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Appropriating a space for violence: State Buddhism in southern Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2009

Michael Jerryson
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Abstract

In southern Thailand, monasteries once served as focal points for different communal identities to negotiate shared space and, with it, shared identities. However, since martial law was declared in 2004, Muslims in southern Thailand do not frequent monasteries. Instead, soldiers and police occupy monastery buildings and protect the perimeters from attacks. In addition, there are now military monks, soldiers who are simultaneously ordained monks, who work to protect the monasteries. This article argues that the Thai State's militarisation of monasteries and the role of Buddhist monks fuel a religious dimension to the ongoing civil war in southern Thailand.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 33 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2009

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References

1 Bangkok Post, ‘Yala Buddhists flee to temple safety,’ 9 Nov. 2006.

2 According to the Bangkok Post, by 24 Dec. 2006, 161 people were at the wat. Bangkok Post, ‘Buddhist “refugees” demand new home’, 24 Dec. 2006. However, on 8 Dec. 2006 from personal communication with refugees and the abbot at the wat, I received different statistics. I was told that at the beginning of December, refugees numbered 228. This number decreased by 60 during the first week of December. Some moved away, others rented different places to stay, and about 14 moved back to their villages. On 8 Dec. there were exactly 157 people still present.

3 Throughout this article, State is capitalised in accordance with Antonio Gramsci's neo-Marxist concepts of domination and hegemony in his State/civil society dichotomy. Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. xivGoogle Scholar. While it is important to avoid homogenising state actors, as Peter van der Veer cautions, it is important to acknowledge the structural power implicit in the State and which is conferred through association to its agents. van der Veer, Peter, ‘Writing violence’, in Contesting the nation: Religion, community and the politics of democracy in India, ed. Ludden, David (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), p. 251Google Scholar.

4 Statistical information translated from Thai into English from the ‘Population and households census 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000: Southern provinces’, National Statistical Office (Bangkok: Prime Minister's Office, 2003).

5 Personal communication with Wat Kūaanai abbot in Khokpo district, Pattani province on 13 Aug. 2004.

6 Tamara Loos writes that the Siamese government used wat as government training centres during the reign of King Chulalongkorn — a practice that ‘unsurprisingly failed to attract the local Muslim population’. Subject Siam: Family, law, and colonial modernity in Thailand (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 22.

7 ‘Ethnic relations among Thai, Thai Muslim and Chinese in south Thailand’, in Ethnicity and interpersonal interactions: A Cross cultural study, ed. David Y. H. Wu (Hong Kong: Maruzen Asia, 1982), p. 77.

8 Nearly every southern monk who has lived in the border provinces for more than a decade has mentioned the previous Muslim patronage to their wat. This comment was rather distinct in a phone interview done on 15 Aug. 2004 with the abbot at Wat Tanapimo. The abbot remarked about the difference in patronage since the recent surge in violence and how Muslims no longer come to his wat. ‘Before this [recent surge in the conflict] began, Muslims used to come over and borrow things from the wat. But last year they stopped coming and stopped communicating with me.’ Duncan McCargo also offers an example of Muslim patronage. He noted that Muslims still come to wat, such as one in Banare district, Pattani for religious problems; in this particular case, de-hexing. Refer to McCargo's article in this issue. For Buddhist and Islamic medicinal practices in southern Thailand, refer to Golomb's, LouisAn Anthropology of curing in multiethnic Thailand (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

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10 Personal communication with Irving Johnson at the National University of Singapore, 10 Feb. 2007.

11 ‘A Way of negotiating with the other within the self: Muslim's acknowledgement of Buddhist ancestors in southern Thailand,’ a working paper from The Southern Thailand Homepage accessed from http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:pWFcvngTFuAJ:www.uni-muenster.de/Ethnologie/South_Thai/working_paper/Nishii_Negotiation.pdf+Nishii+%22A+Way+of+Negotiating+with+the+Other%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us (last accessed on 13 Mar. 2008). Nishii also notes that Malays have a ritual to break their ties with Buddhism and rejoin the faith of Islam once they have defrocked. Nishii, Ryoko, ‘Coexistence of religions: Muslim and Buddhist relationship on the west coast of southern Thailand’, Tai culture: International Review on Tai Cultural Studies, 4, 1 (June 1999): 88Google Scholar.

12 For purposes of this paper, the term ‘southern’ used in the phrases ‘southern wat’, ‘southern Buddhists’ and ‘southern Thailand’ refers to the southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

13 The number of mosques and wat in a province reflects the religious populations. For instance, in 2007 Pattani province has registered 637 mosques and 81 wat. Statistical information translated from Thai into English from the ‘Centralized practices in province’, Pattani, National Statistical Office (Bangkok: Prime Minister's Office, 2003)Google Scholar; http://poc.pattani.go.th/report.php?report_id=26 (last accessed on 13 Mar. 2008).

