The interpretation of Shahidin Patani

Shintaro Hara

The southern borderland provinces of Thailand is the official Thai name for a region which local people there passionately refer to as Patani. Since the eruption of the latest wave of violence in this region in 2004, approximately 7000 people have been killed, and many of them are the local people. Because of the violent history of the region, insurgents have referred to their struggle as a sacred war (jihad). There has also been discussion among insurgents about how to interpret and justify the concept of martyr (shahid). Rather than interpreting Thailand’s Deep South conflict itself, this article focuses upon how local Malay-Muslims in Patani interpret shahid deaths as “authorized” in Patani society and by whom or which organisation, and how the local society perceives it, by mainly resorting to in-depth, semi-structured interviews of the local Malay Muslim people in Patani.