South Thailand: Politics, Identity, and Culture

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South Thailand: Politics, Identity, and Culture

Raymond Scupin

The Journal of Asian Studies / Volume 72 / Issue 02 / May 2013, pp 423 432DOI: 10.1017/S0021911813000065, Published online: 28 May 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021911813000065

How to cite this article:Raymond Scupin (2013). South Thailand: Politics, Identity, and Culture. The Journal of Asian Studies, 72, pp 423432 doi:10.1017/S0021911813000065

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Review Essay

SOUTHEAST ASIA

South Thailand: Politics, Identity, and Culture

Conspiracy of Silence: The Insurgency in Southern Thailand. By ZACHARYABUZA.Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009. xvii, 293 pp.$16.95 (paper).

Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand. By MICHAEL K.JERRYSON. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. vii, 262 pp. $99.00(cloth); $29.95 (paper).

Muslim Merit-Making in Thailand’s Far South. By CHRISTOPHER M. JOLL.Muslims in Global Societies Series, vol. 4. New York: Springer, 2012. vii, 235pp. $139.00 (cloth).

Thai South and Malay North: Ethnic Interactions on a Plural Peninsula. Editedby MICHAEL J. MONTESANO and PATRICK JORY. Singapore: National University ofSingapore Press, 2008. xvii, 413 pp. $30.00 (paper).

Dynamic Diversity in Southern Thailand. Edited by WATTANA SUGUNNASIL.Chiang Mai: Silkworm Press. 2005. x, 333 pp. $795.00 / $33.13 (paper).doi:10.1017/S0021911813000065

There are approximately five million Muslims in Thailand (7 percent of the total popu-lation), with about 1.8 million in the southernmost provinces bordering on Malaysia. Aconsiderable literature in history, anthropology, political science, international relations,and religious studies has been produced since January 4, 2004, when a violent Musliminsurgency dramatically erupted in the area. At that time over 100 Muslim insurgentsraided an arms depot of the Fourth Army Engineers in Narathiwat Province. On January22, in south Thailand, two Muslim young men on a motorcycle used a long knife to slitthe throat of a sixty-four-year-old Buddhist monk, killing him. The monk had just returnedfrom his early morning round of tham bun (alms-collecting extending merit to Buddhistfamilies).

Although martial law was declared by then Prime Minister Thaksin in January 2004,sporadic violence continued for some four months in the southern region until it resultedin a massive daylong siege on April 28, 2004, by the Thai military resulting in the deaths of112 Muslim teenagers. The Thai military surrounded the Muslim militants, who werearmed with machetes and cleavers, in a predawn raid. Some of the young Muslims hidin the historic Krue Se mosque in Pattani, and it was firebombed, killing some thirty-twoyoung assailants who were crying out the takbir (“Allah is great and Muhammad is his

The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 72, No. 2 (May) 2013: 423–432.© The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2013

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Prophet”). Islamic countries in ASEAN, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, criticized theThai government’s handling of this deadly crackdown.

As if things could not get worse, on October 26, some 2,000 Muslim protestersassembled at a police station demanding the release of six Muslims accused of supplyingweapons to insurgents. The Thai military arrested 1,300 Muslims, and as the crowdbecame “irrational,” security forces fired bullets, water from water cannons, and teargas into the crowd; six protesters were killed. After the arrested Muslims were packedinto army trucks headed for prison, seventy-eight prisoners suffocated to death. Facingfurther international outrage and criticism, Thaksin declared that the Muslims wereweak from Ramadan fasting and that was the reason they had suffocated. Since 2004there have been over 5,000 deaths and at least 8,000 related injuries for both Buddhistsand Muslims in the largest insurgency outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dynamic Diversity in Southern Thailand is a collection of papers from a conferencetitled “Experiencing Southern Thailand: Current Social Transformations from People’sPerspectives” cosponsored by the Pattani campus of Prince of Songkla University andthe Anthropology Department at Harvard University in June 2002. Although thevolume is uneven in quality and production, many of the papers are prescient regarding2004 with reflections on ethnicity and problems that afflict south Thailand. Omar FaroukBajunid begins the volumewith a description of the diversity of Islam and the polymorphouscharacter of nationalism in Thailand. Bajunid indicates that problems of poverty and highunemployment, drug addiction, crime, and other social problems have created conditionsfor violence and the reemergence of separatist and even new jihadist developments.