14 In this paper, the term ‘secular’ is used to denote that which is not overtly or publicly recognised as religious.

15 This is comparable to the function mosques, churches and Jewish temples serve throughout the world.

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17 Personal communication with a refugee at Wat Nirotsangkatham on 8 Dec. 2006.

18 The article references 60 wounded and 8 dead. Casualties included: ‘28 bombs and three murders targeted foreign tourist sites, Thai-Chinese celebrating the Lunar New Year, hotels, karaoke bars, power grids, telephone lines and commercial sites in the country's southernmost provinces. Two public schools were torched.’ ‘Update: Extremists launch overnight wave of violence’, Bangkok Post, 19 Feb. 2007.

19 Rai is the Thai unit of measure for 1,600 square metres.

20 ‘Luang Pho Thuat as a southern Thai cultural hero: Popular religion in the integration of Patani’, , in Thai south and Malay north: Ethnic interactions on the plural peninsula, ed. Montesano, Michael J. and Jory, Patrick (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

21 Personal communication with a Thai Buddhist store owner at Wat Chang Hai on 19 Feb. 2007.

22 According to the National Statistical Office in 2007 (2550 BE), Khokpo district had 30,934 Buddhists residents, making it the largest Buddhist populated district in Pattani. See http://poc.pattani.go.th/report.php?report_id=10 (last accessed on 13 Mar. 2008).

23 Personal communication with the abbot of Wat Kajorn in Pattani province, 8 Aug. 2004.

24 Personal communication with a policeman in Pattani province, 13 Dec. 2006.

25 Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a theory of practice (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Information on the Second World War activities derives from personal communication with Irving Johnson, National University of Singapore on 27 Feb. 2007. Reports on military occupation during the 1970s come from personal communications with monks in Pattani province, Sept. 2006. For information on the Village Scouts, refer to Muecke, Marjorie A., ‘The Village scouts of Thailand’, Asian Survey 20, 4 (1980): 407–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bowie, Katherine, Rituals of national loyalty: An Anthropology of the state and the village scout movement in Thailand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

27 This information comes from personal communication with commanding officers at the wat I visited, and from Lt. Colonel Surathep Nukaeow of Ingkayut Camp, Pattani on 28 Dec. 2006.

28 Muslim soldiers are stationed around Islamic schools (pondok) and near Islamic centres. Authorities have explained to me that this is done in order to honour religious sensitivities. Though there has never been any explanation offered for why only Buddhist soldiers are present in wat, the same rationale (honouring religious sensitivities) could apply. However, because the national police and soldiers use the wat as a State facility and because there is no Buddhist interdiction concerning non-Buddhists living in a wat, the presence of only Buddhist soldiers results in an air of State preferentiality.

29 Amnesty and the International Crisis Group argue that the precedence for structural violence and disregard for human rights began before martial law with the Thai State's ‘war on drugs’ in the southernmost provinces. However, the violence and human rights' abuses have a current context and motives outside the ‘drug’ explanation. One of these is the murdering of monks. For an example of the recent State-sanctioned abuses, refer to ‘No one is safe: Insurgent violence against civilians in Thailand's southern border provinces’, Human Rights Watch Report 19.13C (Aug. 2007): 1–102, 38–47. Anthropologist Amporn Mardent offers local accounts of State brutality in ‘From Adek to Mo'ji: Identities and social realities of southern Thai people’, in Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, accessed at http://kyotoreviewsea.org/Amporn.htm (last accessed on 13 Mar. 2008). There are also reports of local Buddhists taking violence into their own hands, rather than State officials, such as Rungrawee C. Pinyorat's ‘Thai Buddhist vigilante squads suspected’, Associated Press, 7 Aug. 2007.

30 Human Rights Watch, ‘Thailand: Government covers up role in “disappearance”’, 11 Mar. 2006.

31 Personal communication with Lt. Colonel Surathep Nukaeow of Ingkayut Camp, Pattani, on 28 Dec. 2006.

32 Monks have told me that it is more expensive to have soldiers stay in a wat, and if funding is cut for a specific area, police are usually brought in. Personal communication in the one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

33 Personal communication with an abbot in one of the southernmost provinces, 2007.

34 Personal communication with an abbot in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

35 In my own experience, I have found soldiers either refrain from drinking in the wat, or drink in the privacy of their buildings (thus in a more private and discreet manner).

36 Personal communication with police in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

37 Personal communication by telephone with Ačhān Mahāwichī [‘Mahāwichī’ is a honorific title bestowed on the Secretariat to the Pattani Sangha leader] on 15 Aug. 2004.

