A story about Muslim attacks on teachers and villagers in southern Thailand appears in today's New Duranty Times. Helpfully, for those who simply read and run, the New Duranty Times (often called "The Times" for short) has this headline:

"Schools in Thailand Under Ethnic Siege."

True, the subtitle reads "Muslims in South, Angry at Buddhists, Attack the Educators." But nonetheless, among those who read and run are those who simply read the headlines and run, or have their view of the matter already heavily influenced by the headline supplied by The (New Duranty) Times.

It is not an "ethnic siege." It is a war of Muslims on non-Muslims. And to use the phrase "angry at Buddhists" gives the whole thing the flavor of a temporary dispute, a dispute that has discrete and manageable causes, and if those causes are addressed, the anger will cease.

But that is false. There may be "poverty" in the south -- but it affects all those in the south, in that former sultanate, both Buddhists and Muslims. Yet it is the Muslims who are attacking, not Buddhists who are presumably just as poor. And those Muslims are murdering any innocent Buddhists they can get their hands on --does that constitute a poltical protest against the government for the supposedly unique "poverty" in the region, or is something else going on?

Look at the phrases in this story by Seth Mydans that follow this "angry at Buddhists" bit:

"A long-simmering separatist movement in this former Malay sultanate lies at the heart of the violence, hand in hand with resentment at discriination against Muslims and attempts at forced assimilation by the government."

Is it "forced assimilation" -- or is it simply an attempt, the same attempt being made all over Europe now, to "integrate" an essentially hostile, and un-integrable population (even if they learn the local language, and the local customs, it will be only to exploit that knowledge against the local Infidels)?

And who is to blame?

Mydans writes:

"A harsh, militarized approach by the government has generated its own spiraling dynamic of violence and revenge."

Yet we can be confident, Mydans assures us, that this is a purely local affair:

"Experts say that there is no evidence yet of direct involvement by foreign Islamist groups but that fertile ground is being created for them."

Get that? The "fertile ground that is being creted for them" is that, we are led naturally to believe, by the benighted Thai government, that does not address those root cau... oh, you know what I mean.

And what about "direcdt involveement by foreign Islamist groups"? Who are those "experts" who tell us that they are not involved. And even if they are not involved, why does anyone need a "foreign Islamist group" when there are homegrown groups of Islamists -- no, strike that, there are copies of the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Sira, and that is all ye need on earth, a kind of Home Kit available to all, to get the murderous hate-filled ball rolling against the Infidels in your neighborhood. Be the first Muslim on your block to read the texts with extra enthusiasm, and be the first on your block to get those audiocassettes, or videocassettes, or that connection to Al Jazeera, that can turn you too, overnight, even in rural Thailand, into a dangerous menace to all your Infidel neighbors.

But the damage in this article -- a little damage, a little droplet of damage which forms one part of the steady stillicide of nonsense or quasi-nonsense, or almost-but-never-quite-there hint of sense, that readers of The New Duranty Times, as well as of almost every other American publication (high, low, and Trendelenburg) are forced to endure.

Posted by: Hugh at July 6, 2005 9:03 AM

I read an article @MuslimNews a couple of days ago. What was "interesting", is that they blamed the attacks on both Muslims and Budhists, and tried to excuse the attacks perpetrated by Muslims by saying that "the Budhists were seen as an extension of the Thai gov".

Posted by: alex221166 at July 6, 2005 9:09 AM

Alex: "What was "interesting", is that they blamed the attacks on both Muslims and Budhists"

It's almost always so when the mainstream press writes something about Islamic attacks against Infidels (if they write anything at all). They always write about "conflicts between" the two sides, so that both look equally guilty, and equally aggressive, although in reality, one side (guess which one!) has plainly and unambiguously attacked the other, and keeps doing so. I always failed to grasp how the slashing of the throat of a music shop owner or shooting a teacher or exploding a school bus could be described incidents of "conflicts" between "two ethnic groups" (as it is also usually described). But somehow, over and over again, they can.

Posted by: rahel at July 6, 2005 10:20 AM