Another government, another committee

A directive from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) ordered this past week the setting up of a powerful committee to deal with the conflict in the far South.
The so-called Steering Committee for Solving Southern Border Provinces’ Problems will report to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. Its members are expected to come from the military and civilians, no more than 10.
While it is not clear if civilians will have a bigger say in this committee, past experience in the far South has shown that when it comes to creativity and progressive ideas about peaceful coexistence between the Malays of Patani and the Thai State, the Army is often in the dark.
The Army’s idea of peace is an absence of violence. They wrongly jumped with joy in the early 1990s when that wave of Patani Malay armed insurgency went under. Looking back, it was nothing less than a lull before the storm.
If the historical grievances and narrative are not addressed in a structural and meaningful way, Thailand can forget about seeing an end to the ongoing separatist insurgency.
Bangkok can do its utmost to impose the Thai state-constructed narrative on the Malays. But in the end, it will only create resentment among the locals because their way of life, their dignity, their identity and their narrative are not included in this construct.
And as long as the locals’ narrative is left out of the equation, one can be sure that a new generation of armed separatists – assuming our troops can eliminate all the insurgents currently operating on the ground – will surface and pick up from where the previous one had left off.
And like the current generation of armed militants, they will embrace the same historical and cultural narrative of the previous generation, which surfaced in the mid-1960s and caved in in the early 1990s.
Committees come and go. Every government since Thaksin Shinawatra has entertained this idea. With the exception of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC), which is tasked with developing pilot projects and forwarding them to the appropriate ministry to determine if they are sound and sustainable, the far South – like any other region in the country – has many ministry officials and agencies operating on the ground.
Most of the bureaucrats are Buddhists from other parts of the region. Combined with 60,000-plus armed security personnel, the region feels like an occupied territory.
Thailand is lucky that the Malays of Patani don’t play the race card the same way that the blacks and Latinos in the United States do.
Our bureaucrats might be familiar with like justice, equality, social mobility, dignity and security. The sad thing is they never bother to take the time to explore their meaning or learn how to apply those ideas with the local people.
Perhaps it’s easier to treat the locals as a bunch of colonial subjects who need to learn our way, our language and our narrative. And on top of that, they should appreciate how benevolent we have been to them and that they should not bite the hand that feeds them.
Our message to Patani Malays has always been: Learn to live with it, because you’re a defeated people.
With this kind of attitude and mindset, it is no wonder why the separatist insurgents are having a field day in the region. They have shown that they can hit any place any time.
It has been nearly 14 years since the current wave of insurgency began. Nearly 7,000 people, mostly Malay Muslims, have been killed in the violence. And the end is nowhere in sight.