Media reports on insurgency one-sided : filmmaker
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While the mainstream media's coverage of violence in the deep South is not sparse, most reports are presented from a Bangkok angle, Naulnoi Thammasathien, the producer of a new documentary on the conflict, said yesterday.
Issues like rights of residents, normalcy and positive aspects of life in parts of the region are often overlooked, the filmmaker said. Her 40-minute documentary, titled “The Agent of Change”, screened in Bangkok on Monday.
Nualnoi said her film was different because it was made in collaboration with local Thai-Malay Muslims in the South. “People in the three southernmost provinces want others to see them in a positive light,” she explained.
She also called on the media to not just focus on people being arrested or accused of separatism, but also report if they are acquitted or they could be branded as separatist for good. The separatist strife has taken more than 5,000 lives over the past eight years and injured 10,000 others.
Nualnoi said the situation in the deep South was complex because there were supporters of violence as well as people who wanted peace. So, she said the mainstream media should dig beyond the sensational coverage of violence. The rest of Thai society still lacked adequate understanding of the South, while people in the region were given little say or a chance to participate in how conflicts are resolved.
“We do not have any readymade answers,” she said, adding that she remained optimistic because local people were learning how to negotiate with the rest of the society in a better manner.
Separately, speaking as part of a panel on the plight of minorities, held by a group of media activists called Media Inside Out, Abdul Kalam, president of Rohingya National Organisation in Thailand, called for support for the 9,000 or so Rohingya people who fled oppression in Burma.
He said they should all be given the right to attain Thai citizenship, especially those born in Thailand. Kalam explained that Rohingya children born in Thailand were not granted citizenship and so had no access to basic education or health services.
“We should ask ourselves who are the Rohingya? Thailand will not take us and Burma won’t accept us,” he said, adding that despite the difficulties in Thailand, life in Burma was worse due to the state of emergency, curfews and restriction of movement.
“But we can’t answer when our children ask what nationality we are,” he lamented.
