Pattani Province Research Articles

Bullying Among Lower Secondary School Students in Pattani Province, Southern Thailand

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of physical bullying and to identify a suitable statistical model accounting for risk factors affecting physical bullying among lower secondary school students in Pattani province, southern Thailand. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 244 students aged 12 to 19 years by questionnaire. All participants were interviewed in December 2006 in a neutral location outside the schools. Questions on physical bullying referred to behaviour during both the preceding six months and during the previous month. Pearson’s chi-squared test was used to assess the associations between the outcome and various determinants. Logistic regression was used to identify risk factors for physical bullying. The overall prevalence of physical bullying was found to be 18.5% (95% CI: 13.6-23.4). Gender was not significantly associated with bullying others. The outcome was associated to a statistically significant degree with age group, ethnicity, school type and parental violence. Specifically, the results from this study indicated that students who had experience of parental violence were more likely to be bullies at school.

Demographic Factors Affecting Employment in Pattani and Songkla Provinces of Thailand

This study investigated the effects of demographic factors on the employment of people in Pattani and Songkla Provinces of Thailand. The outcome variable is binary employment status (employed or unemployed). The determinant variables are education completion level (none, elementary, secondary, high) and the demographic factors gender, religion (Islam or Other), seven 5-year age groups (25-29 to 54-59), and district. We used data from the 2000 Census of the National Statistical Office. The analysis method involved first stratifying by religion, gender and district and then fitting logistic regression models in each stratum to determine odds ratios for the association between the outcome and the education completion level factor after adjusting for age group, and then combining these odds ratios using meta-analysis to obtain the overall independent association between education completion and unemployment in each province. The results showed that in Songkla province persons who had completed secondary education had no advantage in gaining employment over those who had completed only elementary education. And in Pattani province, those who had completed secondary education had a substantially higher unemployment rate than those with only an elementary education.

Bullying in Pattani primary schools in southern Thailand

The purpose of this research was to examine risk factors that affect the likelihood of students in Pattani primary schools bullying other children. Risk factors investigated include school rural/urban location, age, gender, religion, family physical abuse and preference of cartoon type. Identifying students who are at high risk of bullying could assist educational authorities to introduce better strategies for reducing the problem. A total of 1440 students at public and private primary schools in Pattani province were interviewed to collect relevant data. Pearson's chi-square test was used to assess the associations between the likelihood of bullying and possible risk factors. Logistic regression was used to investigate independent associations between the predictor variables and the outcome. We found that 32.9% reported that they had (ever) bullied other children. Bullying was significant associated with age (odds ratio 1.56 for 11+ years, 95% confidence intervals 1.23, 2.18) and family physical abuse (odds ratio 4.50, 95% confidence intervals 3.40, 5.89). In addition, Those students who preferred action cartoons tended to bully others 1.87 times more than those who preferred watching comedy cartoons. There are significant differences in our population in rates of bullying others that vary according to age, preferred cartoon type and whether or not family (parental) physical abuse has been witnessed. The factor 'preference for cartoon type', not examined in previous research, remained significant after multivariable adjustment. Although there is an association, the cause of this is not clear but merits further examination.

TBT-pollution in the Gulf of Thailand: A re-inspection of imposex incidence after 10 years

Imposex in neogastropods was used to determine the relative TBT distribution in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006. To identify the imposex prevalence, 8757 specimens, belonging to 22 species from five families of neogastropods, were collected at 56 sites in 13 sample areas. These areas were located between the Bight of Bangkok in the north and the Malaysian border in the south. A contamination model was developed to compensate for differences in TBT sensitivity among species and to make comparisons among areas. At every area imposex was found in neogastropods. The highest incidence was in the east side of the Bight of Bangkok off Si Racha and Pattaya and in the southern part around Pattani. The same areas showed the highest frequency of imposex in 1996. While the frequency of imposex appeared to have slightly decreased in these areas, increases were found elsewhere. In Pattani Province this could be related to dumping of highly polluted harbour sediments in the shallow coastal area. The overall frequency of imposex in the Gulf of Thailand significantly increased from 1996 to 2006.

The Blending of Thai-Muslim Musical Performances in Southern Thailand

Introduction This paper is a research report of investigative fieldwork on the musical culture of the southern provinces of Thailand. The research was conducted by interviewing prominent musicians from each of the following provinces: Chumphon, Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phang-Nga, Phatthalung, Phuket, Satun, Songkhla, Surat Thani and Trang. The current political instability in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narativas prevented conducting research in these locales.

