THE PRINCIPLE OF UNDERSTANDING MELAYU PATANI IN DEEP SOUTH THAILAND

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common identity of the society. The identity of the minority groups, therefore, has been forced to be blurry, obscure, and not well-defined.

2.3.2. THE PRINCIPLE OF UNDERSTANDING MELAYU PATANI IN DEEP SOUTH THAILAND

The nation and its identity of Melayu Patani people in deep South Thailand has been extensively questioned and discussed. Politically, this topic is exceptionally significant for the Thai state after the number of fatalities caused by arm conflicts between Thai authority and insurgents in the southernmost area of Thailand has recently risen to 7,111. The ongoing violence between Thai central officials and Melayu Patani in the deep South has spanned for over a decade (Thai central authority calls Melayu Patani as an “opposition panel” and “Party B” in the table of peace dialogue and official statement). From 2004 - 2020, the official number of deaths caused by the conflicts has unceasingly increase, even that the number does not include the uncountable victims in early incidents such as the Dusun Nyor Rebellion in 1948 which resulted in 440 deaths (contradictory amount) (Aphornsuvan, 2012), and the slaughter at Kortor bridge in 1975 (Bangnara, 2008).

This ongoing conflict has never been effectively solved even though the government has spent up to 302.9 billion baths in military utilities and financial assistance (Isaranews, 2018), and 11-22 battalions have been deployed in order to pacify the deep South Thailand (Bangkokbiznews, 2016). Hence, military operations are increasingly considered not to be the effective tool to cease this series of conflicts. In fact, military operations have created even more rifts among communities, particularly the distrustfulness between Thai buddhist and Melayu Patani Muslim.

On the other hand, Pattani province, one of former independent Melayu states and one of the three provinces and four districts that are called by the media and Thai officials as the “Deep South'', used to be depicted as an evidence of the “crisis of representation” because the outsiders could not know what was the exact situation besides perceiving the perspective of Pattani as a dark and dangerous territory to the Thai central state (Aiemueayut, 2016).

The deep South has become an object of interest that uncountable projects in the name of

“creating harmony” have been conducted in the area, while many non-governmental

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organizations and academics went along to join the efforts to investigate for the truths by using 3 main approaches in explaining the conflict; Multiculturalism, State and Ethnicity, and Islamic movement (Ibid.).

Several efforts have been made to answering the question of “who is Melayu Patani people in deep South Thailand?” However, the background of most studies used a vertical approach which focused on the clash between Thai central state and Melayu. The studies focusing on the Melayu themselves were very rare (Tuansiri, 2010). Moreover, many of them were overly romanticized by focusing on the Melayu Patani as a singular collective group that acts against injustice of power (Tuansiri, 2010). Those extreme black and white thinking could not accurately portray the real identity and struggles of the Melayu Patani. Futhermore, in the media, the reproduction of the government’s campaign ‘unity among diversity’ (among Thai buddhists, Melayu Patani Muslim, and Chinese) was presented, along with certain parts of contemporary history of Melayu and oversimplified understanding of the identity of Melayu people, specified them as being Muslim, speak Melayu, and live in the deep South. This portrayal might not be sufficient to identify the ‘Melayu Patani identity’. In fact, to Melayu people themselves, they consider their communities as a space of mixed identification and a place of bargaining for power as they face either inside or outside factors. Tuansiri (2010) agreed that the official narrative still lacked sufficient description of Melayu people.

Considering the studies on the Melayu Patani in deep South in the last decade, many studies, particularly in anthropology and ethnography approaches, tried to focus on the a dynamical flowing of Melayu’s nation and its identity of Melayu people through their thoughts, norms, beliefs and inspirations, giving the opportunity for Melayu Patani people to narrate themself, which resulted in some publications that were written from local perspectives such as ‘It’s hard to be Nayu’ (‘Nayu’ as ‘Melayu’ in Melayu language) by Aiemueayut (2016), ‘The politics of identity’ : the diversity and dymic of Melayu Patani Muslim in Deep-South’ by Tuansiri (2010),

‘Nabi (Muhammad) does not eat raw betel nut’ by Unno (2011) and so on.

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Figure 3 : The Melayu kingdom of Patani in the “Map of the Kingdom of Siam 1678 AD”

(DE LA LOUBERE, Envoyé extraordinaire du Roi auprès du Roi de Siam en 1687 & 1688).

Patani and other Melayu states could govern themselves independently in the form of Southeast Asian traditional states (Bunga mas tribute). A dotted line above Patani demonstrated the limited power of the traditional state of Siam in late 1670.

