Language key to reconciliation in southern Thai provinces

In multi-ethnic and multicultural societies, language is about more than communication. It is also about recognition and accommodation, power and power-sharing. When society fosters power-sharing and forges compromise and consensus to underpin societal cohesion and achieve relative peace at home, the role of official and national languages can be powerful and paramount.

Thailand’s three southernmost border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and parts of Songkhla, where a Malay-Muslim insurgency has raged in varying degrees for more than a century, with the past decade being the most virulent and deadliest, have shown poor use of language as a governance tool.

The Thai language is the country’s only official tongue. Even English, which successive Thai governments have espoused as a way of upgrading the workforce and internationalising Thais for the globalisation age, is considered a quasi-secondary but not official language.

Evidently, a wide variety of languages and dialects are spoken throughout the nation, but central Thai is the one and only national language in official documents and dealings.

MALAY FIRST AND THAI SECOND

That the official Thai language is the dominant medium of communication has been more or less accepted or tolerated over the decades. It is testimony to the proselytising and hegemonic Thai state, particularly its rigid fixation with being unitary and indivisible.

Thailand’s rulers have wielded state power with little regard for the multitude of ethnic identities that constitute the nation. These people of different historical pathways and diverse cultural sensitivities and norms have had to adjust to the Thai state.

The inviolable and unitary Thai state, regardless of the government of the day, has not made adjustments over the decades.

This formula of assimilation for integration has worked to a large degree. The overseas Chinese, for example, have become so enmeshed and embedded in Thai society that they are considered and accepted as one and the same.

Some Chinese-Thais still carry on with different versions of Chinese-language dialects, but they all speak Thai and have no qualms about it.

Most importantly, Thailand is not beset with ethnic and racial tensions between the overseas Chinese and indigenous Thais, unlike Malaysia, for example.

However, the reality with Malay Muslims in the deep south is fundamentally different. The Malays there are equally Malay and Muslim in the first order. By ethnic identity and citizenship requirement, they are Malay first and Thai second.

Yet, their “Malayness” is hardly accommodated in Thai officialdom. When the latest surge of Malay-Muslim insurgency flared up in January 2004, the powers that be in Thailand dismissed Yawi (in Thai parlance), or Jawi as it is called by local Malay Muslims, as a possible second official language in the predominantly Malay-Muslim deep south.

LESSONS FROM ELSEWHERE

If we look at other polyglot countries with more than one official language that weave together multicultural and multi-ethnic societies, the concession of having additional official languages is critical for internal peace.

New Zealand, for example, allows three official languages — English, Maori and sign language. Understandably, sign language is there for recognition and practicality for those who cannot speak.

All other New Zealanders, particularly white-Caucasian descendants of British settlers, use English as the main medium of livelihood, but everyone also knows some words of Maori.

The Maori people, on the other hand, use more English and less Maori. Yet, Maori is front and centre in all official dealings. The Maori language is commonly tagged with English language in signs and formal documents. White Caucasian public officials go the extra mile to speak a slew of Maori to project “inclusiveness” before proceeding with the English-language order of the day.

Language confers power and powerarrangements, and is rooted in the very simple reality of “who got there first”. In New Zealand’s case, the Maoris were there before the white people came and settled there.

Conflicts between settlers and natives inevitably emerged. From conflicts came compromises and concessions, operationalised in treaties, agreements and regulations, forging nationhood in the process.

Inter-marriages between Caucasians and Maoris over the years added glue to social cohesion and consensus. That white Caucasian rulers of the country bother to recite Maori words (and exhibit neither resentment nor hassle for it), even in a routine fashion, goes a long way to heal old wounds and redress Maori grievances.

Many Maoris would still say not enough is being done to uplift their underclass status, a common claim among minorities in many nations. In some cases, what has been done may be more important than what has not.

New Zealand is not alone in having its ethnic and racial house in order. Canada is another that allows a blend of English and French to be spoken where it is suited. Canadians predominantly use English for communication. But in Quebec province, where people speak French, they really speak French, as some Quebecois still have a low command of English.

Naturally, both are used as official languages. Belgium and a host of other European countries have also internalised multilingual realities and made them official.

America stands at the other end. Native Americans were there first, but were nearly wiped out as their land was systematically settled by Caucasians. The native Americans were given hush-up compensation over the years, including land rights and the right to build and run casinos, a curse for people who are trying to improve livelihoods sustainably through education and skills attainment. Few, if any, Americans know a native American word.

Australia is another country that may not have got the native-settler mix right. The Aborigines have been compensated but not integrated. Resentment and grievances continue to fester and the notion of “white Australia” persists.

THE WAY TO INCLUSIVENESS

For Thailand’s deep south, the Malay Muslims were there all along for centuries. They lived under Siamese sovereignty for many years — a formula that worked because it granted local Malays considerable administrative latitude in their own affairs (such as education and marriage law) even under Bangkok-appointed governors, many of whom are from the area.

However, as British imperialism pressed northwards from Malaya, the Siamese cut a deal in 1909 and annexed about half of what had been for centuries a thriving and proud Pattani kingdom. Since then, we have seen only tension and conflict from the region. The death toll from the current phase of insurgency stands at more than 5,500, which makes the Thai south among the top 10 deadliest regions of internal conflict in the world, next to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Going forward, a measure of recognition and accommodation can lead the way to inclusiveness. Language can provide the opening.

Why not start thinking about allowing Jawi as a second language in official documents in the deep south and calling Pattani as Patani with one “t”, as the people of the Patani kingdom see fit?

Internal peace in Thailand’s deep south will come someday when the Thai people elsewhere start learning words of Jawi spoken in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla as recognition and concession to the Malay people who have had to reside in Thailand. BANGKOK POST

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak is currently the Sir Howard Kippenberger chair at the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.