Autonomy is not the answer for the far South

Thailand's deep South is full of deep mysteries – especially when it comes to this government’s policy for this restive region, where an ongoing insurgency has so far claimed more than 5,000 lives since January 2004.

During the election campaign last year, Yingluck Shinawatra promised to grant the region a special status, or autonomy, if her party was elected. Pheu Thai Party came in first but the party did not receive one single seat from this Malay-speaking region. The same goes for all other parties that were campaigning on autonomy, or this vague notion of Nakhon Pattani, or Greater Pattani.

The military didn’t like it, so Pheu Thai Party reneged on the promise. Nobody in the country gave a hoot about Pheu Thai backtracking because Thai society is largely indifferent to the grievances of the Malays.

All seats in the Malay-speaking South, except one, went to the Democrat Party, which, by the way, didn’t campaign for autonomy, at least not in terms of administrative reform. While he was prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva stated on several occasions that he was open to ideas and added that the debate over modalities should not be exclusively confined to administrative reform, because cultural identity and recognition are also important. 

Given the fact that the conflict in the three southernmost provinces is ethno-nationalist in nature, Abhisit got a point. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the courage to go beyond bureaucratic means to address the deep South when he was the prime minister. Thai bureaucrats are not known for being innovative or creativity when it comes to addressing abstract issues such as nation-state building. The age-old recipe of Thai nationalism was all they knew or seem willing to entertain.

When it comes to national politics, local Thai and Chinese Buddhists in the deep South have always been strong supporters of the Democrats. The Malay Muslims, once loyal to the Wadah faction, have since the Tak Bai massacre given their vote to the Democrat Party. 

It has not been the same for any political party or clique affiliated with Thaksin since then as Malay Muslims, as well as the insurgents, will not let the world forget about Tak Bai. On the eight anniversary of the massacre, nearly 30 bombs went off in Yala alone. This was a reminder that the Thai way of “ignoring the past hoping it would just go away” will not work in this region, where historical ties between this Malay historical homeland and the Thai state is shaped by warfare and mistrust.  

One can also argue that, based on the election results, the idea of autonomy didn’t really appeal to the average Malay Muslim voters in the deep South. Indeed, in various workshops and community and public discussions, administrative reform or autonomy hardly ever comes up, unless the forum is set up to talk about that very issue.

Like most Thai citizens, the Malays' concerns aren’t much different. Issues like social mobility, cultural rights, justice and equality often come up in normal discussion, not whether their governors and district chiefs will be Buddhist or Malay. 

And their participation in national politics suggests that Malay Muslims do not want a separate state. But their refusal to assimilate, as well as the insurgency, is a way of telling the Thais that their membership in the Thai state must be on their terms, not dictated to them by Bangkok. 

Our policy-makers say they respect Malays’ cultural rights but we do absolutely nothing in terms of acknowledging it or recognising the fact that Malay Muslims embrace an entire set of different historical narratives from the rest of the country.

Of late, the government and the Army are back at the same drawing board, debating through the media about the merit of autonomy. Many people in the restive region are clueless as to what this autonomous region would look like. Indeed, many suspect that in the end, if the status is granted, governance and power will fall into the hands of a few elite local Muslims, or worse – lackeys for Bangkok. And in the final analysis, nothing is likely to change in real terms. 

The challenge, it seems, is to come up with ways and means in which the local Malays are empowered so they can get a sense of ownership of the place, as well as a shared destiny with the rest of the country.