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Have previously blogged about attacks against teachers (see here for one example) and VOA has an interesting article on education in the Deep South. It covers some familiar themes:
But the principal Chavarat Negnrat, says the school also came under attack.
...
Standing in front of a one-story building, he points across the schoolyard to an outdoor bulletin board, exposing the pistol he has holstered under his belt.
"There was one incident, around December 2007, over there, there was a bomb," said Chavarat Negnrat. "Over there used to be a break area for soldiers who protect teachers. Their aim was the soldiers. Maybe they wanted to hurt them, but they were only slightly injured. "
Fifteen-year-old student Masba Thahe wears a violet hijab, a traditional headscarf that all the girls in her class wear.
Flanked by her classmates, she remembers the day the bomb went off.
"About nine in the morning, while the teacher was teaching, there was a bomb," said Masba Thahe. "Students were frightened, cried, then the military came to supervise and teachers soothed the students."
...
Analysts say the militants attack state schools and teachers because they represent and teach the dominant Thai culture.
The head of southern Thailand's Teacher's Union, Boonsom Thongsriprai, agrees.
But he says the schools have in recent years been trying to improve relations with the Muslim Malay community.
"Schools must have community activities with villagers to create a good relationship, understanding, and reconciliation," said Boonsom Thongsriprai.
State schools like the Jakhe School now teach Islam using the local Malay dialect.
BP: Actually, BP has always wondered about the role of language in the Deep South. One reason is that Satun where Thai has historically been more wide-spoken than the other 3 southern border provinces has not suffered as much violence (yes, there are certainly many other factors of difference between Satun and the other 3 provinces, but Satun is a majority Muslim province and also elsewhere in the world in insurgencies the issue of language and cultural identity are believed to play roles).
Once of the recommendations of the NRC report was for Yawi to be a working language. This was shot down by both Prem and Thaksin - although they slightly misconstrued what the report recommended. There has been talk of a bilingual school program, but there are few details of its implementation and whether there are any moves beyond this.
Now, is as good as time as any to introduce part of a paper that an e-mailer wrote as part of their academic studies on language and education. They passed it on and said "quote what you like". That was a while ago, but never go around to do probably researching a language post. There are probably journal articles or book chapters which look at the subject in greater detail, but the following excerpt BP found a very useful primer although will note that Thai is being increasingly more widespread particularly among younger people in the Deep South so sources quoted from the 1980s may be slightly out-dated now (would hazard a guess that technology and the media are playing a role here). The part prior to this set out the position that education is an important area to reform. The sections have been renumbered:
I.
The pondok
The pondok is the traditional
Malay form of education. Heads of pondoks, called ?Hajis?, are returnees from pilgrimages to Mecca (Gilquin 2005, p.55). Not only are pondoks schools, but they are also a symbol of pride in Islamic
faith and centres of social activity (Pitsuwan 1982, pp.179, 182).
In 1961, a policy to turn pondoks
into ?private schools teaching Islam? (PSTI) was introduced, requiring them to register in exchange for government
funding (Mc Cargo 2005, p.25; Mudmarn 1988, p.116; Pitsuwan 1982, pp.180,
188). Eventually, Thai curriculum was
introduced, and headmasters were required to have at least 6 years of secondary
education in the Thai system, meaning that Hajis
generally didn?t meet the requirement and were replaced by people with secular
education (Pitsuwan 1982, pp.184, 191; Smalley 1994, p.170).
60% of Malay children still go to pondoks,
rather than PSTI (Gilquin 2005, p.57).
Parents prefer to send their children to pondoks because it gives them a solid religious education, guards
against the evils of a secular society, and is cheaper (ICG 2007, p.21; Mudmarn
1988, p.81). However, lack of
recognition for the pondok?s zanawiyah (high school) level is causing
more Malays to send their children to tertiary institutes in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
(Pitsuwan 1982, p.196; Smalley, p.170).
