By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 2004 (IPS)

The Friday sermons in mosques across Malaysia, often from texts prepared by the government, is an important barometer of undercurrents in Malay Muslim politics. This month, however, some of the sermons had a discernible difference.

Where before the diatribe was against the occupation of Palestine by Israel, the U.S.-led war against Iraq, and Russian military action in Muslim-dominated Chechnya, now a new word has emerged generating anger among the country’s 15 million Muslims.

It is Takbai – where the grisly deaths of more than 80 Muslim protesters, on Oct. 25, in neighbouring southern Thailand have captured headlines, here, almost daily.

Most victims suffocated while several broke their necks when 1,300 people were stuffed into vehicles for at least six hours, after Thai police and troops had used water cannons, gunfire and tear gas to break up a demonstration outside a police station in the Muslim-dominated Narathiwat province.

”Islam is under attack right here at our doorstep,” said a preacher over loudspeakers at a mosque in the upscale Bangsar suburb on Friday. ”The Thai military is slaughtering our Muslim brothers in southern Thailand.”

”Let us remember our brothers who fell in Takbai….let us remember their families and the Muslims who live there in fear,” the speaker said. ”Let us donate generously,” he added, urging the faithful gathered in the mosque to dig deep in their pockets to help their Thai brethren.

Across Malaysia’s Malay Muslim heartland, the anger over the Takbai deaths is pervasive.

Extensive media coverage of the Takbai tragedy – both in the government controlled Malay vernacular dailies and in the alternative media dominated by the fundamentalist opposition Parti Islam se Malaysia or PAS – has turned the name and the tragedy of Takbai into a household word and a rallying cause for many.

Mosque committees, Muslim associations, student organisations and grassroots village-level societies are all raising funds for Takbai victims. Some are even planning fact-finding missions to South Thailand – to uncover what they claim as the ”hidden truth” behind the killings.

”Everything has changed after Takbai. We can no longer see Thailand as the land of a thousand smiles,” said political analyst Razak Baginda, the director of the Center for Strategic Studies. ”Thai Muslims are shedding tears.”

He told IPS: "What happened in Takbai is horrendous and the hardnosed, gung-ho reaction from (Thai Prime Minister) Thaksin (Shinawatra) has made things worst.”

Malay-Muslims comprise a small portion (about 2.5 million) of Thailand’s 64 million people and the majority live in the three predominantly Muslim provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Patani in southern Thailand and are ethnically related to Malaysia’s Malays.

Historically the provinces were part of the Muslim Sultanate of Patani that was annexed by Bangkok in 1902 and ruled as ruled as part of Buddhist Thailand. Periodically Muslim militants had raised the flag of separatism and their plight and call to arms had always hit a sympathetic cord among Malays here.

Overall, relations between Malaysia and Thailand have been cordial, despite genuine fears that PAS-ruled Kelantan that borders southern Thailand would become a base for Thai Muslim separatists in the three provinces – often referred to as the Deep South.

But now, the Takbai incident has caused suspicion and mistrust to creep into the Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok relationship – which many observers say is at its lowest point ever.

Despite pressure from influential Malay leaders and Muslim organisations, the non-confrontational, consensus seeking and mild mannered government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has not ratcheted up its displeasure with Bangkok.

Abdullah telephoned Thaksin at the height of the Takbai killings to voice his concern over the lost lives. Taking note of the tensions between both countries, the Malaysian premier offered to send a high level team to Bangkok led by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, for talks.

But to date Bangkok has not responded.

To observers, however, Malaysia is pursuing a ”positive engagement” with Thailand to seek a solution to the crisis, although its involvement is hampered by the fact that members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) adhere to a strict policy of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

”Malaysia feels Thailand is handling the situation in the wrong way, but it doesn’t want to do anything that it would affect ASEAN cooperation,” said analyst Razak.

And none of Malaysia’s other offers for help – to dispatch moderate preachers to south Thailand, to start joint Kuala Lumpur -Bangkok rural development projects to alleviate southern poverty and to beam Malaysia’s moderate Islamic television programs to Thai Muslims – have really taken off.

”Bangkok must realise that it can better resolve the grievances in southern Thailand if it patches up differences with Kuala Lumpur and works together with Malaysia to alleviate poverty and open meaningful dialogues with Thai Muslims," said Razak.

The Takbai killings have also brought tourism, largely from Malaysia to southern Thai towns, to a standstill, especially after Malaysia warned its citizens against heading north.

But what is disconcerting to some observers is that while Malaysia’s Malay Muslims condemn the atrocities committed by the Thai military on their northern brethren, none of them have stepped forward to hit out against the reprisal killings carried out against Buddhist civilians.

Since January, more than 630 attacks with homemade bombs have been made in the Deep South – a 20-fold increase over recent years. Notes left next to three beheaded Buddhists are not the only grisly warnings that resentment towards central government is mounting; one government railway worker was tied to the tracks last month and left to be dismembered by an express train.

”It is no longer a case who is right or wrong but that the precious chinaware has dropped and broken to pieces. It will take a lot of imagination, patience and goodwill to repair the damage,” a non-Muslim academic who did not want to be named told IPS. ”The violence will breed more violence and feed into anger on both sides.”

Electronics engineer Azirul Shamsuddin relates how when he was buying mangoes at a night market on Sunday two Muslim youths walked up to him. They warned him not to buy the fruits because they were from Thailand.

”Takbai is our Palestine,” said Azirul. ”I did not buy the mangoes.”

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