DON PATHAN
THE NATION
Published on July 24, 2009

FOREIGN MINISTER Kasit Piromya tried hard to connect with Muslim students from Thailand during their encounter at the Thai Embassy in Cairo. Both sides were cordial and polite during the course of their discussion. Kasit promised to assist them in making their studies in Egypt a success and added that the embassy's door is always open to them. 

Of the 1,700 Thai Muslim students in Egypt, about 70 per cent come from the restive deep South, the Malay-speaking region whose relationship with the Thai state is defined by deep-seated mistrust. Most of the students are studying at the world famous Al Azhar University.

The meeting between Kasit and the students was not a simple encounter between the country's highest diplomats and Thai citizens living abroad. Many of the students Kasit met will eventually return to their trouble-plagued community, where more than 3,500 people have died since insurgent violence erupted in 2004.

A degree from Al Azhar may not mean much to most Thais, who see little use for religious education in a highly competitive world. But for these students, a degree from a world-renowned Islamic university, where Arabic is the language of instruction, means the world to them. The communities they are from have deemed it so, and the value system under which they were raised reminds them that their benchmark for success is entirely different from that which applies to the rest of the Thai people.

The fact that these young people will eventually return to their communities to become leaders, clerics, businessmen, teachers and so on, gives the Thai government all the more reason to engage them now. Catch them while they are young, as the saying goes. But "catching" them - or any Malays from the deep South for that matter - at this stage in their lives, may be too little and too late.

Like the nearly two million ethnic Malays in the deep South, these students grew up under an entirely different historical narrative - in this case the century-long occupation of their homeland by the invading Siamese. This is not to say that Malays in the deep South want a separate state. But their Thai citizenship should not have to come at the expense of their religious and cultural identity, even if it means embracing an entirely different set of narrative, myth, history and identity.

 During the course of his discussion with the students, Kasit talked about how the Thai government will bring an end to the ongoing violence in three years' time. He talked about his desire to see a peaceful coexistence between people of all races and religions. He talked about employment opportunities, social mobility and development in the deep South. He also told the students in Cairo that they, too, could apply at his ministry and become Thai diplomats.

Kasit asked them not to lose faith on Thailand and said they could achieve greatness as Thai citizens. He pointed to prominent Thai figures - Surin Pitsuwan, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin and the Siamwalla family - as examples of how Muslims in Thailand can excel.

The students, however, were too polite to remind Kasit that these were "Thai" Muslims - people who don't question the legitimacy of the Thai state and who come from neighbourhoods not surrounded by heavily armed troops.

One of the biggest turnoffs for Malays in the deep South is having other Thai Muslims tell them what's good for them. The problem is between the Malays in the deep South and the Thai state, not about Islam. Kasit and the ministry can bring all the muftis in the world to the restive region; it won't solve the problem if the Malays still see themselves as colonial subjects in an occupied territory.

One would think that after 3,500 deaths, Thai officials would finally get the point and come to terms with the fact that there are Thai citizens out there who refuse to embrace the ideologies that define what Thailand's nation-state is and should be.

Obviously, with all the promises of goods and services for the people of the deep South, Kasit doesn't understand the difference between good intention and policy, especially one that would address the root causes of the conflict.

Armed insurgency began in the late 1960s and died down in the late 1980s after the combination of a blanket amnesty and massive development - which made some of the local elite even more wealthy but did little in terms of improving the livelihood of the overall population in the region.

A political clique, the Wadah, made up of Malay Muslims emerged in the 1990s. But like other Thai political powerhouses, it too became compromised and, in the end, faced an inevitable demise.

Its moment of truth came after the Tak Bai massacre in October 2004, when more than 86 unarmed Muslim protestors died at the hands of security officials. At least 78 died from suffocation after they were stacked one on top of another in the back of military transport trucks. None of the elected Malay Muslims said a word. All were voted out in the next general election.

This past May, a court inquest cleared security officials from any wrongdoing at Tak Bai. Insurgents retaliated brutally. The climax of what appeared to be a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the insurgents and the security forces came at a village mosque in Narathiwat's Joh I Rong district on June 8 in which 11 Muslims were gunned down in gangland style as they were praying. Twelve others were seriously wounded.

Residents in the deep South dismissed claims by government officials that the massacre was carried out by the insurgents. They based their rebuttal on the fact that the militants enjoy a great deal of support in local communities in the region.

While the government drags its feet with the investigation, the massacre has had an effect on a number of things, including secret talks between members of the long-standing separatist groups and the government. Sources in the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo) said their colleagues in the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) threatened to stay out of this process unless the government got to the bottom of the massacre. In a Monday statement, Pulo accused government-trained militias of carrying out the killings.

Besides aborting a peace process that is still in its embryonic stage, the mosque shooting could well cost local MPs their seats, the same way the Tak Bai massacre wiped the Wadah faction from the political map.

Like some other Muslim students studying in foreign Islamic seminaries, many Thai students in Cairo will return to their homes, where not just a hostile environment but a perceived sense of injustice awaits them. Thailand and all of its benevolent administrators can talk until they turn blue about what the country has to offer. Because in the final analysis, a benevolent colonial master is still a colonial master.