International Crisis Group said. “Thanks to Thaksin’s policies, this sense of alienation among Muslims in the south is growing in quantum leaps.” Zachary Abuza, a terrorism analyst at the United States Institute for Peace, said, “I don’t think Thaksin understands how volatile the situation is. The single most important factor that makes people support suicide terrorism is the degree to which they feel Islam is under attack. Al-Qaida and other groups don’t create civil wars—they use these conflicts to feed that myth. What Thaksin is doing is creating a poster child for jihad.”
Jihad, as a ‘war of ideology,’ cannot be won by sending in thousands of soldiers – if you kill one terrorist, two alienated villagers will likely volunteer to take his place. The ‘battlefield’ is in the hearts and minds of people, not cities or towns. And most Muslims can’t be ‘bought out’ simply by government money because their worst grievances are not about being poor. Because our government is headed by a billionaire who is accustomed to fixing problems by throwing money at them, and who has no patience nor foresight required to fight a war of ideology, we are sure to lose in this impending war unless we have a new government who is more sympathetic and understanding on the plight of Thai Muslims. Or unless Thaksin apologizes, but I’m not holding my breath.