PATTANI, Thailand, 6 October 2003 — Teenage couples flirt while riding side-by-side on motorcycles after religious classes. Muslim children play with Buddhist and Christian classmates at a Roman Catholic school. Shy smiles greet Westerners wandering through a fishing village.
Tranquility, moderation and simple pleasures govern life for most people in the rural communities set among the lush rubber plantations, fruit orchards and strikingly beautiful beaches of Thailand’s southernmost provinces.
But the region, where most of Thailand’s Muslim minority lives, also sees outbursts of violence, and there are fears it may be harboring Islamic radicals.
The dialect, culture and religion of Thai Muslims have long sparked mistrust among some officials and among the country’s Buddhist majority. Some Buddhists use the slur “khaek” — unwanted visitor — to refer to anyone resembling people from the Middle East, South Asia or Malaysia.
While resentful, many Thai Muslims say that is little enough to bear when compared to the sufferings of their religious brethren elsewhere in the world who suffer war and terrorism. “I count my blessings every day for the freedom to live my life. In many cases, they suffer only because they’re Muslims,” said Pattama Juesae, 38, a food stall owner on Panarae Bay who is married to a Buddhist from the north.
A campaign of violence waged by Muslims separatists faded away in the mid-1980s. But bloodshed resurfaced two years ago, and about 40 policemen have been killed in murky circumstances. The government maintains the latest violence is merely the work of bandits, but recently it admitted that terrorists are operating in Thailand.
Muslims make up about 4 percent of Thailand’s 62 million people and are predominant in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Nakhon Si Thammarat.
During a visit at an Islamic school in Pattani, no one mentioned a gunfight just opposite the school in which three policemen and a Muslim separatist were killed just days earlier. The focus instead was on a little daily war between teachers and students.
Piled on the teacher’s desk were forbidden items confiscated from students to be returned to parents — posters of Thai and Japanese teen idols, cell phones and Nintendo game players.
“These are normal school restrictions. At least my family allows me to watch television and swim, although not as often as I want,” said 18-year-old Unaida Ranharae, dressed in a bright red robe and black head scarf.
The 12th grader said she loves reading popular novels and listening to music — her favorites are pop singer Britney Spears and F4, a Taiwanese boy band with millions of teenage fans across Southeast Asia.
“We have dreams and they’re pretty simple,” she said. Hers is to work in an office, and not fruit orchards like her parents.
She and her friends worry about the impact of violence on the area’s economy, saying they would like to see Pattani prosper like the resort islands of Samui and Phuket but within more conservative Islamic mores. Tourists tend to shy from Muslim areas.
“It would be good if people, especially Westerners, came to our beaches. They’re quiet and unspoiled,” said Garimah Meena, 17. “We really want to show them that not all Muslims are into terrorism and that we don’t hate every Westerner.”