Ethnic or Religious Cleavage? Investigating the Nature of the Conflict in Southern Thailand

The provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat in Southern Thailand have witnessed a sharp spike in violence in the past few years. The unrest is threatening to tarnish Prime Minister Thaksin's period in office. The contemporary literature as well as the media tend to portray the strife as one between Buddhists and Muslims. This is markedly different from earlier studies which place less importance on religion and treat the discord as one between Thais and Malays. In this regard, this article aims to explain the transformation from a primarily "ethnic" strife to a predominantly "religious" conflict. It argues that despite the rise of the religious factor in the discord, it is flawed to treat the violence in Southern Thailand as entirely between Buddhists and Muslims. It further contends that the ethnic Thai-Malay divide is still deeply entrenched in the insurgency.

Voices from Pattani: Fears, suspicion, and confusion

By December 2005, violence in the South of Thailand had taken the lives of more than one thousand people. In this article, the voices of southerners are presented as they were recorded during the author's two-year stay in Pattani Province and various Malay-Muslim villages in southern Thailand. Verbatim excerpts from tok imams (religious teachers), overseas scholars, academics, fisherfolk, and locals of various ethnicity and religious groups illustrate perspectives and frustrations about the violence. Fears, suspicions, and confusion are the most prominent emotions embedded in these conversations. These excerpts illustrate the foremost concerns of the common people in the South, among them, impertinent threats to livelihood security and peaceful ethnic coexistence in the region.

Factors Affecting High School Overweight Students in Pattani Province of Thailand

A cross sectional study was conducted to investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and demographic and environmental factors among public high school students in Pattani Province. The results show that BMI is related to age group, sex, religion group, birthplace and parents’ income. The prevalences of overweight and obesity of non-Muslim students are 8.7% and 3.0%, respectively. For Muslim students, these prevalences are 4.3% and 1.0%, respectively. The process of development childhood obesity could vary in populations with different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it would be useful to examine the cultural factors influencing the development of childhood obesity.

Thailand's southern discomfort

Thailand's south has been wracked by violence since January 2004, but the killing of over 100 mainly youthful Muslim militants by government forces on 28 April signified a sharp deterioration in the security situation in the majority-Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. The harshness of the clampdown is likely to further alienate southern Muslims, who number 2.5 million or roughly 4% of Thailand's population. This could provide fertile ground for local separatist groups, as well as the Southeast Asia-wide terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah.

Thailand: International Terrorism and the Muslim South

When the Iraq war started in March 2003, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra quickly declared Thailand's neutrality because he did not want to upset the estimated six million-strong Thai Muslim community living in southern Thai land. After his stand was reported by the international media, he had second thoughts. In May 2003 he reversed his position and pledged full support for the U.S. war effort in Iraq, saying that Thailand is one of the five U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region and was obliged under the Thai-U.S. defence treaty to help the United States. Such flip-flopping was not uncommon during the first three years of his premiership. Before the start of the Iraq war, Thaksin consistently denied the existence of terrorist cells inside Thailand. After the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the United States and the Bali bombing in October 2002, numerous foreign reports claimed that groups of terrorists with links to the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and, by extension, Al-Qaeda had passed through Thailand. For almost ten months after the carnage in Bali, the Thai government was tight-lipped on the issue of terrorism. Thaksin dismissed these reports as groundless, saying they were the work of crazy reporters. However, in the later half of 2003, Thaksin and the Thai military leaders started to admit that some international terrorists might have visited Thailand while in transit or possibly even stayed in the country to regroup. This article focuses on Thailand's policy towards international terrorism following the September 11 attacks as well as the implications of these policies on the Muslim-dominated southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala.

"Ce-bois-au-dessus" : porte-berceau, exorciste et marqueur identitaire. Un exemple de technologie symbolique chez les Jawi à propos d'architecture traditionnelle (Patani, Sud de la Thaïlande)

The Jawi people from the southern Thai provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat (which originally were part of the ancient Patani sultanate) make up the most important part of the muslim minority of Thailand. In the roof structure of their houses, they systematically place a piece of wood called "this-wood-above", which has a triple function : symbolic, identificatory and practical.

Thai-Malay Conflicts in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

The southernmost provinces of Thailand, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Satun, can be seen, ethnically and culturally, as a part of the Malay world. The fact that this region now belongs to Buddhist Thailand is above all the consequence of a long conflict between the Thais and the Malays. The conflict can be summarized as the efforts of Thai governments to take hold of the Malay region and dominate Malay society and the resistance of the Malay Muslims against these efforts. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roots of this conflict. Some scholars date the conflict since the end of the eighteenth century. However, origins of the conflict can be traced back at the latest to the sixteenth century when the conflict began to concretely emerge. The conflict eventually became very serious in the seventeenth century. This study will focus attention on this period.

