Thailand is a country mostly associated with sad old white Englishmen going on a sex holiday or to find a non white wife.
However, its also a country which for a number of years now particularly in the southern provinces of Pattani and Yala that has been engulfed in a Muslim separatist campaign to emancipate Muslims from Buddhist rule. However, sadly as recent cases demonstrate Muslim insurgents are allegedly increasingly targeting Muslims who they have been killing ostensibly on the grounds that any Muslim working for the Thai Government is a collaborator.
The situation has not been helped with the Thai military being exposed by Human Rights Watch for brutal human rights abuses towards Muslims with evidence suggesting wide scale torture of Muslim prisoners.
Sadly the plight of Muslims in Southern Thailand appears to be deteriorating and while the lack of publicity or concern by western governments is no particular surprise what is immensely disappointing is the complete lack of coverage by fellow Muslims towards the hardship our Thai Muslim Brothers and Sisters are facing.
I'm shocked to hear this. I was in Thailand for 5+ months and it's majority Muslim. Yes, there are some troubles in the deep south, but it's quite contained. I found the Buddhists and the Muslims to be very peaceful together actually, I have never seen so much cross-religious tolerance and love as I did in S.Thailand.
ReplyDeleteThere is an extreme group in the South and the Thai Muslims are against what they are doing as much as the Buddhists are...
So...I would take all of that with a pinch of salt. There on the ground, walking the streets - there are no problems between the people in Thailand. Any problems are between specific groups.
So-called Southern Thailand is a completely different nation, ethnically, linguistically, religiously & historically etc.
ReplyDeleteIt is a region of Malay Muslim land that was egregiously handed over by the British Empire, without any humane rhyme or reason to the expanding militarist Siamese over a century ago.
Yes there may be the appearance of relative peace to a passing ignorant tourist, but stay for longer, learn the language & read even the biased local papers if you can. Locals & civilians nearly always try to make the most of a bad situation. The fact is that the government is bringing in Buddhist settlers from Thailand into areas of the old Malay sultanates. Do all "oriental" people look the same? What about the rest of the Malay lands, are they Siamese too? Did the Germans have a right to occupy the rest of Europe?