The Ghosts of the Past in Southern Thailand: Essays on the History and Historiography of Patani

Chapter 9: The Formation of the Islamo-Malay Patanian Nation: Ideological Structuring by Nationalist Historians

Formation of the Islamo-Malay Patanian Nation  cHaPter 9 the Formation of the IslamoMalay Patanian Nation: Ideological Structuring by Nationalist Historians Dennis Walker  The Patanian nation formed and evolved over centuries as a group defined by space — a homeland — and by an Islamo-Malay culture that dissolved Arabic elements from the Middle East, the Malay language and Malay customs, and Indic slivers into a new blend. Since the 1970s, the Thai state has further installed the Indicized Thai language into this mix. In “living history,” aspects of the past find fulfillment but are conceptually refracted in the modern movements that these re-imagined pasts motivate and sustain. This study will analyze some of the classic works of Patani nationalist historiography, the works of a number of Western scholars who themselves have exercised an influence on current Patanian nationalist thought, as well as the more recent works of Patanian historians writing in Malay and Thai, in both Malaysia and Thailand. It draws also on an emerging, largely uncensored, historical discourse about Patani in Malay and Arabic taking place on numerous internet websites. In Patanian nationalist historiography, the past is constantly being selected from and restructured by new generations and groups in order to sharpen and feed the nation. Not all Siamese and Patanians have hated each other at all points of their history when the two peoples were forming. But any nationhood can only be defined and delimitated by how a group relates itself to other states and peoples in its region, and also around the globe. History has inculcated into a not inconsiderable number of Patanians a sense that the Buddhist Siamese to their north are their centuries-long “traditional enemy” (musuh tradisi). It has led them to build up intellectual conduits  Dennis Walker to the faraway Sunni Arab Middle East and it provides a sanctuary from which to evade Siamese offensives. Islam and Arabic have been nurtured and institutionalized to differentiate the Patanians sharply from the Siamese. The jihad has heartened a national group as it has stood in the face of an aggressive and expanding Siamese state. Patani’s Pre-History and Islamic Foundations At the core of Patani’s early history is its embracement of Islam, yet Patani’s pre-Islamic history cannot be ignored. Patani took form from the middle of the 15th century and had become a flourishing international port by its end. Favorably situated between several regions, this coastal sultanate built its prosperity from a Chinese-Javanese-Malayan-Indian trading network which it served as an emporium. The Patanians turned themselves into an active party in their own right in this trade: a Patanian merchant fleet was operating in the east of the archipelago by the end of the century exchanging rice for the spices of the Moluccas. When the profits from those products declined, Patani became a center for Indian merchants of textiles. The sultanate reached its peak as an emporium of global trade during the reign of Queen Hijau (1584–1616). Patani’s prosperity was due not just to a temporary conjunction of international trade routes and supply and demand but also to new policies ushered in under the new Queen. The past authoritarianism and exactions of the sultans had largely deterred foreign merchants. Under Hijau, an economic liberalism developed in which international merchants and an indigenous orang kaya or “wealthy” class both could flourish. With time, those rich Patanian merchants developed into an oligarchy, and the monarchs sought less input into the management of the trade or income from it. At various times, Patani conveyed trade between Indonesia, China, Japan, Europe, and South Asia. Patani itself, though, produced but limited quantities of pepper, tin, and iron. In deciphering the abraded Arabic on the earliest gravestones (mostly of royal figures) that have survived in Patani, Kalus has found that most phrases and terms come from the Qur’an. They were scrupulously Sunnite in their declarations of tenets, although their selection of Arabic formulas sometimes suggests Sufi mystical gatherings and Sufi prayers to an accessible God (dhikr). The tombstones sometimes reveal worried prayers for aid from Allah in military struggles, e.g. “nasrun minallahi wa fathun qarib. Wa bashshir il-mu’minin”: “aid from Allah and a swift victory: give the glad tidings to the believers” [Q 61:13]. The grave-inscriptions also contain many Malay words. An adaptation of the letters of the Qur’an became the Formation of the...