My son is currently teaching at a small college in northern Thailand. He is enjoying his students, co-workers and neighbors, as they are very friendly, kind people. He has asked them about the problems in the south and gets the impression that the Thai people will ignore the problem for as long as they can. Like many in the West, they seem to believe that the Islamists will either turn nice or go away somewhere else.

Posted by: maryrose at June 27, 2006 7:36 AM

You can ignore the Muslims if you want to. But they certainly are not ignoring you. Especially if you are non Muslim (or even if you are Muslim), peaceful, hardworking, loving or if you are anything but a bomb toting , foul mouthed, ill tempered, certifiable nut case or just in the way.
Death is what they promise, and death is what they bring.
Ignore them? bah, Appease them, bah, Fight them and you may have a chance to live. Not fight them and you are certain to die.
The Peaceful Religion of Islam in your neighborhood is not a good sign.

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 27, 2006 8:09 AM

#1. "Officials blames Muslim insurgents for much of the unrest, although criminal motives are also thought to be at work."

#2. "The southern provinces are predominantly Muslim, with a separate language and culture to much of the rest of Thailand.

#3. "Militants often target schools and teachers because they see them as symbols of the Buddhist Thai authorities."
-- from the BBC piece above

Let's take those three sentences in turn.

#1. The attempt to confuse by not sticking to the main, Muslim point: "although criminal motives are also thought to be at work." No evidence is given for this statement. No explanation as to what the "criminal motives" might be -- for example, what financial gain might result. This is simply tossed in, and the effect is simply to make listeners think: General unrest. Mixed motives. Muslims, criminal gangs, what have you. Too confusing to figure out.

#2. "predominantly Muslim, with a separate language and culture" -- so, we recognize that the fact that they are Muslim has something to do with it, but we are going to immediately focus on the trivial -- that "separate language and culture" -- and not say a word about Islam, its tenets and its attitudes, as the main prompting for this behavior against Buddhists.
You find nothing in this report about what might conceivably be found in the Qur'an and Hadith to prompt such acts. Nothing about Muslim agitators from Malaysia, nothing about Saudi money -- are there those agitators, or radio stations beaming in? Has Saudi money been arriving? What is it that might prompt local Muslims to act this way? Has the Thai government suddenly started to behave terribly toward them, just as terribly, say, as the Spanish did to warrant Madrid, the English to warrant the bombs in the London metro, the French to warrant their own metro bombing a few years ago, and all the plots (including that against the Strasbourg Christmas Festival) that have been uncovered? Did the Thai govenment do something as bad as the Italians, which caused plots to be hatched that were not carried out only because the police seized the plotters in time? Was the Thai govenment as terrible as the terrible Danes, publishing those terrible cartoons, which earned Danes everywhere the threat of Muslim revenge -- i.e., death threats? We want the BBC to tell us what, if anything, has changed in that south where, according to its report, that separate "language" and that separate "culture," needed to be mentioned, but not that separate "religion" as the explanation, both necessary and sufficient, of the whole business. That would take too much time. How can a mere reporter be expected to understand Islam?

#3. "Militants [sic] often target schools and teachers because they see them as symbols of the Buddhist Thai authorities."

Is that why? Or is it because schools and teachers and schoolchildren are the most helpless of victims, the easiest targets of all? And aren't schools not "symbols" of Buddhist Thai authorities but places where knowledtgge outside the only kind of knowledge that counts - the Qur'an and Sunnah -- is imparted? And knowledge, if it is not that kind of "knowledge," is itself to be opposed. How many schools have been bombed by the Taliban, not because they were "symbols" of American-bakced Karzai but because they were schools, and they were schools teaching girls things no girls should know -- that is, about the world. Why could not the BBC reporter mention the vulnerability of teachers and schools, why not mention that without those schools of the government, there would be no schools at all save madrasas. Why not?

