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Memories of collective victimhood and conflict in southern Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2018

Muhammad Arafat Bin Mohamad
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Abstract

This article discusses the views and attitudes of the Malay-speaking Muslims of Thailand's Far South (henceforth, simply the Malays) about their collective position in Thai politics. Since 2004, the Far South, comprising the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala, has been engulfed in political violence that has claimed several thousand lives. Consequently, the conflict is often the subject of conversations among the Malays. More importantly, the Malays sometimes evoke their collective memory of episodes of past violence involving members of the Far South Malay society and the Thai state in their discussions about contemporary incidents. Why do the Malays hark back to the past when they discuss contemporary political violence? What connections do the Malays make between past and contemporary events? In this article, I discuss Malay collective memory about the Pattani Demonstration of 1975 and the Tomb of Martyrs at the Tok Ayoh Cemetery in Pattani province. I argue that, among the Malays, historic graves in Thailand's Far South are commemorative objects that aid the circulation of stories about collective victimhood pertaining to events such as the Pattani Demonstration. Such stories are central to the maintenance of a shared sense of community among the Malays vis-à-vis the rest of Thai society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 204 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2018 

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Footnotes

I would like to express my gratitude to various interlocutors who have contributed to the research and publication of this article. In the Far South, the assistance and friendships of various persons have been invaluable to the research. They are not individually named here for privacy reasons. Other scholars who have read and commented on several earlier versions of the manuscript include: Christopher Joll, Claudio Sopranzetti, Douglas Kammen, Federico Perez, George Radics, Goh Beng Lan, Irving Chan Johnson, Itty Abraham, Jan Mrazek, Michael Herzfeld, Vatthana Pholsena, and Yoshinori Nishizaki. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their astute comments and suggestions. Lastly, I am grateful for the guidance provided by the editor, Maitrii Aung-Thwin, in the final stages of the article's preparation. All photographs are mine.

References

1 In Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat, ethnicity is often associated with religious identity in everyday speech. A Malay person is often assumed to be Muslim and vice versa. In this article, however, I attempt to be precise with my usage of both terms. Where the ethnic associations of the object or person are clear, I shall use the term ‘Malay’ and where they are not, I use ‘Muslim’. Additionally, by these terms I refer to objects and persons in Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat only unless otherwise stated.

2 Other terms have been used to refer to these three provinces in academic circles and everyday speech in Thailand. They include: the ‘three southern border provinces’ (Th. sāmčhangwatchāidǣnphāktai) or just ‘the South’ (Th. phāktai). In this article, ‘Pattani’ refers to the province in Thailand's south, while ‘Patani’ refers to things and persons that are associated with the Malay kingdom, which once occupied an area that roughly corresponds to the contemporary Far South.

3 I spell Malay place names according to their pronounciation in Patani Malay dialect. The following abbreviations are used for translations: Patani Malay (PM.); Standard Malay (SM.); Thai (Th.). Unlike Standard Malay, Patani Malay has a vowel that is voiced out like the IPA ‘ε’, represented here as ‘ae’.

4 The full name of the tomb in Malay is Makam Shuhada 2518. ‘2518’ is the Buddhist year which corresponds to 1975 of the Gregorian calendar and 1396 of the Islamic calendar. Most Malays of the Far South defer to the conventions of the Thai Buddhist calendar in their daily lives, like the rest of Thai society. Alternatively, they refer to the Islamic calendar from time to time, especially when discussing religious events.

