New Mandala

From the Asia Society:
The Asia Society wants to let you know about an upcoming webcast, Tearing the Land Apart: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand, featuring the author, Duncan McCargo, Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds. This event will take place at the Asia Society headquarters in New York tomorrow, Friday, November 6, 2009 from [...]

[Read more →]

Review of Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand, Duncan McCargo, Cornell University Press 2008
Duncan McCargo’s recent study, Tearing Apart the Land, sets itself apart from other ‘political studies’ on the troubling Thai ‘deep south’. Based on empirical data, the book brings a breath of fresh air; it at least shows the [...]

[Read more →]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended her recent week-long trip through Asia in Thailand. She met with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in Bangkok, and then concluded her trip with attendance at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phuket.  Her mantra throughout the week – “The United States is Back” – seemed [...]

[Read more →]

Saranukrom watthanatham thai phak tai [The Encyclopedia of Thai Culture: The South]. Bangkok, Thanakhan Thai Phanit Munnithi Saranukrom Watthanatham Thai, 1999. 18 volumes, 8613 pp. In Thai language.
In the National Library of Australia while reading up on religion, banditry, and the environment in Thailand’s mid-south, I stumbled across the Encyclopedia of Thai Culture: The South [...]

[Read more →]

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has published a new report titled Recruiting Militants in Southern Thailand.  The Executive Summary is available here and the full report, as a PDF, is here.
The following information particularly caught my eye:
Insurgents draw on local culture to invoke traditional oaths to discipline their own ranks, though such practices alienate them [...]

[Read more →]

Imagined land?: the state and southern violence in Thailand (2009) Chaiwat Satha-Anand (editor) (ISBN: 9874863370210).
The National Library of Australia is pleased to announce that we have recently acquired an English translation of this significant volume (original title: แผ่นดินจินตนาการ?: รัฐและการแก้ไขปัญหาความรุนแรงในภาคใต้ ) previously featured here.
[This post is provided by the National Library of Australia as part [...]

[Read more →]

The following opinion piece, which I authored, appeared in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Rights abuse? You wouldn’t read about it
Harry Nicolaides was herded, shackled, into a Bangkok holding cell on Monday. He was sentenced to three years in prison for the contents of a single paragraph. The Melbourne author’s crime was to write a short passage [...]

[Read more →]

Khwamrunræng kap kanchatkan “khwamching” : Pattani nai rop kưg sattawat (Violence and managing the yruth: Pattani in the last half century) (2008) by Chaiwat Satha-Anand (ISBN: 9789749900390). This is another scholarly examination of Thailand’s southern violence by Chaiwat. The 365 page book discuss the narrative of violence in Pattani in literature and the press, with four [...]

[Read more →]

Sascha Helbardt, Rüdiger Korff and Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanyagam from the University of Passau have written a fascinating paper on authoritarianism in Thailand.  It is available online, in draft form, for the interest and comments of New Mandala readers.  Based on surveys in Yala and Narathiwat provinces they crunch some particularly instructive numbers.
And their conclusion?
Simply, those who [...]

[Read more →]

Phaendin chintanakan (Imagined land: solving southern violence and the state in Thailand) (2008) edited by Chaiwat Sathaanan (ISBN: 9789740200789). This voluminous (596 pages), well researched and  well referenced text is a comprehensive contemporary study of the three southern provinces of Songkla, Narathiwat and Hat Yai. The text includes discussions of national security policy concerning the [...]

[Read more →]