The words of Prem Tinsulanonda, president of the Thai king's Privy Council, back in 2006 are revealing. Reacting to the recommendation for these provinces to be allowed to use Pattani Malay as their working language, he said: "We cannot accept that [proposal] as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai ... We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language."
[*] From article below. My emphasis.The use of one language in a nation is standard practice. While the US has a lot of Spanish spoken, especially in Florida and California, the country has resolutely stood against having any language other than English as the national language. And the US fought a Civil war over secession (awa slavery, of course). So what's so off about the Thai's doing the same?
This piece below is full of the invective that one hears heaped on anyone who questions immigration or criticises Islam -- use of words such as "Islamophobic", "toxic" and "festering", instead of addressing and discussing the issues. Ad hominem seems to be the basic currency of the left, when discussing these issues.
Concern about the Islamic element of immigration is not confined to the so-called "far right", a term of abuse that is tossed out reflexively, in order to seek to put such views outside of civilised discourse.
Some of the Lefties, or definitely not Righties, who have well-grounded, and well-researched concerns about Islam include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, and Muslims and ex-Muslims such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Rooshanie Ejaz, Maryam Namazie, Nonie Darwish, and many many others.
Why can't the left simply accept the simple proposition: that there are problematic elements to Islam. The Irish PM recently excoriated Catholicism and the Pope. Yet noone called him a "Cathophobe, or Pope-ophobe". Yet simply mention Islam and critique in the same sentence, and you're labelled "far right", an "Islamophobe"....
Asia exposed |
We are not immune to the dangers of the far-right, anti-immigrant ideology that has proved deadly in Europe |
| For orchestrating the Utoya massacre in Norway with cold precision, Anders Behring Breivik has come to denote a new malady of the globalised world. Almost overnight, Europe's politicians and opinion leaders seem to have collectively chanced upon an epiphany: the far-right is no longer a far-fetched threat. Yet to dismiss right-wing extremism as a uniquely European phenomenon may be a grave mistake. Asia, too, is exposed, with the heterogeneous nations of Southeast Asia being particularly vulnerable. To see how this works is to first understand that while members of Europe's far-right movement are clearly Islamophobes, they are first and foremost anti-immigrant and cynics of multiculturalism. And, like Europe, parts of Southeast Asia also harbour extreme discontent over issues of immigration and integration among its population. Foremost is Malaysia. Although cosmopolitan, the nation is home to an organised group of ultra-Malays upholding the ideology of ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy, premised on the notion that Malaysia's ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities are pendatang, or settlers. [NOTE: it's Malay and Muslim!] At its most benign, ketuanan Melayu can be gleaned from the government's affirmative action policies, which guarantee privileges in education and corporate ownership to Malays on the basis of their indigenous status. A more extreme manifestation is represented by the antagonistic non-governmental organisation known as Perkasa, whose mandate is to defend Malay rights from being disputed by Malaysia's minority ethnic communities. Calls for the protection of "local" rights have also been issued in Singapore. The government's liberal immigration policy contributed to the People's Action Party, Singapore's long-standing ruling party, suffering its worst electoral performance since the nation's independence in 1965. Unlike Malaysia, though, immigration woes in Singapore are not so much an indication of growing xenophobia as it is of disgruntlement about overcapacity. Yet, the overzealousness of some at expressing their discord on a variety of the city state's social media sites has sometimes blurred the lines between the two. Left unchallenged, such caustic views can cause far-right sentiments to fester in a state that has long embraced multiculturalism. In Thailand, where political elites are averse to multiculturalism, far-right tendencies may have already taken root. This can be surmised from the government's oppressive approach to the Muslim insurgency in the southern provinces. [*] The words of Prem Tinsulanonda, president of the Thai king's Privy Council, back in 2006 are revealing. Reacting to the recommendation for these provinces to be allowed to use Pattani Malay as their working language, he said: "We cannot accept that [proposal] as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai ... We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language." If far-right ideology in Europe is blatantly predicated on the anxiety of all things Islamic, it is subliminally expressed in Southeast Asia through a wider register of fears. Its nebulousness has tricked us into thinking that it was not there. Now we know better. |