Up to 10,000 Malays are studying abroad. Upon return, their degrees are not recognised
(ICG 2007, p.21-22). As a consequence,
many of these students take up leadership roles in the community, fuelled by
separatist ideology they may have picked up overseas (Human Rights Watch 2007; McCargo
2005, p.24).
The state fears that the pondok
is a breeding ground for separatism, whereas the Malays distrust Thai intervention
as an attempt to strip away their identity (ICG 2007, p.21, McCargo 2005, p.24,
Mudmarn, p.102, Smalley 1994, p.169), making educational institutes the
frequent targets of bombings. Despite
the important role of pondoks as a
point of cultural resistance to the national integration program (Bonura 2003,
p.263), there is evidence to suggest that they might not have as large an
impact on local separatist sentiment as suspected by the state. Even within
government schools, there is activism for Muslim cultural rights, as more and
more Muslims view the state schools as stable and desirable employment (Bonura
2003, p.265). This suggests that the
problem is not so much the pondok,
but rather, embedded in a discriminatory system of education.
The role of the imam and Islam
may also not be a critical one. In rural
village society in Northern Malaysia, it is
not the imam that motivates the
action of villagers, but rather, their poverty drives them to conflict. It is not the imam, but the village headman, that villagers turn to in times of
conflict. Rather than life being
centered around the practice of Islam, the villagers? lives seem to be centered
around economic gain and the pursuit of their own self-interests (Banks 1986,
p.17). This anthropological account is useful for the
analysis of Southern Thailand because ?? the river? which separates Kota Bharu
[a city in Malaysia] from Narathiwat is normally seen as nothing more than an
inconvenient monsoon drain in the eyes of locals with relatives, associates and
interests on both sides? (Satha-Anand 2004, p.4).
II.
Language and Identity
Malay-Muslim parents object to the Thai schooling system because 1) Thai
is not their language, 2) they are afraid their children will not have to
opportunity to learn either Malay or Thai properly and 3) they will be won over
to Buddhism (Mudmarn 1988 p.78, Bonura 2003, p.259). Thus, they prefer if at least the first years
of education are in Malay (Pitsuwan 1982, p.86).
Saynee Mudmarn, in his 1988 study of Malay-Muslims in Southern
Thailand, found that Malays are intensely loyal to the Malay
language (p.216). There is a prevalence
of negative attitude towards Malays who have forgotten the language (p.202),
and parents almost universally want their offspring to speak Malay, regardless
of whether they speak it themselves(p.205).
Out of fear of separatism, Thai was made the official language of Islam
in the country, and Malay textbooks feared to instil Malay consciousness in
Southern Thais were banned (Mudmarn 1988, p.121). This was obviously not well received, and the
state?s domination heightens the Malay feeling that their affairs are in the
hands of non-Muslims (Rappa & Wee 2006, p.118).
Malays see Thai as being equivalent to a Buddhist identity, and equally,
Malay identity as being equivalent to Muslim identity (Gilquin 2005 p.51;
Mudmarn 1988, p.92, 283; Smalley 1994, p.155).
One Pattani fishing community outright rejected Thai. None of them had any working knowledge of
Thai despite the existence of a local government school (Smalley 1994,
p.158). Since Malay languages and
customs are considered crucial to the transmission of Islam (Bonura 2003,
p.194), and due to negative perceptions of those who have forgotten the
language, that some Malays do not speak Malay is a divisive factor. It also neutralises separatist sentiment,
often conveyed in Malay (Bonura 2003, p.203).
III.
Tackling One Issue: Language and Education
The draft constitution, completed on the 17th of April and
now open to referendum, has attracted much attention from international Muslim
media (Al-Jazeera 2007a, 2007b, 2007c). Previously,
international media and other Muslim nations remained uninvolved in the
conflict (Smalley 1994, p.167), so now there is increased pressure on Thailand to
ensure peace in the South.