5 Henceforth, the Royal Thai Marine Corps will be referred to as the ‘Marines’.

6 See Malek, Mohd. Zamberi Abdul, Umat Islam Patani: Sejarah dan politik (Shah Alam: HIZBI, 1993), pp. 292–304Google Scholar; al-Fatani, Ahmad Fathy, Pengantar sejarah Patani (Alor Setar: Pustaka Darussalam, 1994), pp. 188–93Google Scholar; Panomporn Anurugsa, ‘Political integration policy in Thailand: The case of the Malay Muslim minority’ (PhD diss., University of Texas, 1984), pp. 220–23; Chapakia, Ahmad Omar, Politik dan perjuangan masyarakat Islam di selatan Thailand, 1902–2002 (Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2002), pp. 149–55Google Scholar; Ornanong Noiwong, ‘Political integration policies and strategies of the Thai government toward the Malay-Muslims of southernmost Thailand (1973–2000)’ (PhD diss., Northern Illinois University, 2001), pp. 148–9; Pitsuwan, Surin, Islam and Malay nationalism: A case study of Malay-Muslims of southern Thailand (Bangkok: Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University, 1985), pp. 236–40Google Scholar; Satha-Anand, Chaiwat, ‘The nonviolent crescent: Eight theses on Muslim nonviolent actions’, in Islam and nonviolence, ed. Satha-Anand, Chaiwat, Paige, Glenn D. and Gilliatt, Sarah (Honolulu: Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project, Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawai‘i, 1993), pp. 19–22Google Scholar. Most writings about Thai politics during the 1970s have focused on Bangkok and published accounts of the Pattani Demonstration are fragmented. Recent scholarship on this era has shifted to include other regions of Thailand. See for example: Bowie, Katherine Ann, Rituals of national loyalty: An anthropology of the state and the Village Scout movement in Thailand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 147–266Google Scholar; Phatharathananunth, Somchai, Civil society and democratization: Social movements in northeast Thailand (Copenhagen: NIAS, 2006), pp. 55–8Google Scholar; and Haberkorn, Tyrell, Revolution interrupted: Farmers, students, law, and violence in northern Thailand (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

7 The Far South has been engulfed in political violence since January 2004 when some militants raided the Narathiwat Ratchanakharin army camp and escaped with more than 400 rifles, pistols, and machine guns. Although the Malays have a long history of rejecting Bangkok's control, the decline of separatist-related violence in the 1990s led many to anticipate a calmer future for this region. Unfortunately, lasting peace has proven to be elusive for the region. The Thai government responded to the raid in 2004 by imposing martial law in the three provinces. This remains in effect. There have been efforts to resolve the conflict through negotiations involving the various militant groups and representatives of the Thai state. However, the peace process has been riddled with obstacles, including the lack of consensus amongst the various militant groups and political instability in Thailand, characterised by several rapid changes in government since 2006, including from a civilian to a military one since June 2014.

8 Bar-Tal, Daniel, Chernyak-Hai, Lily, Schori, Noa and Gundar, Ayelet, ‘A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood in intractable conflicts’, International Review of the Red Cross 91, 874 (2009): 229Google Scholar.

9 I have tried to find out the identities of the persons involved in the planning and construction of the Tomb of Martyrs since 2005. My efforts have not been successful. Even those who claim to have assumed some leadership capacity in the demonstration claim that they, too, never knew about the plan to construct the tomb. They assert that the tomb's construction was carried out in secret. However, it might be possible that the people in the Far South, including my interlocutors, are simply not willing to divulge such information for fear of their personal safety and that of those involved in planning and constructing the tomb.

10 Bar-Tal et al., ‘A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood in intractable conflicts’: 235.

11 For an account of the contending mainstream Thai and Malay discourses about Patani's history, see: Aphornsuvan, Thanet, Rebellion in southern Thailand: Contending histories (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2007)Google Scholar.

12 In our conversations, my interlocutors use the Thai word ratthai or the Patani-Malay word Siyae to refer to the Thai state. However, it is important to note that Siyae may also refer to the Thai people in a general sense. Thus, I often ask my interlocutors to clarify their usage of the term whenever its referent is ambiguous to me.

13 Truc, Gerôme, ‘Memory of places and places of memory: For a Halbwachsian socio-ethnography of collective memory’, International Social Science Journal 62, 203–4 (2011): 149Google Scholar.

