THAILAND: Muslims Fear Tense Times Ahead for Islamic Schools

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jun 24 2003 (IPS) - Since the much-hyped arrest of three Thai Muslims with alleged links to an Islamic militant group in the region, the Muslim minority in the country’s south has been fearing that Islamic schools there may soon face a lesson in survival.

The Thai Muslims’ worries arise from the fact that one of the arrested men – Maisuri Haji Abdulloh – is a religious leader and owner of an Islamic school in Nara Thiwat, one of the five southern provinces with a large Muslim population.

Maisuri’s son, Muyahi, is also among the three taken in by the police on suspicion of having links with Jemaah Islamiyah, a group that aims to create a pan-Islamic state in South-east Asia and has been classified as a terrorist organisation by several governments.

A rumour that spread through some Muslim communities in the wake of the Jun. 10 arrest – that the government was planning a sweep through at least 10 other Islamic schools in the south – reflected this undercurrent of concern.

The government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra denied having such a plan. Still, ”teachers and students in these schools are worried about what may happen next,” said Nimu Makaje, vice president of the Islamic Council in the southern province of Yala.. ”We have already seen a drop in the numbers of teachers and students in some schools.”

Muslims who fund these religious schools fear that they may be hounded, he disclosed during an interview. ”Some religious schools that receive money from the Middle East are also afraid now.”

Thai Muslims always took their religious schools to be safe, but the current events are threatening to change this, added an academic versed in South-east Asian Islam, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ”The concerns are genuine, because it is making them feel vulnerable, being treated with suspicion by the government for getting an Islamic education.”

In Satun, Nara Thiwat, Yala, Pattani and Songkhla – the predominantly Muslim provinces in the south near Malaysia – Islamic schools have played a vital role in sustaining the tradition of Muslims, who are the largest minority in this Buddhist nation. There are close to four million Muslims out of a population of some 61 million people.

Religious education is offered through a number of private Islamic schools, which offer both Islamic teachings and other subjects, or a traditional school system called ‘pondok,’ where only Islamic learning occurs.

The arrest of the three men, including Waemahadi Wae-dao, a medical doctor, took place after the authorities learnt that the Thai men were allegedly planning to detonate bombs near selected Western and Asian embassies in Bangkok and popular tourist spots in Thailand.

Bangkok had been tipped off by authorities in Singapore, following the arrest of a Singaporean Muslim identified as being the head of Jemaah Islamiyah in the city-state. Governments in the region and the United States accuse the group of plotting to unleash terror in South-east Asia.

Government officials, including Prime Minister Thaksin, were quoted in the local press saying that Arifin bin Ali, the Singaporean, had confessed to having met the three Thais and discussed the plot to detonate bombs during the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand in October.

However, the government is having difficulty bringing charges against the accused Thai plotters, a fact that emerged during a briefing that local intelligence officials gave on Jun. 18 to members of the diplomatic community.

”They admitted that there is no evidence that links the three Thais to Jemaah Islamiyah besides what Arifin revealed,” said an Asian diplomat who was present at the morning briefing. ”They also do not have information about how the bombings were to take place other than for when it would be and where.”

This chain of events is adding to the anxiety among Muslims, said Pakorn Priyakorn, an executive committee member of the Bangkok-based Islamic Centre of Thailand. ”The people want to know what is happening, if it is true, if there is evidence about the three arrested men.”

He pointed out that a delay in clarifying innocence or guilt will also keep alive another issue that has been catapulted into the media glare – the type of Islam being taught in the religious schools. Some media accounts have sounded the alarm over the influence of the Wahabi strand of Islam in the religious schools, including the one run by Maisuri.

Wahabism emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 18th century and has since become the dominant strand of interpreting and practising the Islamic faith in the Saudi kingdom. It has been marked for its austere and extremely conservative views.

But since the multiple acts of terror in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001, Wahabism has been increasingly seen as promoting intolerance and breeding Islamic militants. That arose due to, among other reasons, a majority of the men involved in the September terror attacks and the man accused by the U.S. government of planning it, Osama bin Laden, subscribed to Wahabism.

However, both Pakorn and Nimu explain that the Wahabi influence in Thailand’s religious schools does not propagate violence. ”In Thailand, Wahabism is not considered radical. It is seen as another discipline to be taught in schools,” said Pakorn.

For decades, Thai Muslims have been going to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to be trained as religious teachers. These Arab governments also help local Muslims financially – either by offering scholarships in Islamic studies or financial aid for the religious schools.

”But these links and the Wahabi presence in Thailand have been misunderstood, because of the wrong impression given by the media,” said Nium. ”There has been distortion.”

However little of that surprises him, given the way negative portrayal of Muslims in the south due the outbursts of violence that have occurred since the 1960s by Muslim separatist groups.

”To say that we want to promote violence is wrong,” he added. ”There is no truth about the Jemaah Islamiyah link to the schools.”