Disappointingly, the draft does not mention education rights for
minority groups, even though the matter has been at the centre of the conflict
(ICG 2007, p.19, The Nation 2007).
National security and racial integration have the highest priority in
current language policy, at the cost of considerations about education,
information dissemination and international relations (Rappa & Wee 2006,
p.111, 113). Religious, linguistic and
cultural differences, along with negative feelings towards state authority,
increase the vulnerability and susceptibility to rebellion of the locals (NRC
2006, p.10). Solutions to the violence
in the South should focus on understanding the situation, and not continuing to
force a volatile situation.
It is not the case that all Malay-Muslims want secession, but rather,
many want to be granted rights as Malay-Muslim citizens of Thailand
(Gilquin 2005, p.24, McCargo 2005, p.106).
Mudmarn found that, for the purposes of communication and because it is
the national language, an overwhelming majority of Malay-Muslims find it
important to be able to speak both languages (1988, p.206). Mudmarn?s study shows that, despite
government efforts to suppress the Malay language, there is a very high level
of language maintenance in the South.
Therefore, efforts should be made to educate in the vernacular. Since education is crucial in the formation
of a political community, the state and the Malay people have been in constant
competition over the control of education (Bonura 2003, p.249).
The Thai government?s approach to education is clearly
assimilative. The degree of assimilation
is dependent on the degree of willingness to give up one?s own language for
Thai (Rappa & Wee 2006, p.109; Skutnabb-Kangas 1990, p.12). This program has, for the large part, been
successful in Thailand.
Sink-or-swim programs of education in the majority language, which are
widely used in Thailand,
are notorious for disadvantaging minority children. The mother tongue becomes displaced whilst at
the same time they are unable to fully learn the second language
(Skutnabb-Kangas 1990, p.13). Malay
children are hampered by language in these programs because they have often not
been exposed to Thai at all until the age of 4-5 (Mudmarn 1988, p.77,
105). Students who attend the government
run schools tend to come out not understanding Thai and learning very little
about other topics (Bonura 2003, p.248).
IV.
Conclusion
Smalley perceived that ?Thai language policy may have all but won the
war, but Thai xenophobia could re-ignite long-standing Malay antagonism and
distrust? (1994, p.175). Now that the
escalation of violence no longer allows for a slow assimilation of the Malay
population, an integrative approach must be considered. Bajunid argues that Islam has always been
present in Thailand,
and that through a strong liberal democratic system, it will be possible to
foster the loyalty of Malay-Muslims as Thai citizens (2005, p.16). What is
needed is simply the meaningful inclusion of the Malay-Muslims in Thai politics
and decision-making processes.
Satha-Anand reminds us that the reason that terrorism 1) severs the link
between the actual violence and the reason for it, so that those affected by it
perpetually live in fear; 2) undermines society?s normal functioning, because
anyone could become a victim at any time; and 3) instigates a chain of revenge
(2002, p.158). He also reminds us that
this chain is breakable, as long as principles of reconciliation and
non-violence are kept in mind (2001, p.114).
In a situation as delicate as the South of Thailand finds itself in,
giving the South the support that is needed to determine its own education
program may be a conductive first step in reconciliation. Because Malay language is crucial to Malay
culture and Islam, it deals with these issues without directly approaching
those sensitive areas, and is a step towards the improvement of the educational
system in the South.
An article based on a new Suan Dusit Poll for the government media arm, the Public Relations Department, states in a headline 'Majority say "United Thais, Strong Thais Project" could lead to national reconciliation'. The actual article based on the poll doesn't show what the PRD headline claims it did.*
The poll showed that a majority of 28.29% said they were proud of being Thai, 23.17% said the national anthem has existed since they were born, and others felt that the national anthem showed the nation's sovereignity.
In addition, the survey indicated that about 31.32% agreed that the project was the beginning of national reconciliation, 30.51% said it would boost all people a sense of being Thai, 25.40% stated that it was fruitless if neglected by all Thais, 36.49% were uncertain that national unity would be improved but 30.66% cited that it could not lead to national reconciliation.
