Insurgency in Southern Thailand: A Quest for Identity

Abstract

The violence caused by the protracted conflict between a Malay-Muslim insurgency and the Thai state in the country's Deep South has re-escalated in 2004 and is producing alarming numbers of victims ever since. The conflict is highly complex and driven by the interplay of a multitude of factors. Despite having remained localized and not spilling over into neighbouring regions or Bangkok, in the post-9/11-era attempts have been made to link the insurgency to groups advocating global jihad. This article's goal is to avoid such simplifying mono-causal explanation attempts and help understand the conflict's root causes by looking at the roles of history, identity politics and the pre-cursors of the present insurgency.