Duncan McCargo’s essay on southern Thai politics provides a description ofpre-2004 factors that would become important in generating the present violent con-dition. He notes that the Thai secular education system promoted by the governmenthas been the bane of the Muslims in the south where the several hundred pondok arecentral to their ethno-religious identity. After questioning some of the reified “culturalgeneralizations” that have been promoted as explanations of southern Thai behavior,McCargo concludes the essay by suggesting that local elites created a proto-civilsociety that inhibited the emergence of chao pho or godfather bosses as in otherregions of Thailand.

Piya Kittaworn et al. draw on the local voices in south Thailand expressing dissatisfac-tion with the top-down, unsustainable economic developments and ecological damage,such as the depletion of marine resources, the destruction of wetlands and rice fields,inadequate land surveys that disrupt communities when forest conservation projectsare designed, and other problems. The essay ends with proposals to stop these develop-ment projects and enable local people with indigenous wisdom and knowledge, includingpondok religious education, to manage their own communities for their benefit.

Wattana Sugunnasil’s study of how local Buddhist villagers in a southern communityin Narathiwat adopted the flow of modern consumer goods into their communities isinsightful. Wattana describes how villagers adopted consumer goods, such as Japanesemotorcycles and televisions, that had both negative and positive consequences. Newforms of wage labor were not having a disruptive effect on the family farms, and althoughnew consumer goods did lead to competition in status, it did not completely dismantlemorality and patterns of altruism in these communities.

Phil King discusses the failure of the Indonesian-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle(IMT-GT), established in 1993 to develop an integrated socioeconomic and industrializ-ation development program for the southern Thai provinces, northeastern Malaysia, andthe Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Sumatra. However, with the economic meltdownof 1997, the resistance of some NGO networks to the industrialization project, and the

424 The Journal of Asian Studies

eventual 2001 election of Thaksin and his “One Tambon, One Product” small-scale devel-opment scheme, the IMT-GT resulted in more conflict than social capital.

Paul Dowsey-Magog penetrates the meaning of a traditional form of shadow-puppettheatre in south Thailand called nang talung, which has been transformed by adding con-temporary popular music and new stories to appeal to a young generation. He describeshow this revitalized “invented tradition” enables new anti-hegemonic forms of resistanceto local corrupt kamnan (village headmen) or Chinese or Western investors, but also hasto adapt to the audience by avoiding sensitive political issues.

Marlene Guelden discusses the well-known southern tradition of manora or norathat involves spirit-mediums who become possessed by spirits during public dance per-formances. Although this nora tradition was initially associated with ordained Theravadamonks, it has currently become a means for women to gain status and spiritual authorityoutside of a patriarchal domain.

A study of Chinese festivals called “Vegetarian Festivals” in Hat Yai in Songkla Pro-vince was conducted by Javon Maud in 2001. He discusses two different types of the fes-tivals. One is based on folk-Taoist traditions with a spectacular parade of Nine Emperordeities on palanquins along with spirit mediums exhibiting various self-mutilation prac-tices, piercings, and firecrackers. The other festival is a sedate and quiet syncreticritual associated with a Mahayana Buddhist temple emphasizing a ritual vegetarianmeal. These festivals represent the more assertive Chinese-ness that has developed insouth Thailand since the 1980s, coinciding with the transnational global connectionswith the PRC, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Jawanit Kittitornkool conducted a study of two villages to assess the status of womenin south Thailand. Women have increasingly become involved in economic developmentprojects while drawing upon their local kin networks for support. Senior women in theirlate phases of the family cycle have more opportunity, resources, and social capital tobecome involved in development projects, which has resulted in social progress.

Theodore Mayer provides ethnographic insights into a Dhamma Walk around LakeSongkhla that he followed from 1995 to 2003. The DhammaWalk is an aspect of an inter-national “socially engaged Buddhism” that highlights the environmental problems andproblems of violence in this southern region. The Dhamma Walk establishes a socialspace that enhances both contemplation and worldly action as espoused by the famedThai Buddhist reformer Buddhadasa Bhikku.