BP: Thai Rath's headline is a little different. It states that "A poll shows that people don't believe that the national anthem will increase unity" (โพลชี้คนไม่เชื่อ เพลงชาติ ช่วยเพิ่มสามัคคี) so not everyone is buying the PRD spin.
h/t to a long-time reader
* the Project is the singing of the national anthem at 6pm daily one province at a time as blogged about on Friday:
An article based on a new Suan Dusit Poll for the government media arm, the Public Relations Department, states in a headline 'Majority say "United Thais, Strong Thais Project" could lead to national reconciliation'. The actual article based on the poll doesn't show what the PRD headline claims it did.*
The poll showed that a majority of 28.29% said they were proud of being Thai, 23.17% said the national anthem has existed since they were born, and others felt that the national anthem showed the nation's sovereignity.
In addition, the survey indicated that about 31.32% agreed that the project was the beginning of national reconciliation, 30.51% said it would boost all people a sense of being Thai, 25.40% stated that it was fruitless if neglected by all Thais, 36.49% were uncertain that national unity would be improved but 30.66% cited that it could not lead to national reconciliation.
BP: Thai Rath's headline is a little different. It states that "A poll shows that people don't believe that the national anthem will increase unity" (โพลชี้คนไม่เชื่อ เพลงชาติ ช่วยเพิ่มสามัคคี) so not everyone is buying the PRD spin.
h/t to a long-time reader
* the Project is the singing of the national anthem at 6pm daily one province at a time as blogged about on Friday:
Permalink | 0 comments |
An article based on a new Suan Dusit Poll for the government media arm, the Public Relations Department, states in a headline 'Majority say "United Thais, Strong Thais Project" could lead to national reconciliation'. The actual article based on the poll doesn't show what the PRD headline claims it did.*
The poll showed that a majority of 28.29% said they were proud of being Thai, 23.17% said the national anthem has existed since they were born, and others felt that the national anthem showed the nation's sovereignity.
In addition, the survey indicated that about 31.32% agreed that the project was the beginning of national reconciliation, 30.51% said it would boost all people a sense of being Thai, 25.40% stated that it was fruitless if neglected by all Thais, 36.49% were uncertain that national unity would be improved but 30.66% cited that it could not lead to national reconciliation.
BP: Thai Rath's headline is a little different. It states that "A poll shows that people don't believe that the national anthem will increase unity" (โพลชี้คนไม่เชื่อ เพลงชาติ ช่วยเพิ่มสามัคคี) so not everyone is buying the PRD spin.
h/t to a long-time reader
* the Project is the singing of the national anthem at 6pm daily one province at a time as blogged about on Friday:
Permalink | 0 comments |
An article based on a new Suan Dusit Poll for the government media arm, the Public Relations Department, states in a headline 'Majority say "United Thais, Strong Thais Project" could lead to national reconciliation'. The actual article based on the poll doesn't show what the PRD headline claims it did.*
The poll showed that a majority of 28.29% said they were proud of being Thai, 23.17% said the national anthem has existed since they were born, and others felt that the national anthem showed the nation's sovereignity.
In addition, the survey indicated that about 31.32% agreed that the project was the beginning of national reconciliation, 30.51% said it would boost all people a sense of being Thai, 25.40% stated that it was fruitless if neglected by all Thais, 36.49% were uncertain that national unity would be improved but 30.66% cited that it could not lead to national reconciliation.
BP: Thai Rath's headline is a little different. It states that "A poll shows that people don't believe that the national anthem will increase unity" (โพลชี้คนไม่เชื่อ เพลงชาติ ช่วยเพิ่มสามัคคี) so not everyone is buying the PRD spin.
h/t to a long-time reader
* the Project is the singing of the national anthem at 6pm daily one province at a time as blogged about on Friday:
Permalink | 0 comments |
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