Beyond
Hatred and Violence
in Southern Thailand
PressInfo #
204
December
15, 2004
By
Chaiwat
Satha-Anand, TFF Associate
Vice President, Strategic
Nonviolence Committee
National Security
Council
One of the most important features
of the present violence in Southern Thailand is its
sustained deadliness which engenders the state's violent
responses. The phenomenon is fast becoming normalized due
to its continuing violence. A possible consequence of
this normalization of violence is that Thai society risks
losing its capability to find political solutions to
violence and being suffocated in the pool of violence
itself.
The Queen's speech on November 16,
2004 was a remarkable wake-up call for the whole Thai
society about the seriousness of violence in Southern
Thailand. Heeding Her Majesty's admonitions from a
nonviolence perspective, some concrete nonviolent
alternatives, necessary if this deadly conflict is to be
mitigated and the prognosis of deepening violence and
hatred in Thai society altered, will be proposed
here.
Nonviolence
Perspective
It goes without saying that there
are a number of ways "a nonviolence perspective" could be
characterized. Its common features, however, consist of
three basic principles. First, there should be no hatred
against opposing parties in conflicts. Not only because
hatred is one form of defilement, but also because from a
social science perspective there are structural causes
and cultural elements which produce and legitimize it. If
the goal is to solve the problem, a sustained solution is
to address these structural causes as well as cultural
elements and not merely the actors involved.
Second, nonviolent methods are used
to attain just causes. A most distinctive feature of
nonviolence is its refusal to separate means used from
the ends intended. This is because the means is
considered the ends which reveals itself in process. For
example, one cannot cheat so that he/she could become a
judge to dispense justice for all because in time the
action one commits (karma) will bring about its
consequence(s) which would, in turn, impact the ends
intended. As a result, nonviolent methods cannot be used
to attain an unjust ends .
Third, those who embark on the road
to use nonviolence should be prepared for self suffering.
A nonviolence perspective requires a blurring of the line
dividing "us" from "them", "friends" from "enemies", or
"self" from "others". This is based on an idea that
everyone's life and dignity are important. "We" are
friends in the journey of life facing and
enduring/overcoming sufferings or finding "our" destinies
in God's mysterious plan. It is based on a human ability
to look into the eyes of the others, especially those "on
the other side", and recognize the humanity in them. From
this nonviolence perspective, I will try to identify
lessons learned from Her Majesty's speech.
The Queen's
November 16, 2004 Speech
There are numerous lessons one
could derive from Her Majesty's speech. But from a
nonviolence perspective, I believe there are at least
three important points. First, the speech was a way to
share her stories and first-hand knowledge of the problem
with the people of Thailand. She must have felt that the
whole society needs to be informed of its seriousness.
Through her stories, real-life sufferings were
communicated to the authorities and the public at large
so that the problem of violence in the South should
receive due attention. It is an attempt to invite the
whole of Thai society to consider this problem as our own
sufferings and do something about it. Second, when she
was talking about the 300,000 "Thais" in the area who are
minorities in the primarily Muslim provinces, she spoke
for their lives and livelihood which need to be protected
and respected.
From a national and global
perspective, she was perhaps reminding the rest of us
that in order to realistically solve deadly conflicts
involving peoples of differences anywhere in the world,
it is important to take into account the sufferings of
all minorities in a given society. Third, her willingness
to defend herself at this moment in her life against the
increasing violence in the area, strongly points to the
fact that there is a systemic failure in the Thai
political society where her people's lives who are its
members are constantly threatened with violence. Taken
together, it is a wake-up call for all sectors in Thai
society to show its strength, "not by jumping in with
weapons", but by strengthening the ties that bind peoples
from North to South, East to West together, and the
caring ability that bonds a society together as
family.
Beyond Hatred
and Violence: Four proposals
There have recently been several
proposals suggested to address violence in Southern
Thailand. Some seek to address its structural causes such
as chronic poverty, others emphasize the immediate
contributing factors such as apprehending or removing the
perpetrators of violence, on the government side and
otherwise. In view of the dangerous prognosis of
continuing violence in the South, the proposals suggested
here are intended to lessen its likelihood and find a
path conducive to peaceful futures in Thai
society.