Suleemarn Wongsuphap discusses the Baba Chinese diaspora community of Phuketwho have developed their transnational connections and supportive kinship, marriage,and patronage networks to become successful in tin mining and international trade.She demonstrates how both women and men built the functioning relational networksto sustain their community.

In the final chapter, Irving Chan Johnson examines the complexities of identityamong the Thai Buddhists in Kelantan in the border region. Although these Thai inKelantan pledge loyalty to Malaysia, subjectively they perceive themselves as ethnicallyThai and associate with the monarchy and Buddhism. Traveling back and forth alongthis porous border, these Thai Kelantanese tend to view Thailand in an ambivalentmoral framework as they encounter prostitution, AIDS, the corruption of some Buddhistmonks, and other social problems.

Michael Montesano and Patrick Jory edited an excellent collection of papers from aworkshop at Walailak University in Nakhon Sri Thammarat after the 2004 violenceerupted, resulting in Thai South and Malay North: Ethnic Interactions on a Plural Penin-sula. Anthony Reid provides the historical framework for understanding identity issues byassessing the source documents from Thailand, Malaysia, China, and the Europeans in

Review Essay—Southeast Asia 425

the region. The “Plural Peninsula” consisted of hunter-gatherers, such as the Semang andSenoi; the orang laut or sea gypsies; a diverse Karen and Mon populace; early portagesites, such as Penang, with Theravada and Muslim networks; the Portuguese; the Protes-tant Dutch; the French Catholics; and the later cosmopolitan ports of Mergui and Tenas-serim with Siamese, Malays, Chinese, Persians, Indians, and Europeans. Withnineteenth-century colonialism, many of these plural commercial communities wouldbecome peripheral backwaters.

Chuleeporn Virunha analyzes, interprets, and reinterprets the historiography of theseventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries in the southern peninsula to deter-mine issues of local identity within the Thai and Malay mandalas or galactic polities.The trade-centered, loosely organized state based in Melaka and Johor contrasts withthe agriculturally based Thai polity based in Ayuthaya and later Bangkok. Chuleepornargues that despite the development of Islamic and Buddhist orientations, local ethnicidentities did not crystalize into separate enclaves during the early periods.

Davisakd Puaksom examines the political dynamics of Patani historiography by Thaiand Malay historians who attempt to demonstrate the historical legitimacy for claims oversovereignty in the contested southern region. Davisakd describes how the political sover-eignty of these premodern Southeast Asian states fluctuated depending on whether localrajas recognized the political legitimacy radiating from the centers of the mandalas. TheThai and Malay historical sources clearly demonstrate that there were times when Patanihad more autonomy or became more dependent on Ayuthaya and later Bangkokauthorities.

Thanet Aphornsuvan describes the post-1932 civilian-led democratic tendencies andthe role of Bangkok-based Chaem Phromyong and Pattani-based Haji Sulong as Islamicreformists who provided hope for Malay Muslims in their fraught relationship withBangkok. Haji Sulong had spent twenty years in Mecca and pioneered the developmentof modern Islamic education in the south. Chaem Phromyong had been an accomplice inthe civilian coup and was appointed as the first chularatchamontri, Islamic advisor to thegovernment. The nationalistic and forced assimilation policies of the Phibun regime inthe 1930s and 40s dashed Malay Muslim aspirations, especially with the arrest and disap-pearance of Haji Sulong. A key factor in distinguishing politics in the south comparedwith other Thai regions was the open expression of dissent within the public spaces ofthe Muslim pondoks and masjids, which distressed Thai authorities.

James Ockey analyzes the election results in south Thailand from the 1930s through2005 after the insurgency to assess the political integration of Muslims. Strong corre-lations were found between democratic developments for Muslims in the south andenhanced political integration. However, Ockey indicates that the current insurgencytends to undermine both democratic tendencies, resulting in more ethno-religious separ-atism and less cooperation.

Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian focuses on the Siamese Muslims (or Sam Sams) of Satunand Songkhla who maintained the Thai language but had converted to Islam and did notencounter the problems of forced assimilation and Thai nationalism in the same way thatthe Malay Muslims did. Kobkua argues that since the 1990s globalization, the expandingThai economy, and the rise of the middle class (especially the Sino-Thai) have createdmore cosmopolitan forms of identity, except for most Malay Muslims in the south.

In a perceptive analysis of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP—later the Commu-nist Party of Malaysia, CPM) and its settlement in south Thailand, Karl Hack presents theglobal impact stemming from Beijing, the British, and the U.S. Cold War alliance withBangkok in the region. In the early 1950s, some semblance of law and order developedin south Thailand as theMCP repressed banditry and achieved a modus vivendi with Thai


authorities and even a “study the Thai language campaign.” The Cultural Revolution inthe PRC stimulated more CPM raids and a Second Malayan Emergency that lastedinto the 1970s. Ironically, despite the eventual demise of the CPM and Maoism, six vil-lages have been established for the former CPM fighters receiving development assist-ance from Thai authorities and the royal family.

Wong Yee Tuan, Teo Kok Seong, and Michael Montesano examine the role of theChinese in south Thailand. Wong details the regional networks produced through inter-marriage and fictive-kin relationships of the five dominant Chinese families based inPenang that had an influence on south Thailand. These five wealthy Hokkien familiesestablished relationships with the Siamese (Sino-Thai) and Indo-Malayan elites, as wellas Hakka families, to exert control over trade, tin mining, and revenue farming insouth Thailand. Teo focuses on the linguistic and cultural aspects of the Kelantan Pera-nakan Chinese, some of whom migrated from Patani and maintain marital ties and closerelationships with southern Thais. These rural-based Peranakan Chinese speak a non-standard dialect of Hokkien; however, most of their communication is in a KelantanMalay and Kelantan Thai dialect. They adhere to a syncretic Theravada Buddhist tra-dition that includes Taoist and Confucianist beliefs as well as Malay animistic beliefsand practices. Although familiar with Islamic beliefs, they rarely convert to Islam. Mon-tesano’s detailed history of rubber-industry capitalism and education promoted by theChinese community in Trang is rich. He describes intraethnic and interethnic trendsalong with Thai nationalistic developments that have influenced the peninsular Chinese.

Alexander Horstmann describes the Buddhist and Islamic pilgrimages that solidifyethno-religious identity in south Thailand. The Chinese enjoy packaged weekend pil-grimages to Thai Buddhist monuments for nostalgic reasons, the Thai pilgrimages cele-brate kingship and national identity, and the Muslim Haj has become part of a massreligious consumer culture that connects Muslims with global Islam.

Patrick Jory discusses the legends of a Theravada monk, Luang Pho Thuat, whobecame a symbol of Thai authoritative control over the southern provinces. Luang PhoThuat became a revered monk who performed miracles in Ayutthaya and was associatedwith a wat in Pattani that produced amulets worn by popular celebrities, military person-nel, and other notables. Histories of the iconic monk were used to promote the Buddhistorigins of Pattani and other Malay areas.

Irving Chan Johnson extends his analysis of the Thai Buddhist Kelantanese todemonstrate how the narratives of miracle stories regarding sacred healing powers ofvarious monks or mae chii travel throughout and beyond this porous border region.Johnson argues that these traveling narratives have solidified identities among the ThaiKelantanese and Chinese patrons. Simultaneously, Malay Muslim identities in Kelantanhave become more primordial with Islamic fundamentalist trends.

In a sentimental afterword, Suthiwong Phongphaibun longs for a new cultural inte-gration of the peoples of the south based on former ancient rituals and practices.

Zachary Abuza’s Conspiracy of Silence attempts to explain the Muslim insurgency insouth Thailand. As expected within the “terrorism literature” produced by the UnitedStates Institute of Peace, Abuza sets forth a bullet-point narrative style moving fromone episode to another to present the “factual” details that have led to the conflict. Hequestions the premises that the conflict has any economic roots in criminal activities,cross-border trafficking, ethnic secessionism, or territorial control. Abuza asserts thatthe insurgency involves an Islamic radical jihadist campaign with Wahhabist and Salafistleanings that is linked with Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and al Qaeda networks. The purpose ofthe book is to explain the causes of the sudden increase in violence, investigate the groupscoordinating the conflict (with no single group taking responsibility, hence the title of the


book), identify the demands of the groups, and assess the consequences of governmentalactions and the impact of the insurgency for the region.