Bedé kaba' ou les derniers canons de Patani

Abstract « Bédé kaba': The last Patani cannons. A Jawi commemorative custom (Malays of Southern Thailand ») The present three Thai provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in southern peninsular Thailand made up long ago the famous sultanate of Patani. In their population, the Jawi, muslims and Malay in origin, predominate. In spite of the disappearance of this sultanate as a political entity, they commemorate every year the greatness of their past during the hari rayo festivals. In these circumstances they fire bamboo cannons loaded with carbide in remembrance of the giant cannons which were the glory of this sultanate.

Managing interstate ethnic tensions: The Thailand‐Malaysia experience

Thai Malay separatism, centred in the southern Thai provinces of Pattani and Yala, offers an interesting contrast to current ethnic conflicts around the globe. Next to the Moro of the Philippines, the Malay of Thailand have been one of Southeast Asia's most vocal and least assimilated Muslim minorities. Despite the presence of significant international linkages, the Thai Malay secessionist movement has yet to result in serious conflict between Thailand and Malaysia. The goal of this inquiry is to determine how and why these processes have led to minimized interstate ethnic conflict and to specify how the management of these tensions could provide insight for those states that are not coping well. Three phases of Thai Malay secessionism, including their impact on Thailand Malaysia relations, are examined. The article concludes with an assessment of these patterns for the management and resolution of interstate ethnic conflict.

The impact of an oral rehydration therapy program in Southern Thailand.

Although Thailands National Control of Diarrheal Diseases Program introduced in 1980 features oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and the distribution of oral rehydration salts (ORS) recent surveys have indicated that only a small proportion of diarrhea cases are treated by this method. To raise the level of ORS use in a selected area (Pattani Province in Southern Thailand) a 2-day training course was offered to village health volunteers (VHVs) and village health communicators (VHCs). After completion of their training VHVs and VHCs recruited 30-40 women from each village to attend monthly meetings where use of ORS was demonstrated and motivated. In addition local health officers held a meeting in each of the villages with the Tambon Council VHVs VHCs and about 40 residents. A comparison of baseline and follow-up data collected in 2 villages where this training protocol was followed and in 2 control villages where there was no intervention confirm that additional training of village members in combination with the motivation of village leaders can have a marked impact on ORT utilization. Further this impact can be achieved within the existing staff structure (VHVs and VHCs) of Thailands national health program. The percent change in proportions of mothers reporting ORS treatment of their children with diarrhea was over 4 times greater in the experimental areas (from 31% at baseline to 82% at follow-up) than in the control areas (from 31% at baseline to 42% at follow-up). Multiple regression analysis indicated that the positive program effect occurred throughout the socioeconomic strata of the population and did not select out mothers who were more educated or had higher household incomes. The proportions of mothers treating their children with ORS who had been visited in the preceding 2 months by a VHV or VHC were about 40% higher than the proportions of mothers who were not visited. Attendance at group meetings also led to a 40% increase in the likelihood of ORS use. The positive effect of this ORT intervention was noted among both Buddhists and Muslims.

Cultural Factors Affecting the Rural Development Interface of Thai Bureaucrats and Thai Muslim Villagers

There is a growing body of both scholarly and applied literature which focuses on the interface of government bureaucrats and villagers as regards rural development in Thailand.1 However, this literature almost exclusively deals with the interaction between Thai Buddhist bureaucrats and Thai Buddhist villagers. Thus, it tends to ignore the extent to which cultural factors affect the efforts of Thai officials, most of whom are Buddhists, to undertake rural development activities in areas where the population overwhelmingly belongs to a different ethnic group. Such is the case in four provinces which are on, or near, the Thailand-Malaysia border. Nearly one million Thai Muslims live in this subregion, accounting for almost two-thirds of the population in Yala province and more than three-fourths in each of the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Satun. Like their cousins across the border, they are ethnic Malays who follow Malay customs and mostly (except for those living in Satun) speak a local dialect of Malay as their first or only language. The vast majority live in rural villages and engage in agriculture or fishing.2 There is very little social intercourse between Thai Muslims and the rela tively few Thai Buddhists living in these provinces. In part, this is due to the different languages used by the two communities. A second reason lies in some of the religious beliefs and practices of the Thai Muslims. For instance, it is con sidered improper for Thai Muslims to attend social functions having any kind of non-Muslim religious overtones or to marry those of another religious persuasion. Another example is that they refuse to eat food prepared by non-Muslims unless they are certain that it contains no pork, that other meats have been slaughtered in the approved Islamic manner, that pork grease is not used in cooking the food, and that utensils used for preparing food have never been exposed to pork grease ? considerations which tend to prevent Thai Muslims from entering the homes or attending social functions of Thai Buddhists since it is the custom of rural folk in Thailand to offer and accept food as an integral part of playing the roles of host and guest. A third reason is the fear of Thai Muslims that social interaction with Thai Buddhists would have the effect of encouraging their children to accept features of the Thai culture, thereby facilitating assimilation and the destruction of their Malay heritage. And a fourth reason is that some Thai Buddhists are prone to view the Thai Muslims as being culturally and socially inferior, speak of (as well as to) them in a condescending manner, and avoid contact with them whenever possible.3 1

