Multicultural Transformation and Anti-Multicultural Injustice: Critical Histories in the Muslim-Dominated Deep South of Thailand

Abstract

This chapter examines two critical moments in the Deep South of Thailand, the Dusun-nyor incident in 1948 and the Krue Se incident in 2004, and looks at how these events had been represented by governing élites, intellectuals, and Malay-Muslims. These incidents illustrate that Muslims in the Deep South have become victims of injustice imposed because of the government’s illiberal and anti-multicultural abuse of Muslims’ cultural and religious rights. The way in which intellectuals interpreted the Dusun-nyor incident is examined, arguing that the government fabricated its description of the Muslim protest in the Dusun-nyor as a rebellion in order to defend its suppression of Muslims in the South. The document, Berjihad di Patani (Carrying out jihad in Patani), represented the history of Muslims’ unjust defeat by the Thai government and their determination to reject integration and accommodation with the Thai majority.