From “Patani Melayu” to “Thai Muslim”

Abstract

A violent insurgency in the ethnically Malay Muslim region of southern Thailand has claimed over a thousand lives since 2004. Although the conflict between the country’s southernmost provinces and the Thai state dates back at least a century, recently the ideology in which the conflict is expressed has changed markedly. Whereas a generation ago the goal was “liberation” of the ethnically Malay population from the former sultanate of Patani, today the spirit of the movement is expressed predominantly in Islamic terms.