Abuza provides a brief summary of the history of the conflict back to the Buddhistand then Islamic kingdom of Patani and the extension of the Thai state into theregion, Thai-British colonial rivalry, and the forced assimilation and excessive nationalisticpolicies of the Phibul regime of the 1930s and 40s that banned the use of the Malaylanguage and Islamic laws in the southern region, which exacerbated ethnic and religiousconflict. With the continued resettlement of Thai Buddhists in the region, the arrest and“disappearance” of Haji Sulong, and the repressive policies of Sarit Thanarat in the 1950sand 1960s, Abuza concludes that secessionist movements were bound to arise. Hedescribes the different secessionist groups, including the most well-known, the PattaniUnited Liberation Organization with its armed wing, the Pattani United LiberationArmy. Though he draws on some of the basic sources for the historical treatment ofthis region and the secessionist movements, such as Wan Kadir Che Man, Abuza over-looks some important sources, such as the seminal book of Surin Pitsuwan1 (who is mis-takenly identified as a Pattani Muslim; he is from Nakhon Sri Thammarat) and theconsiderable empirical data amassed by the American political scientist Ladd Thomas.2

Abuza suggests that the various secessionist movements failed because of Thai-Malaysian border and security control efforts, the general lack of Malaysian supportfor their Malay brethren in the Thai region, the absence of heavy military repressionand the assimilation and collaboration of some Muslim leaders, rapid socioeconomicdevelopment, government reform of the Islamic educational curriculum, the vague pol-itical platforms and factionalism of the movements, the integration of Muslims into thenational political process, negligible financial support from outsider Islamic states, andgeneral amnesty grants to the separatists. Though some of these points would be con-tested by the Muslim populace, by 1998 the secessionist movements came to a standstill.Abuza closes the chapter on history by discussing lingering grievances of the Muslims,such as resentment towards Thai government education and language policies thatdirect forced assimilation strategies; the lack of punishment in cases of military andpolice abuse; the corrosive influence of secularism blamed for increases in gambling,prostitution, drugs, and immorality; and the distrust of their communities by ThaiBuddhists.

Chapter 2 focuses on how the Thaksin government after 2001 initially neglected theintelligence developed regarding al Qaeda and JI active in Thailand. Abuza produces alaundry list of the number of JI and al Qaeda members and funding sources based inThailand as well as the arrest of Riduan Ismudin, known as Hambali, who was linkedto the Bali bombing of 2002. He claims that the president of Yala Islamic College,Ismail Lutfi Japagiya, is a leading Saudi-sponsored Wahhabite and Salafist cleric whowas connected with JI and encouraged it to support the insurgency in the south.However, from a book entitled Islam, Education, and Reform in Southern Thailand: Tra-dition and Transformation by Joseph Liow (Singapore: Institute of Southeast AsianStudies, 2009) published the same year as Abuza’s book, one gains a very different por-trait of Lutfi. Liow interviewed Lutfi extensively and examined his writings carefully.

1Surin Pitsuwan, Islam and Malay Nationalism: A Study of the Malay-Muslims of Southern Thai-land. Bangkok (Thai Kadai Research Institute, 1985).2Daniel H. Unger and Clark D. Neher (eds.), Bureaucracy and National Security in Southeast Asia:Essays in Honor of M. Ladd Thomas (DeKalb, Ill.: Department of Political Science, Northern Illi-nois University, 2006).


Although Lutfi shares some of the Wahhabi conceptions, such as viewing Sufism asdeviant, he is aligned with the Islamic reformist movements in Thailand that want tointroduce innovative educational techniques and, in contrast to many Wahhabis and Sal-afists, promotes religious pluralism among Muslims and non-Muslims.