The effect, of course, is to wierdly justify, or attempt to justify, the bombing of teachers and schools -- that is, the bombing of schoolchildren. When the PLO seized schoolchildren at Ma'alot, and then held them hostage, and then murdered 21 of them, it was not because the school was a "symbol" of Israeli authority but because they could seize the schoolchildren more easily than they couls seize anyone else. When the Muslims in Beslan seized the school, it was for the same reasons. Not a "symbol." (How that word somehow mitigates, suggests to the listener that if a mee "symbol" is attacked, then that's a bit more understandable, for then the attack itself seems...seems....seems somehow "symnbolic" then, doesn't it?

But perhaps I am unduly harsh on the BBC. Yes, I suppose I am. How can the mere BBC be expected to offer its listeners a hint, the tiniest hint, of what Islam inculcates, of what the Hadith are, of what the Sira is, of how the doctrine of abrogation means for an understanding of those passages in the Qur'an that do not quite jibe? After all, the BBC is still a young organization, a fledgling finding its way, with so few resources, with all that constant fund-raising it has to do. Be patient. Give it time. Just the kind of time you will be asked to give Al-Jazeera ("As American as Apple Pie," according to an American hireling who works for the station, in the Sunday Bandar Beacon). But that is another, even more sinister matter.

Posted by: Hugh at June 27, 2006 8:28 AM

Militants seem to be opposed to any school that teaches anything but the koran. It's funny that the dime never drops for them that if the koran was the only thing anyone had ever studied then none of our technology would be here today. Why can't they connect the dots?

Posted by: fireangel at June 27, 2006 8:29 AM

fineangel,
They don't want the technology. All they want of it is to destroy infidels. They themselves want to live in the desert with camels and some knives to saw off their heads. That is their idea of an ideal existence.

Good to see you. :)

Posted by: arjun.sevak at June 27, 2006 8:37 AM

No Teachers, Know Islam.

Posted by: JanuaryMan at June 27, 2006 9:27 AM

Arjun...hi.:)I had put my coffee down before I read your post which is a good thing or I would have had to clean it off my screen and keyboard.

Do the militants read anything but the Koran?

Posted by: fireangel at June 27, 2006 9:37 AM

Muslims are also opposed to any teaching of girls.

They will butcher the girls, the teachers, and any and all who get in their satanic way.

Posted by: moderationist at June 27, 2006 9:37 AM

Re: "They were attacked by a group of suspected insurgents .."

"Militants often target schools and teachers ..."

Insurgents, militants? Anything to avoid using the obvious term "terrorist" I see.

Posted by: johnb at June 27, 2006 10:05 AM

Yes, but using the word 'terrorist' would come a bit too close to telling the truth, and the MSM seem to have a in-built revulsion to any concept of truth whatsoever.

Posted by: enemyofislam at June 27, 2006 10:39 AM

In this article the BBC is hesitant to even say muslim, and when they do they use qualifiers and distractors to lead the reader away from drawing the conclusion that islam had anything to do with violence.
BUT...
In an article linked to the same page, where some muslim "protesters" (read terrorists) were caught red handed with guns and grenades in hand by the Thai army. The Thai army loaded them into large trucks like cattle and hauled them away, seems the muslims were packed too tight and some died during the trip.
Well, the BBC repeats Muslim over and over again in this article, making sure that the reader associates the word muslim with the word victim. And the BBC also described in graphic detail the condition of the muslim terrorists bodies. Detail they NEVER use to describe an infidel victim. Such detail is meant to shock, horrify and create sympathetic feelings in the viewer for the victims, who in this case are the terrorists.

The BBC sure didn't use this tactic to invoke the reader's sympathy for the little Thai Christian schoolgirls that were beheaded by muslims!

Also, crime, looting, pillage and the taking of booty is a big part of islam, and one of the big motivators for jihadists. So pointing out criminal intentions doesn't exclude jihad, they go hand in hand together.

Posted by: WhiteDemon}:) at June 27, 2006 2:27 PM

Just a thought - After 9/11 a BBC news editor refused to put out a report which stated "Of course most British muslims do not support alqueda". He said "We have no idea what British muslims think so we cannot pass a judgement either way".

He was fired.

Posted by: Fred at June 27, 2006 5:23 PM