38 I want to thank Irving Johnson for calling this to my attention.

39 Thai wat were used as military bases during and after the Second World War in southern Thailand. Personal communication with Irving Johnson at National University of Singapore, 27 Feb. 2007. Kamala Tiyavanich also noted the historical presence of the Thai military in wat during King Vajiravudh's reign, personal communication at Cornell University, 22 Apr. 2006.

40 Personal communication with a monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

41 It is also important to remember that the population of the southernmost provinces is predominantly Muslim. Hence, the number of Muslim deaths may be higher, but the percentage of casualties from the Buddhist population is still greater. Jitpiromsri, Srisompob and Sobhonvasu, Panyaksak, ‘Unpacking Thailand's southern conflict: The Poverty of structural explanations’, Critical Asian Studies 38, 1 (2006): 95Google Scholar.

42 It is important to note that Malay Muslims do still come to the wat, although their purposes, numbers and frequency have decreased dramatically since martial law was declared.

43 Personal communication with a monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

44 Tambiah, Stanley, World conqueror and world renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and polity in Thailand against a historical background (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 515CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 For Kamala, modern State Buddhism was a product of the Chulalongkorn administration (1873–1910). It treated Prince Wachirayan's printed religious texts as authoritative, which determined degrees, examinations and ranks in the sangha hierarchy. State Buddhism also focused on Bangkok interpretation of sermons, using Bangkok Thai and stories about the Buddha's last life, as opposed to using local dialects and stories about the Buddha's previous births. Tiyavanich, Kamala, Forest recollections: Wandering monks in twentieth-century Thailand (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997), pp. 8, 9, 34Google Scholar.

46 Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, p. 368.

47 Suksamran, Somboon, Political Buddhism in Southeast Asia: The Role of the sangha in the modernization of Thailand (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977), p. 44Google Scholar.

48 Ishii, Yoneo, Sangha, state, and society: Thai Buddhism in history, trans. Hawkes, Peter (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 40–52Google Scholar.

49 Buddhism, legitimation and conflict: The Political functions of urban Thai Buddhism (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 2.

50 Military monks continued to receive monthly salaries for their connection to the military. Typical salaries range from 9,000–10,000 baht a month, roughly USD 250. While there are military monks who come from the Thai army, navy, air force and marines, the majority of military monks works for the army (and comprise the data for this paper).

51 Yukio, Hayashi, Practical Buddhism among the Thai-Lao: Religion in the making of religion (Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2003), p.1Google Scholar.

52 Keyes, Charles F., Thailand: Buddhist kingdom as modern nation-state (Boulder & London: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 138 and 139Google Scholar.

53 Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the texts of the Theravāda tradition, trans. Grangier, Claude and Collins, Steven (Cambridge, New York, Port Chester, Melbourne & Sidney: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Monks are clearly prohibited from interacting with or becoming involved with the military in the Vinaya (Buddhist Monastic Code). Under The Etiquette of a Contemplative, it is a pacittiya [within the Buddhist Monastic Code, the term pacittiya refers to rules involving confession; it is also a name of one of the books within the Vinaya] offence for monks to go to a battlefield, see a review of the battle units or even watch a field army – or similar large military force – on active duty, unless there is a suitable reason, Vinaya texts part I: The Pātimokkha, The Mahāvagga, I–IV, trans. T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (Delhi, Varanasi & Patna: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968), 43, #48 and #49.

55 I learnt from Duncan McCargo, a specialist on southern Thailand, that 75 soldiers were ordained together in a ceremony for the Thai Queen's birthday in 2005.

56 Personal communication with Nopparat Benjawatthananant, Director of the Office of National Buddhism, in Nakhon Pathom on 25 Dec. 2006.

57 Reynolds, Craig, Seditious histories: Contesting Thai and Southeast Asian pasts (Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 2006), p. 237Google Scholar.

58 There are no official reports on military monks, the only substantiations of their existence coming from interviews, personal observations and local rumours in southern Thailand. Part of the process of unraveling the mystery of the military monk is explicating the secrecy behind these rumours. As Carolyn Nordstrom and Antonius C. G. M. Robben note, ethnographers cannot discount rumours, especially in violent contexts:

One of the most common and also complicated problems of fieldwork on violence is how to deal with rumors. Every field-worker runs across a good deal of gossip, hearsay, slander, rumor, and even character assassination, but they acquire inordinate importance in violent situations in which access to such information can make the difference between life and death, safety and injury. Rumors are often the only source of ethnographic information available to the anthropologist under rapidly changing circumstances.

Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 15.