Abuza catalogues and tabulates the violent episodes in the southern provinces. Heexplores how the intermittent and episodic Muslim violence moved from typicallow-tech pre-2004 bombings to more sophisticated IED explosives and beheadingsthat were developed in Iraq. In chapter 4, he asserts that two main organizations werebehind the violence: Gerakan Mujahideen Islamiya Pattani, with a handful of veteransfrom Afghanistan training camps, and Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Congress, a pondok-based cellular organization led by what Abuza refers to as radical clerics. He emphasizesthat the insurgency has become more of a coordinated (but silent) Islamic jihadist move-ment based on Internet connections, globalization, and educational opportunities in thepondoks. Abuza discusses whether transnational terrorist networks are involved in theinsurgency. Although he concludes that there was no evidence that transnational net-works were involved in the south, he alludes to social connections between IsmailLutfi and Hambali, without providing any source for this “fact.”

The final chapter discusses the impact of the insurgency on south Thailand, theregion, and the international arena. Locally, Abuza notes the ongoing ethnic cleansingof Thai Buddhists, the targeting of teachers and the decline of educational standards,and the retardation of both economic development and health care. Strained relationsbetween Thailand and Malaysia (especially within the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party-dominated Kelantan area), who maintain sympathies and strong ties with their Islamicbrethren involved in the insurgency, and concerns of ASEAN regarding the influenceof JI in the area are regional issues. Abuza terminates the book by claiming that theUnited States needs to be concerned about how al Qaeda has morphed into an ideologythat may draw more jihadists into the southern insurgency.

Michael Jerryson’s Buddhist Fury assesses the role of the Buddhist monastic com-munities in the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, and Yala, the major regions of the insur-gency. His extensive ethnographic research develops an understanding of how theBuddhist monks both influence and were influenced by the violence surrounding theircommunities, a neglected area of research. However, Jerryson casts a wider net inorder to debunk some misconceptions of the Buddhist tradition as a platonic, idealizedform based on a normative nonviolent image in contrast to the lived tradition. In his intro-duction, Jerryson provides a brief review of the historical and political conditions thathave led to the insurgency in this border region, leading to the current troubles. AlthoughJerryson takes pains to emphasize that religion itself (Buddhism or Islam) does not createthe violence, he indicates that the Malay Muslim separatists will at times draw on a jiha-dist discourse and international aid to support their cause. In addition, he indicates thatthe Malay Muslims target not only the Buddhists, but also moderate members of theirown communities who are believed to be working for the Thai state.

In chapter 1 Jerryson discusses the historiographical components of thisethno-religious struggle. By reviewing the educational curriculum in the southernregion, Jerryson describes how the Thai state promulgates a “master narrative” that isfocused on how the monarchy with a Buddhist orientation established a progressivenation-state that had incorporated the Malay provinces for centuries, with no mentionof the Islamic kingdom of Patani. As in all nation-states, the master narrative is intendedto produce an identity as well as allegiance and loyalty to the Thai state through a selectivehistoriography that muted any Islamic or Malay past. However, counter-narratives devel-oped among both Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims. The Thai Buddhist counter-


narrative emphasized the significance of the early Buddhist kingdoms of Langkasuka andSrivijaya and southern Thai Buddhism traditions. The counter-narrative for MalayMuslims stressed the importance of the Patani Islamic kingdom and the overall Islamiza-tion of the adjacent regions of Southeast Asia. He argues that the prevalence of the“master narrative” causes most contemporary Thai journalists to portray the current vio-lence as a recent random and chaotic phenomenon without any historical context.

The chapter on “representations” uses Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic capital to elu-cidate how the Buddhist monks in the southern arena embody both sacral symbols and“representations of the imagined solidarity, the nation” (p. 50). Jerryson analyzes how theBuddhist monks became the catalyst of insurgent violence based on three contingentfactors: a space of conflict, a politicized Buddhist representation, and an assault onthat representation. The Muslim attacks on the embodiment of the Thai state andsacral power invoke an emotional rage indicated in a quote from a Thai general in theBangkok Post: “Now that the bandits have gone berserk, our men must becomecrazed too to fight them” (p. 53). Jerryson notes that a series of sex and drug scandalsdiminished the sacral image of Thai monks in the 1980s and 1990s, but Thai authoritiesresponded by establishing police monks (tamruat phra) in order to monitor monasticpractices. Following the attacks on the monks in southern Thailand, Queen Sirikit andThai authorities sponsored a Volunteer Monk Program to recruit monks to go to this con-flict region, which accentuated their political dimension.