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The deep South Thailand, where the Melayu Patani people live, is a maritime peninsula and a crucial port of the trade route connecting Western and East Asia since ancient times. Being the center of trade and prosperity, it attracted diverse merchants, explorers, prophets and colonizers to explore and settle down along with native people along the area of estuary. The newcomers also brought goods, norms, belief, and other attributes without cessation. However, the coming of Islam played a crucial in the identity of local people, which combined the religion into everyday’s life which previously based on the locally mysterious beliefs. Likewise, the influence of Islamization was embedded by those Melayu who graduated in religious subjects from the Arab World. This unique and collective identification aroused Melayu people to recognize and bargain for appreciation of their identity.

Communities of the former Melayu states were located all over the peninsula, which were sometimes independent from each other but most of the time have had complex and chaotic relations. The traditional states were governed by sultans who counterbalanced their throne by cooperating with regional superpowers in order to survive from both inside and outside threats (Luekajornchai, 2019). However, the coming of colonization and the development of the modern nation-state altered the role of this maritime peninsula to become a bargaining tool among colonial powers and some regional power states.

Northern former Melayu states including Patani were weakened by Siam which was a stronger power that used the forced colonization approach to prevent western colonialism in the area.

The Anglo-Siamese treaty 1909, a territorial agreement between Siam and the British Empire drew a line unprecedentedly over the overlapped Melayu Patani communities. The process of Siam (later, Thailand) nation-state building particularly during the forging of ‘Thainess’ with Thai cultural revolution pushed Melayu Patani people to be extremely marginal people, making some of them to choose the use of force as a way to counter central Thai authority and causing them to struggle to maintain their identity until nowadays.

The process to answer who is Melayu Patani people in deep South Thailand usually clings with three main factors that shape their nation and its identity, consisting of homeland, race, and religion, which have been narrated by two phenomenons (Aiemueayut, 2016); the development of traditional maritime culture with Siamese influences, and the annexation of Patani (latter, Pattani, one of three deep South provinces to Thailand) by Siam which preceded the process of cultural assimilation, cultural acculturation and local insurgence (ibid.).

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Before the three main factors that shape the nation and its identity of Melayu Patani, homeland, race, and religion, are to be discussed, it is crucial to comprehend principle understanding of Melayu people. Tuansiri (2010) summarized key information on Melayu Patani, who called themselves as ‘Orang Melayu’ or ‘Melayu people’, or sometimes ‘Kita Orang Melayu’ or ‘we the Melayu’. They are a group of people whose distinctive features are the use of Melayu language and their faith in Islamic doctrine. The main characteristics that distinguish Melayu from Thai muslim, according to Tuansiri (2010), are their language, which has a completely different root from Thai or Thai southern dialect, and their self-proclamation as the descendants of Malay ethnic group.

The language that is used by Melayu Patani people, in practice, is understandable and communicable to Malaysian people. The main difference between Malay and Melayu Patani language is the writing scripts (Tuansiri, 2010). Melayu Patani is written in Jawi alphabet based on Arabic script (similar to old Malay script), but Malaysian Malay is written in modern rumi, similar to Bahasa Indonesian that has developed its writing system in Latin characters.

Even that Melayu Patani people are the descendent of the ethnic Malay people (their origins and development will be further discussed), the use of the name of Melayu or Nayu to describe their own ethnic group is believed to be originated after the process of Thai state-building and the official annexation of Patani by Siam in 1909. This self-proclamation reflects their separatist inclination to differentiate themselves from Siamese or Thai, as the latter has undergone harsh cultural assimilation and enforcement of Thai nationalism in their hometowns, as well as suppressing their Melayu Patani identity and their willingness to be a distinct ethnic group. Thai official has later named Melayu Patani as Thai Islamic or Thai Muslim, demonstrating a long fight for domination over Melayu nation and identity, which occurred simultaneously with political conflicts that has been ensued for decades.

In conclusion, Melayu Patani, who now live in the southernmost provinces of Thailand, are a group of ethnic minorities who called themselves Melayu people. They descended from the Melayu ethnic group, use the local Melayu Patani language in daily life, and follow Islamic beliefs. The islamic practices, which highly influence Melayu way of life, separate them further from Siamese or Thai ethnic identity. The cultural differences and forced attempts of

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assimilation led to a series of violent conflicts after the annexation of Patani, which generated separatist movements in Deep-South Thailand in the twentieth century.

Figure 4 : Mak Yong or Mak Yung, a local folk dancing that was popular among Melayu Muslim people in the Malay peninsula and some parts of Indonesia. This kind of dancing was one of evidence that demonstrated the dynamic of Melayu identity as it is based on

discursively mixing beliefs between Animism and Hindus. Mak Yong dance has been

performed by Melayu to fulfill one’s vow toward supernatural beings and exorcise, although these kinds of functions would be questioned by the principle of Islam.

2.3.3 MELAYU IN DEEP SOUTH THAILAND : A HISTORY OF