59 Defacement: Public secrecy and the labor of the negative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 2.

60 It is important to distinguish my use of the public secret from Michael Taussig's. In this specific scenario, I apply Taussig's idea of the public secret as a less encompassing and overarching social phenomenon. Public in this context is the military monk's specific community. The identity of the military monk is a public secret for his immediate community; it is not a public secret for an entire district, province, or region. Most people in a district, province, or region are unaware of military monks.

61 Personal communication with a high-ranking monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2004.

62 Personal communication, 2007.

63 It is difficult to ascertain how much the Mahātherasammakhon [generally translated as the Council of Elders and is the supreme council of monks within the Thai sangha] or the overall Thai Sangha knows about the military monks. What is for certain is that the sangha has never been informed of their existence and certain related internal policies. According to Ačhān Mahāwichī at Wat Chang Hai, there was a regional sangha meeting on 5 May 2004 concerning the military monks receiving a salary. Personal communication by telephone on 15 Aug. 2004.

64 Another State-sponsored programme similar to this was the Thammathud, launched in 1964. For more information on this project, refer to Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, pp. 434–56.

65 Personal communication with a monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2007.

66 Military monks have offered estimates as to the number of currently active military monks dispersed throughout the three southernmost provinces. The numbers are around 200, although this number is in flux and changes according to the level of violence and the need for them.

67 Personal communication in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

68 Monthly salaries differ for soldiers. Every month, an electronic transfer of 9,000 baht is deposited into Phra Eks account (nearly USD 250).

69 In ch. 4 of the Vinaya (Buddhist Monastic Code), the third parajika for a monk is depriving another human being of life. The offence is so specific in this rule that to merely insinuate or persuade a person to end their life constitutes such an offence and results in permanent excommunication from the sangha.

70 Personal communication with a military monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2006.

71 Keyes, Charles, ‘Political crisis and militant Buddhism’, in Religion and legitimation of power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma, ed. Smith, Bardwell L. (Chambersburg, PA: ANIMA Books, 1978), p. 153Google Scholar.

72 Monks explained to the Sinhalese king that ‘Only one and a half human beings have been slain here by thee, O lord of men. The one had come unto the (three) refuges, the other had taken on himself the five precepts. Unbelievers and men of evil life were the rest, not more to be esteemed than beasts.’ Mahāvamsa: The Great chronicle of Lanka from 6th century BC to 4th century AD, trans. Wilhelm Geiger (New Delhi & Madras: Asian Educational Services, 1993), p. 178.

73 For a comprehensive background to this, refer to Tambiah, Stanley, Buddhism betrayed? Religion, politics and violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

74 Abeysekara, Ananda. ‘The Saffron army, violence, terror(ism): Buddhism, identity, and difference in Sri Lanka’, Numen, 48, 1 (2001): 31 and 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Although Chinese Buddhist scriptures prohibited the retaining of arms within monasteries, Christoph Kleine notes that spears, bows and arrows, and shields were discovered in Chinese monasteries as early as 446 CE. ‘Evil monks with good intentions?’ in Buddhism and violence, ed. Michael Zimmermann (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2006), p. 76.

76 For detailed accounts of these and other examples, refer to Demieville, Paul, ‘Buddhism and war’, trans. Kendall, Michelle, in Buddhist warfare (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

77 Kleine, ‘Evil monks with good intentions?’, in Buddhism and violence, ed. Zimmermann, p. 74.

78 Victoria, Brian, Zen at war (New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1997), p. 137Google Scholar.

79 Personal communication with a monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2007.

80 Personal communication with a military monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2007.

81 Although southern monks conceded in interviews that it was appropriate for military monks to exist and to live within the wat, they did not, however, condone the military monk remaining armed in the monks' quarters. Personal communications in one of the southernmost provinces, 2004.

82 Jones, Richard H., ‘Theravāda Buddhism and morality’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 47, 3 (1979): 383 and 384Google Scholar.

83 It is of the opinion of military monks that most parties and individuals involved in the military monks' daily lives are aware of their true identity and help to conceal the secret, but those outside of their shared habits and lifestyles are oblivious to their existence.

84 Tambiah, Buddhism betrayed?, p. 99.

85 The public secret is now shared by more than just the monks and some Buddhist laity. Phra Eks told me in 2007 that the terrorists (phūkokānrai) now know he is a military monk. According to his friend who has contacts with militant groups, the terrorists are now watching him very closely. Because of this, he has to be constantly vigilant. So far no military monks have been reportedly killed in southern Thailand; with regards to Phra Eks, there is no confirmation that his identity has been compromised.

86 Personal communication by phone with a high-ranking monk in one of the southernmost provinces, 2004.

87 However, it could be argued that the targeting and killing of monks on their morning alms rounds already signify how southern militants see monks.