Chapters 3 and 4 provide specific details of the change in Buddhist practices and themilitarization of the wat in this conflict region. Jerryson begins with an interview with anabbot based in a categorized dangerous red zone in the south. He asks the abbot, “Whatare the monk’s duties during the violence in the southern border provinces?” He repliedsimply, “Monks should have guns to protect themselves” (p. 82). With the heighteneddanger, the environment of thewat has changed, many with the Thai military in residence,or the military accompanying the monks in their daily alms-gathering. And in a reversal ofTheravada Buddhist practices, out of safety concerns, the monks await the laity within thewat to collect their merit-making food offerings. Chapter 4 provides a nuanced descrip-tion of how some of the Buddhist monks became military monks (thahan phra) andhow the wat have become militarized. Though since 1902 monks have been exemptedfrom military service, beginning in 2002 a covert military unit directed Buddhist soldiersto become ordained; it was rumored to be sponsored by the queen. The militarization ofthe monks and wat is interlinked with the development of clandestine Buddhist militias,such as Queen Sirikit’s Village Protection Volunteer Project (Or Ror Bor). Jerrysondescribes how, prior to the 2004 violence, Malay Muslims often attended the wat forvarious communal activities, celebrations, and study, but now the emotional rage stem-ming from the conflict divides these ethno-religious communities.

The chapter “Identity” discusses how both Malay Muslim and Thai Buddhist identi-ties have become racialized through Thai mainstream discourse during various historicaland political eras. In Thailand racial identity is based on conceptions of skin color as wellas ethnic and religious identity. Jerryson discusses how the concept of khaek that wasloosely applied to “guests” or “strangers” became a derogatory and pejorative racial clas-sifier based on skin color and images of poverty for Malay Muslims and appears to beassociated with early Thai Buddhist renderings of demons and humans associated withMara, the antagonist of the Buddha during his enlightenment.3 As in other areas of

3Charles Keyes, “Muslim ‘Others’ in Buddhist Thailand,” Thammasat Review 13 (2008/2009): 19–42.


the world, such as the former Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland, conflict and violence hasresulted in more demarcated, primordialized, and essentialized identities among MalayMuslims and Thai Buddhists that continue to inhibit ethno-religious cooperation.

Another current ethnographic project by New Zealander Christopher Joll focuses onthe urban Malay community of Cabetigo within Pattani. Joll lived and worked in Pattanifor approximately ten years with his Thai-born wife and children. He learned to speakboth Thai and Malay with fluency to produce a highly detailed ethnography. Joll was intri-gued with how the Muslims would refer to merit-making with the Thai Buddhist idiomtham bun and he explores the interpretation of this phrase by employing thestate-of-the-art orientation within the anthropology of Islam that focuses on bothtextual analysis and practices. Other anthropologists, such as Burr and Scupin, haveviewed tham bun practices among the Muslim minority in Thailand as a syncretic influ-ence within the Buddhist milieu. Joll provides a nuanced exegesis of the Malay Muslimusages and interpretations of these tham bun practices that serve to question these earlierviews. Although this study does not directly deal with the insurgency in the south, it doesilluminate some of the Muslim cultural ideals and practices within the region.

In order to frame his analysis of merit-making in Cabetigo, Joll provides a history ofthis southern area and the influences of the Indic Sanskrit cosmopolis, followed by theexpansion of Islam through Indian and Middle Eastern creole ambassadors, and thenThai colonial developments up to the time of the 2004 insurgency. In addition, hedescribes the emergence of Wahhabi, Salafi, and Tablighi movements that spread andbecame incorporated in the beliefs, practices, education, and culture, which led to vari-ations of local Islamic practices within south Thailand and Cabetigo.

