FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Fears of IS infiltration should not stoke Islamophobia

Fears of IS infiltration should not stoke Islamophobia

Both the Thai state and groups in the deep South need to work together to crush any involvement by Islamic State terrorists 

Last week Malaysian Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar announced the arrest of four men and two women with links to the Islamic State terrorist group.
Khalid said that one of the supects, a resident of Kelantan State in Malaysia, had evaded arrest and crossed over the border with a pistol and an M-4 Carbine assault rifle. Kelantan and Thailand’s Narathiwat province share a common border, a porous one.
The announcement was a wake-up call for the Thai government, which has consistently downplayed any suggestion that Thailand is not out of the loop when it comes to global terrorism. Even though the August 2015 attack at the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok fits the description of terrorism, the Thai government refused to call it that, fearing such a label would hurt the country’s tourism industry.
Needless to say, such a strategy 
is lacking in prudence. Denial as a strategy is an escapism of sorts. Sooner or later it will come to the realisation that such an approach is counterproductive and damaging, especially when we want to mobilise public support for the government’s efforts to crack down on terrorist 
networks in the country.
According to reports, the six IS suspects, all Malaysian citizens, were arrested between March 24 and April 25. Khalid said two of the six 
suspects were smuggling weapons from southern Thailand to be used by IS terrorists in Malaysia.
As we all know, Thailand’s far South is reeling under a wave of 
separatist insurgent violence since January 2004. Almost 7,000 people have died from insurgency-related violence. Peace talks with a group of separatist movements, with Malaysia’s facilitation, have been going on for nearly two years now. But it has become increasingly clear that Bangkok is not talking to the right people – at least not to people who control the combatants on the ground.
The news about IS involvement in the far South could complicate 
matters even more amid a growing Islamophobia because of the ethno-nationalist insurgency in the Malay-speaking South and the IS terrorist activities in the Middle East and 
various capitals around the world.
There is no connection between the IS and the Patani Malay separatist groups. In fact, Barisan Revolusi Nasional, the leading separatist group from the far South, late last year publicly denied any connection with the IS terrorist network.
Islamophobia has no place in Thailand or for that matter anywhere else in the world. If we are not 
careful, Thailand could end up like Myanmar, where Buddhist monks and politicians, with tactical support from the country’s powerful military, have created a xenophobic nationalist movement that not only lashes out against the country’s Muslim minority but also persecutes the stateless Rohingya.
In the past, Thai security officials have done a very poor job in explaining the nature of the conflict in the far South. They conveniently permitted the narrative of good Muslims versus bad Muslims. Muslims who questioned the legitimacy of the state or its narrative were lumped into one group as bad Muslims. But we all know the conflict is much more than that.
Now with IS in the picture, Thai officials must work that much 
harder to explain the true nature of the southern conflict.
Strange as it may sound, the Thai government and Patani separatist groups have one goal in common: both need to counter and eliminate Islamic State terrorists. It may not be enough to unite everybody, but the IS issue should at least be on the table the next time Thai representatives talk to separatist leaders from the MARA Patani umbrella organisation.
In the fight against the Islamic State, Thailand needs all the help it can get, even if it means teaming up with people who challenged the country’s nationhood and state-
constructed narrative.

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