5 - The South

Summary

Background

The Southern Region's society and culture are quite different from that of the other regions. The South has the highest number of Muslims. Ethnic problems are prevalent. Interventions by imperialist Britain also created political problems at the multi-national level. The region has its own history and culture which is related to neighbouring Malaya. It is the smallest of Thailand's regions, making up just 14 per cent of the country's land area (after 1909). It contains the thinnest point between Myanmar and the Gulf of Thailand, with the Ta Nao Si mountain range running along its length.

The Siamese settled in Nakhon Si Thammarat in the thirteenth century. At the time, the city was the region's commercial hub with links to Malaya. Nakhon Si Thammarat was later established as an independent state. The centres in the east side of the Southern Region (as it is today), which comprised Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and parts of Songkhla, were once important cities belonging to the ruler of Malaya. They traded with Kelantan, Terengganu, and Melaka, which were commercial centres in Muslim Southeast Asia. Pattani became prosperous and was home to multiple ethic groups. The Thai state started to expand its reach into the state of Pattani and there were a number of skirmishes around the seventeenth century. In 1786, Pattani was under Bangkok's rule, butnevertheless had a degree of autonomy as a tributary state. The Muslim population held numerous anti-Siamese state protests in Bangkok and Pattani. The Siamese government tried to restore order by appointing a provincial commissioner to rule Pattani under the thesaphiban system. In 1909, the Anglo-Siamese treaty legitimized “the incorporation of Pattani into Siamese nation at the same time as it created, on the province of Satun, henceforward separated from Sultanate of Kedah which has passed into the hands of the British”.

The Muslims in the four Southern provinces — Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Satun — had close historical, ethnic, religious and cultural links to Malaya. Communications between them were easy because Malaysian was the local language. The people in these provinces became Thai due to political reasons.