Loyalists and Separatists: The Muslims in Southern Thailand

THE CONTROVERSY OVER the Thai-Malaysian border agreement in 1976 reflected, among other things, a recognition in Bangkok that the Thai government was unable to govern the southern border provinces effectively. This paper addresses itself to this problem from the point of view of the Muslims in southern Thailand. What are the main dimensions of the problem, and how are these regarded by the local Muslims?1 The Muslim population in the South is concentrated in the four provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwas and Satul. The southern Muslims represent about 3% of the population of Thailand, or 700,000 people according to the 1960 census. In the four provinces, however, they constitute 70-80% of the local population and are clearly demarcated as a distinct group. They speak a local dialect of Malay and only a small proportion (20-30%) also speak Thai except in Satul, where a substantial proportion of the Muslim population speaks Thai. They are Malay Muslims, maintain their traditional Malay dress and customs, and rarely marry Thai Buddhists. The presence of this territorially concentrated group of Malays in a region bordering on Malaysia, where the Malays have a dominant political role, has meant persistent difficulties for both the Thai government and the minority group. Everyone concerned recognizes that the problem is an old one, going back to the 13th century when the Sukothai kings claimed the southern Muslim sultanates as vassals. This relationship was decisively transformed by the administrative reorgani-

The Problem of the Thai-Muslims in the Four Southern Provinces of Thailand (Part One)

Recent developments have made the Thai Government increasingly uneasy about the continuing disturbances in various parts of the country. The vexing problem of Communist subversion and Vietnamese minorities in the Northeast appears to be matched by growing anxiety over the increase in banditry, assassinations, and the activities of several illegal organized groups in the extreme South. Concern is mounting particularly over reports of alarming agitation by resentful elements in the southern Thailand-Peninsular Malaysia border region. Perhaps the most unpleasant strand in the pattern of unrest, and the most serious threat to national integrity, is the tendency to irredentism among the Muslim Malays in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Setul and Narathiwat in southern Thailand.

The Thai Muslims

C ONTROL OVER southern Thailand has been disputed many times in the past by the Thai state in the north and a variety of kingdoms lying to the south. Having changed hands repeatedly, this relatively remote frontier zone is now ethnically mixed. The presence there of a large Malay minority known as Thai Muslims or Thai Malays has special significance for contemporary Thai politics. This group is representative of a northward movement of Malays who were incorporated into the Thai nation as a result of Thailand's southern expansion toward Malaya in the early 19th century. The ethnic Malays who live in this area are the second largest indigenous minority in Thailand. As a homogeneous group, they have steadily resisted assimilation into the Thai national culture. The growing disaffection of a significant number of the socalled Thai Muslims, whose goal is to organize a separatist movement, together with the persistent efforts of Communist terrorist remnants from the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), contribute to conditions of instability in the region. This situation is a test for the ingenuity and capability of Thailand's political apparatus. The Thai Muslims total approximately one million persons. They are concentrated in southern Thailand, especially in the provinces of Satun, Songkhla, Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat. The geographical accessibility of these provinces to Malaysia, and the racial, linguistic, and cultural affinities of the people on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border make communications easier to maintain with Malaysia than with the other provinces of Thailand. Malays constitute the majority of Thailand's Muslim population, the remainder consisting of ethnic Thai and a small group of Pakistani immigrants. Their language is Malay (most cannot communicate in Thai), and their villages resemble Malay kampongs. The inability of the Malays to speak Thai is evidence of their opposition to Thai religious beliefs, since Malays equate the