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Poverty Grips Muslims In Southern Thailand
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Schools
in the south suffer from disorganization
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By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia correspondent
KUALA
LUMPUR, February 12 (IslamOnline.net) – A seething cauldron of
rampant poverty and long-standing persecution is all what people in
the largely Muslim south Thailand well feel the pinch of.
The
south is a traditionally Malay region with a rich cultural and Islamic
past, but the level of poverty among citizens hit a striking high,
according to an Islamic society-affiliated group that visited the area
a week ago.
“All
schools in southern (Thai) areas suffer from a clear lack of
organization,” Mouna Badar, a Singaporean social worker, told
IslamOnline.net Thursday, February 12.
Badar
is a member of a visiting group from an Islamic society that regroups
Malays in the region and has its head office in Kelantan, a Malaysian
state bordering Thailand and run by the Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS).
“Muslim
children are not going to learn anything good from such institutions
that are not well organized,” she said, adding that the children’s
parents are also rather preoccupied with making ends meet.
Most
of the students in the three provinces where Muslims are significantly
represented currently have a dual education: general subjects in
accordance with the government's curriculum and instruction on the
Muslim religion in religious schools, known as "pondoks".
There
are more than 1,000 schools in the three provinces, yet many of these
schools are not able to play their role well, said the rights
activists.
Masen,
a Thai national who works as a social activist helping children in
poorer regions in the South, said the authorities
should put aside its classical hatred for Muslims and help the
community at large. It continues to disregard the Muslims, there will
be more problems in the future.
Thailand's
5 million Muslims resent the state's refusal to recognize their
language, culture and Malay ethnicity, and the region is poorer than
much of the rest of the country, reported International Herald
Tribune Tuesday.
Thai
Muslims have suffered from decades of government mismanagement,
despite government efforts in the 1980s and 1990s, said the paper.
Unequal
Tourism
Despite
the southern cities are popular tourist spots, with magnificent
scenery and beaches, the Muslim inhabitants feel the pinch of social
inequity prevailing.
The
government controls a major share in the tourism sector, leaving most
of the revenues and job opportunities available there into the hands
of non-Muslims.
“The
tourism sector is in the hands of non-Muslims in particular, but
Muslims earn wages working for hotels, restaurants or guest houses,”
said Naimery Masen, a southern Thai citizen told IOL.
Halting
Cooperation
With
the government keeping a heavy military presence and ignoring the root
causes of Muslims’ disgruntling appeals, Muslim leaders turned their
back on the government and they are in deep crisis with Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin
turned down Muslim leaders’ request for meeting him to convey their
unhappiness over the actions of Thai officials and soldiers in the
largely Malay south.
Defense
Minister Thamarak Isarangura said in the last week of January that the
situation in the South is improving but the authorities could not set
a time frame to fix the problems.
In
the south, there is a long history of resentment toward the central
government, dating from 1902, when Siam, as Thailand was then known,
annexed the Islamic Kingdom of Pattani.
Dissatisfaction
has been growing in the region since authorities started taking
religious leaders and local residents into custody without clear
charges or solid evidence to link them with the spate of violence
A
spate of violence has gripped the South since January 4 when a
military camp in Narathiwat was raided, four
soldiers were killed, some 300 military weapons were
stolen, and 20 schools were torched.
A
dozen suspects were detained in connection with the incident but
officials refused to give more details about their identity and
charges.
Thai
government has declared martial law in the mostly Muslim provinces of
Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.
The
Islamic Central Committee (ICC) of Thailand and three of its
provincial affiliates have halted cooperation with the government
afterwards.
The
ICC on Monday criticized the "brutal"
crackdown on the troubled south by the government, dismissing as
"disgraceful" soldiers’ raids on schools, houses and
mosques looking for suspects.
"They
have violated the sanctity of mosques and have searched schools as if
the students were real criminals," Ismail Abdureman, a member of
a group of Thai businessmen living in Malaysia, told IOL.
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