14 Francis, Doris, Kellaher, Leonie and Neophytou, Georgina, ‘The cemetery: A site for the construction of memory, identity, and ethnicity’, in Social memory and history: Anthropological perspectives, ed. Climo, Jacob and Cattell, Maria G. (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2002), pp. 95–110Google Scholar.

15 ‘Siamese cruelty’, or kezolimae Siyae as Mukhtar said in Patani-Malay, refers to the collective victimisation of the Far South Malays by Siam and its armies in the past and subsequently, the modern Thai state, as perceived by many Malays.

16 Riegl, Alois, ‘The modern cult of monuments: Its character and its origins, trans. by Kurt W. Forster and Diane Ghirardo’, in Oppositions reader: Selected readings from a journal for ideas and criticism in architecture, 1973–1984, ed. Hays, K. Michael (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), p. 621Google Scholar.

17 Volk, Lucia, Memorials and martyrs in modern Lebanon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), p. 4Google Scholar.

18 Anderson, Benedict R. O‘G., Language and power: Exploring political cultures in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 174Google Scholar.

19 Riegl, ‘The modern cult of monuments’, p. 621.

20 The given date is based on the Islamic calendar. It corresponds with 11 Jan. 1976.

21 Th. rāichư̄wīrachonphūplīchīp mư̄a 13 thanwākhom 2518 wēlā 19.40.

22 SM. Shuhada Trajedi Pada Hari 13 Thanwakhom 2518 = 10 Dhu al-Hijja 1395 Pada Jam 7.40 malam. 11 Jiwa Terkorban.

23 The Malay word shahid is loaned from the Arabic shaheed (sing.) and shuhada (pl.).

24 Truc, ‘Memory of places and places of memory’.

25 Ibid.: 149.

26 Ibid.: 149.

27 Nelson, Robert S. and Olin, Margaret Rose, ‘Introduction’, in Monuments and memory, made and unmade, ed. Nelson, Robert S. and Olin, Margaret Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 1–10Google Scholar.

28 See various contributions in: The invention of tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, Eric J. and Ranger, Terence O. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

29 Peleggi, Maurizio, The politics of ruins and the business of nostalgia (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2002)Google Scholar; Winichakul, Thongchai, Siam mapped: A history of the geo-body of a nation (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

30 Winichakul, Siam mapped, pp. 140–65.

31 Patrick Jory, ‘Problems in contemporary Thai nationalist historiography’, Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, http://kyotoreview.org/issue-3-nations-and-stories/problems-in-contemporary-thai-nationalist-historiography (last accessed 1 Jul. 2015).

32 Aphornsuvan, Rebellion in southern Thailand, p. 7.

33 Portelli, Alessandro, ‘What makes oral history different’, in The oral history reader, ed. Perks, Robert and Thomson, Alistair (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 63–74Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 68.

35 See: Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, pp. 292–304; Fathy al-Fatani, Pengantar sejarah Patani, 188–93; Anurugsa, ‘Political integration policy in Thailand’, pp. 220–23; Chapakia, Politik dan perjuangan masyarakat Islam di Selatan Thailand, pp. 149–55; Pitsuwan, Islam and Malay nationalism, pp. 236–40.

36 Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, p. 292.

37 Satha-Anand, ‘The nonviolent crescent’, p. 19.

38 Ibid.

39 Anurugsa, ‘Political integration policy in Thailand’, pp. 220.

40 Ibid., pp. 220–21.

41 This situation has continued until recent times, see: National Reconciliation Commission, (NRC), Overcoming violence through the power of reconciliation: Report of the National Reconciliation Commissio (Bangkok: NRC, 2006), pp. 18, 45–6Google Scholar.

42 In 1954, a prominent Malay-Muslim religious scholar named Haji Sulong Abdulkadir disappeared after reporting to a police station in Songkhla province. He is believed to have been murdered by officers of the state. His disappearance has been a constant source of Malay distrust of the Thai state. See: Ockey, James, ‘Individual imaginings: The religio-nationalist pilgrimages of Haji Sulong Abdulkadir al-Fatani’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 42, 1 (2011): 89–119Google Scholar.