No-killing
Zones Despite rampant violence
in the South, it would be wrong to believe that there are
no space left untouched by its venom. If there is indeed
such areas at the village or tambon levels, it is
possible that these areas be considered "no-killing
zones", not unlike a "forgiving zone" near Buddhist
temples where taking the lives of birds in the sky and
fish in the water is forbidden. I am not talking about
turning a "killing area already plagued with violence" "
into a "no-killing zone" with the use of government
forces. Instead, these are zones that have demonstrated
that the claws of violence have not reached them, perhaps
due to the presence of strong civic groups and cultural
ties as evident in ethnic conflict research studied
elsewhere. These zones should be initiated by the people
in the area themselves and nurtured by strong
participatory process. Though risks exist since there
might be some who would not want to see the emergence of
these "no-killing zone", and that's why the initiatives
need to come from those involved themselves, the
establishment of no-killing zones should indicate that
there exist areas of peace and perhaps conditions
responsible for its existence could be strengthened .
Mothers'
Forgiveness Among the most
remarkable power in the world is a mother's love for her
child. The violence in the South has taken so many lives,
Muslims and non-Muslims. Everyone who was killed has a
mother. Naturally these mothers are saddened beyond
belief when their children's lives were cruelly stolen.
Yet, a more remarkable fact behind the gory of Southern
violence is: there are some mothers, again Muslims and
non-Muslims, who are willing to forgive and join hands
with others who profoundly understand such losses in
leading their society on the journey towards healing. A
mother of a Muslim killed in Ban Nieng on April 28 said:
"I am not angry at the authorities. It is God's Will",
while a mother of a Buddhist soldier killed on same day
said that " I don't want to see this happens ever again
to anyone. We should stop killing one another because it
is everyone's loss. I lost my son as many other mothers
have." A movement of forgiving mothers who lost their
children to violence would be a much more powerful
medicine to fight the poison of hatred and violence than
any religious sermon or academic analysis because as
mothers they have love in their hearts and with their
children killed, they understand the losses better than
anyone.
Justice
Delivered There are many
killed, disappeared, and even dead in custody as in the
October 25 Tak Bai incident. What is needed is not a
special favor for anyone, Muslims or non-Muslims, but
justice for all. Though the notion of justice is
philosophically problematic, as citizens in this land,
everyone has his/her rights and law exists to protect all
equally, not the majority nor the minority. When people
were killed, on a lonely street, in front of a shophouse,
or in custody, their deaths should be taken seriously and
justice by law delivered. This is important if the
problem of violence in the South is connected in some
ways with justice denied. A minimum function of a working
political society is that it could protect its members
and when violence occurs to any of its members, justice
needs to be delivered so that they would have faith that
the system works and the illegal use of vengeful violence
becomes unnecessary and counterproductive.
Southern Security
Plan Publicly Formulated The
previous security plan for the Southern Border Provinces
was concluded in 2003. This year, plagued with violence,
is also a year without a security policy specifically
designed for the South. It is important to start a
process of formulating a public security policy based
primarily of a collective demand for peace and security
in this land. To ensure that the policy is indeed a
reflection of a collective aspiration, popular
participation is extremely important. Though public
participation from all sides would not be easy at present
because trust among them is fast eroding, it is necessary
precisely because the process of formulating public
security policy by the people themselves is a way to
shake them out of the paralysis resulted from fear of
violence, among other things.
Taken together, the nonviolence
proposals to move Thai society beyond the poison of
hatred and the pain of violence, characterized by
action-oriented, participation by all in the environment
of working together, is based on the reality of Thai
society, the ties that bind people of differences
together and the human qualities to care for others.
© TFF and the author 2004
See also
Reflections
on what happened in Southern Thailand
Facing
the Demon Within
Interview with Chaiwat
Satha-Anand
War
on Ignorance
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