Opinion of Thai Muslims

[So the Heroes Fall]

Freedom Fighters obviously.

I find it hilarious opebo no doubt agrees and is on the same side as Muslims. Shows how crazy Thailand is...

[Username MechaRFK]

opebo would feed them to the lions.

[opebo]

I find it hilarious opebo no doubt agrees and is on the same side as Muslims. Shows how crazy Thailand is...

To be honest I'm not sure what you're referring to.  The South is dominated by the Democrat Party, which I strongly prefer, but the vast majority of the Southern constituencies are Buddhist.  I think the Muslims do on balance tend to vote Democrat as well, though many of them have their own parties, which just don't very often win many constituencies.

I can't pretend to be very well informed about the Muslim minority, but I think most of them - the non-extremists - tend to support the Monarchy strongly as an institution of fairness.  After all, minorities do well do oppose democracy and support monarchy, since the majority hates the minority, while the remote and disinterested potentate doesn't prefer one subject over the other any more than the farmer prefers a black cow over a red cow.

Also they specifically hate the Taksin parties because of that thugs horrible human rights record in dealing with them, as well as his support from the bigoted Isaan and Northern people, who tend to discriminate against Muslims.

[Vasall des Midas]

We need to, of course, draw a distinction between Thai Muslims and Malaysia (portion under Thai military occupation).



There were 2.816mio Muslims in Thailand according to the 2000 Census - 4.6% of the population.
83% of them lived in the South region (pictured above), where their share of the population is 29%.
But more to the point, over 1.3mio Muslims lived in the historical Pattani Sultanate - the three modern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat - where they still form 78% of the population.  This was a Malay state in no way different from the ones put under English colonial rule, except that the English allowed Thailand to annex it instead. Almost as many people here are recorded as Malay-speaking as are recorded as Muslim - it should be pointed that the Thai census asks people if they speak Thai first, and whatever degenerate filthy dialect they try to communicate in instead after, so linguistic data from it should be treated with the utmost caution. Further north, most (but by no means all) Muslims are recorded as speaking Thai.
The province of Satun, which has only 250k inhabitants, is also majority (67.8%) Muslim, though 90% Thai speaking according to official figures, so just over half the Muslims in Thailand live in Muslim-majority provinces. Across the remainder of the South regions, the Muslim percentage averages 14%.Outside the South, of course, it's (just) under 1% living mostly in Bangkok and a few other places mostly along the coast.

[opebo]

Nice elucidation, Lewis - yes the Muslims one sees in the bulk of the South are a small minority and no trouble at all.  Maybe 15% or so in most places.  And they, like most Southerners do vote strongly Democrat and are strongly royalist.

[lowtech redneck]

As a general rule, I oppose anybody advocating Shariah law or engaging in terrorism against civilians-I consequently have a strongly negative opinion towards the secessionist groups.

I don't know how popular the groups in question are, however, so I can't answer the question.

[dead0man]

minus one

Thai authorities have arrested a Lebanese man with suspected links to Hezbollah militants, after receiving a warning from Israel.

The arrest came hours after the US advised its citizens in the Thai capital, Bangkok, to be on the alert over a possible terrorist threat.

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung said one man was being held over possible immigration offences.

The situation was now under control, he said, and urged people not to worry.

"Following concern raised by the Israeli embassy about a possible attack by a group of Lebanese terrorists in Bangkok, Thai police officials had been co-ordinating with Israeli officials since before the New Year," Reuters news agency quoted Mr Yoobamrung as saying.

He told the Associated Press news agency police had been tracking the two men and called one in for questioning.

"Technically the two men have not committed any crimes under the Thai law, so we could only use the immigration law to keep this one suspect in custody," he said.

An official at the defence ministry told Reuters that Israel had contacted them on 22 December with information that two or three suspects could be planning an attack in Thailand, but that those individuals had left the country. A second warning came on 8 January, he said.

Israel's foreign ministry declined to comment on the reports.

<snip>

[Gustaf]

I don't really have a unified opinion on all Thai Muslims, but then again I'm a bit weird that way.