The Southern Thailand Conflict and the Muslim World1

Abstract

Several commentators and analysts have talked about the ongoing unrest in southern Thailand from the perspective of the engagement of international terrorism, security issues, center-periphery relations, organized crime and the drug industry; but none of them has written about the role of religion and ethnicity in the crisis and its reception in the Muslim world. This paper contends that the conflict in southern Thailand is largely a local conflict rooted in clashes between two ethno-religiosities, those of Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims. In order to accomplish the above, the paper begins with a discussion about the history of relations between Thailand and the Muslim world including the historical religious interaction between Islam and Buddhism and the state of relations between Muslims and Buddhists in contemporary Thailand. The paper also discusses the state of the official diplomatic relations between Thailand and the Muslim countries, and also the non-official community-based relations between the Thai Muslims and the Muslim world and the educational links between them. Furthermore, it also looks at the roles played by international Muslim organizations, such as the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), in relation to the southern Thai conflict. The final part of the paper discusses the Muslim media reportage about the southern Thai conflict.