Chapter 3 discusses the tremendous ethnic and linguistic diversity in Cabetigo.Although most of the urban residents of Cabetigo recognize their historical ethnicMalay roots, increasing numbers of these bilingual speakers use a Malay-inflected Thaiand Thai-inflected Pattani Malay, and central Thai refer to themselves as “ThaiMuslims.” However, they also draw upon Arabic terms that assist in comprehendingtheir religious convictions.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 investigate the usages of tham bun among the Muslims and mul-tiple interpretations of merit-making for various types of religious activities. Joll arguesthat tham bun is not just a result of syncretism, but rather the adoption of a religiousidiom that involves a “search for equivalence.” He takes this phrase from religiousstudies scholar Tony Stewart, who analyzed how Islamic concepts were accepted andtransformed by Bengali Muslims who used a Sanskrit lexicon, but did not confuseIslam and Hinduism. Likewise, when Joll probed the meanings of tham bun used byCabetigo Muslims, he found that they deployed concepts from both Arabic and Malayto distinguish their merit-making from Buddhist notions. He admits that he may nothave discovered this search for equivalence if his informants had been monolingualThai speakers. Describing the varying interpretations of merit-generation throughreading and reciting the Qur’an, performances of compulsory salat, and other superero-gatory prayers, Joll affords the reader a glimpse into the subjective dimensions of hisproject. Although most agree that these actions are governed by the appropriate niat(silent or audible intentions), there are very different elicited views of merit-production.For example, some of the Cabetigo Muslims accepted the reading of the Qur’an for thedead by ritual specialists, whereas others believed it had to be a child or another relativeof the deceased. Prayers offered at older mosques compared to those offered at Pattani’scentral mosque (funded by a non-Muslim Thai government) were deemed more meritor-ious by some. Divergent and sometimes even contradictory or ambiguous views areexpressed regarding merit-making through acts of charity for the living and the dead,


as well as a range of ritual complexes involving food and prayer, such as funeral feasts;mawlid feasts (commemoration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth); house-warmingfeasts; and general tham bun feasts for rites of passage, such as naming ceremoniesseven days after birth, circumcision, or a child’s first complete reading of the Qur’an.

Chapter 7 focuses on Ramadan and the haj pilgrimage as merit-making possibilitiesfor these Cabetigo Muslims. Although merit from wajib (Arabic, obligatory) practicesappears to be ontologically superior to other supererogatory equivalents, calculatingmerit from these activities is also subject to varying interpretations. As one of Joll’s hajiinformants remarks, “If I pray at home, I get one mark of merit. If I pray in amosque, I get 27 marks of merit. If I pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, I get25,000 marks of merit. If I pray in Medina, I get 50,000 marks of merit. If I pray inMecca, I receive 100,000 marks of merit!” (p. 177). Others mentioned that only Allahultimately knows the calculation of the merit that will be bestowed upon the individualdepending on the internal motivations of the pilgrim. A constant refrain among manyof the Cabetigo Muslims regarding merit-making is that some individuals may have ques-tionable motivations for their ritual practices, such as performing the haj as a means ofpursuing lucrative contracts.

Chapter 8 considers the rationales that motivate these Cabetigo Muslims to gener-ate, accumulate, and transfer merit. Joll suggests that there exists an “economy ofmerit” within this Muslim urban community resembling Buddhist conceptions of spiri-tual insurance, cosmic capital, or currency, like other conventional economic activities.However, Joll argues that the rationales expressed in this Muslim economy of meritare thoroughly based on Islamic cosmologies and practices.

A lesson relearned from Joll’s research since the critiques of Geertz’s research inIndonesia is that the typologies of traditionalist, reformist, and revivalist need to beunderstood as generalized ideal types rather than as reflecting empirical realities. Theauthor continually reminds the reader that there is a lack of consensus regarding merit-making beliefs and practices among these Muslims. Yet, Joll states in his conclusivechapter that “this study has argued that the merit-making rationales that motivateMuslims in Cabetigo to make merit correspond to deeply held beliefs about obligationsto Allah” (p. 208). Through this thick description analysis, Joll confronts the ethnogra-pher’s inevitable dilemma and challenge of how one ought to measure and representthese subjective cultural beliefs carried by individuals within a community.

RAYMOND SCUPIN

Lindenwood [email protected]


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