Thailand, The Southern Ethnic Conflict Causes And Government Policies To Deal With

By analyzing the historical, religious and cultural evolution of various provinces with Pattani as the center in Southern Thailand and different policies adopted by the Thai Central Government towards the southern areas in different periods, this paper aims to probe into the background of and the reasons behind ethnic separatism in Southern Thailand. By so doing, we can get some useful implications, which can serve as reference to predict the prospect of ethnic conflicts and prevent these conflicts accordingly.In history, Southern Thailand used to be an independent kingdom, namely the Pattani Kingdom. Due to some man-caused reasons, Muslim-Malays who believed in Islam were divided into two parts and became two nationalities that lived trans-nationally. This turned out to be an apple of discord for ethnic separatism. The once prevalent"Thai Nationalism"in Thailand gave rise to wrong ethnic policies towards southern areas formulated by the Thai Central Government. The implementation of these policies added fuel to the fire of ethnic separatism, which had been a hut nut for the Thai Government for a long time. From the perspective of ethnic integration, different political system in different countries and the relations between major ethnics and minority is of realistic significance to analyzing the emergence of ethnic problems in the Southern Thailand and their final settlement. In this sense, by analyzing ethnic conflicts in the Southern Thailand, this paper hopes to provide constructive guidance to the formulation of reasonable ethnic policies so as to check the spread of ethnic separatism and pave the way for peaceful co-existence of different nationalities and the realization of long-term peace and stability.