43 For accounts of Thai politics and student movements during the turbulent years from 1973–76, see: Bowie, Rituals of national loyalty; Haberkorn, Revolution interrupted; Musikawong, Sudarat, ‘Between celebration and mourning: Political violence in Thailand in the 1970s’, in Toward a sociology of the trace, ed. Gray, Herman and Gómez-Barris, Macarena (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), pp. 257–87Google Scholar; Phatharathananunth, Civil society and democratization; Winichakul, Thongchai, ‘Remembering/Silencing the traumatic past: The ambivalent memories of the October 1976 massacre in Bangkok’, in Cultural crisis and social memory: Modernity and identity in Thailand and Laos, ed. Tanabe, Shigeharu and Keyes, Charles F. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002), pp. 243–82Google Scholar.

44 Chapakia, Politik dan perjuangan masyarakat Islam di selatan Thailand, p. 150.

45 Fathy al-Fatani, Pengantar sejarah Patani, p. 189.

46 Th. sūnkānpǭngkanprachāchon; SM. Pusat Pembela Rakyat.

47 The takbeer is an invocation that proclaims a Muslim's faith in the greatness of God. The takbeer al-’eid is a formulaic invocation that is only recited during the two annual Islamic celebrations known as the ‘Eid al-Fitr and ‘Eid al-Adha.

48 Mohd. Zamberi alleges that there were actually three explosions. See: Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, p. 295.

49 Ibid.

50 Satha-Anand, ‘The nonviolent crescent’, p. 19.

51 Chapakia, Politik dan perjuangan masyarakat Islam di Selatan Thailand, p. 152.

52 Anurugsa, ‘Political integration policy in Thailand’, p. 221.

53 Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, p. 295.

54 Many Malays in the Far South have made claims about such surveillance. In a brief essay, Rosidah Da-oh, a forty-something-year-old female resident of Pattani, recounts the attempts of Thailand's security personnel to coerce her father, a religious teacher, to admit to his alleged involvement in the organising of the Pattani Demonstration during visits to their home. Fearing for his personal safety, her father fled to live in neighbouring Malaysia eventually. See: Rosida Da-Oh and Rohani Juenara, ‘phændinnīphư̄athœ̄ [This land is for you], in Sīang khō̜ng khwāmwang: rư̄ang lao khō̜ng phūying phư̄a krabūankān santiphāp chāidǣn Tai [Voices of hope: Stories of women in the Southern border peace process], ed. Thitinop Kōmonnimi (Bangkok: Khrōngkān Phūying Phāk Prachāsangkhom, 2555 [2015]), pp. 24–41.

55 Portelli, ‘What makes oral history different’, pp. 67–8.

56 Literally, ‘red medicine’, yādǣng is a topical antiseptic solution known as merbromin or mercurochrome.

57 Chapakia, Politik dan perjuangan, p. 152.

58 Mohd. Zamberi claims that total number of demonstrators rose to approximately 200,000. See Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, p. 297.

59 Ibid., p. 296.

60 Nor por phor is the popular acronym for the Royal Thai Police Special Operations Unit.

61 Satha-Anand et al., Islam and nonviolence, p. 20.

62 Chapakia, Politik dan perjuangan, p. 154.

63 Abdul Malek, Umat Islam Patani, p. 297.

64 McCargo, Duncan, Tearing apart the land: Islam and legitimacy in southern Thailand (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008)Google Scholar. See also: Various contributions in Rethinking Thailand's southern violence, ed. McCargo, Duncan (Singapore: NUS Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

65 See: Aphornsuvan, Rebellion in southern Thailand; Francis R. Bradley, ‘Siam's conquest of Patani and the end of mandala relations, 1786–1838’, in Ghosts of the past in southern Thailand: Essays on the history and historiography of Patani, ed. Jory, Patrick (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013), pp. 149–60Google Scholar.