Encountering the other within : Thai national identity and the Malay-Muslims of the deep south

Abstract

This thesis contributes to the understanding of the role of the "Other within" in national identity formulation. It empirically explores the formulation of {u00E9}lite versions of Thai national identity with reference to the Malay-Muslims of the deep South from the turn of the twentieth century. The intent of the research is to illustrate how Malay-Muslims have necessarily been part of Thai national identity. This thesis aims to utilise the empirical data collected from specific periods of Thai history (the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries; the 1930s and the 1940s; the 1960s; the 1980s and the beginning of this century) so as to conceptualise national identity construction. It is based on the analyses of the language that national leaders, especially prime ministers, have used when discussing the South, and what this language reflects about the changing nature of Thai nationalism and official versions of Thai nationhood. Firstly, this thesis examines the emergence of the Thai nation at the end of the nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, arguing that its emergence occurred at the moment when Thai national {u00E9}lites recognised the Malay-Muslims as being un-Thai and when they started attempting to transform them into Thais. Secondly, it examines the period of national "unification" and "harmonisation", which various Thai {u00E9}lites attempted to achieve from the end of the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1950s and the 1960s, the ruling {u00E9}lites tried to eliminate all undesirable traces of un-Thainess in the population in the South. But in the 1980s, they tried to promote understanding of local cultures and traditions by state officials and to provide Muslims in the deep South with equal citizenship. Thirdly, it focuses on Thaksin Shinawatra's repressive policy toward the deep South. He trivialised the problems there at the heart of the unrest by saying that they were simply normal crimes, and refused to acknowledge the possibility of Malay-Muslim serious grievances which could be linked to their ethno-cultural and religious identity. As a result, Thaksin failed to recognise the reality of ethno-cultural difference in the Thai nation. Finally, this thesis shifts its focus from the views of national ruling {u00E9}lites to those held by public intellectuals, journalists and religious leaders at the local and the national levels. Some intellectuals and religious leaders have attempted to reformulate the idea of Thainess, which had been invented and developed by the central government, so it accords with liberal principles of freedom and equality. Their efforts were to transform the idea of Thai citizenship into a multicultural concept. Overall, this thesis argues that the Malay-Muslims who have, in the eyes of the Thai ruling {u00E9}lites, been un-Thai Others, have necessarily and intrinsically been parts of Thai national identity, and that national {u00E9}lites and intellectuals formulated their idea of Thai national identity through interacting with Malay-Muslims, and their cultures and traditions. Show more