Thailand: A Sound Language Policy is Needed to Improve Ethnic Relations

[Harold Schiffman]

A Sound Language Policy is Needed to Improve Ethnic Relations

                             Gothom Arya



            According to the Institute of Language and Culture for
Rural Development, Mahidol University, out of 1.1 million people of
the three southernmost provinces, 0.9 million or about 82% speak
Melayu thin Thai (local dialect) as mother tongue and about 0.3% speak
various minority languages such as Chinese, Ulaklavoey and Mogen. The
Thai speakers there can be sub-divided into Paktai (11%), Takbai (6%),
Thai Klang (1%) and Isan (0.3%) speakers.  However, if we look at the
languages spoken in contemporary Thailand, the Tai family language is
spoken by a vast majority of 87% whereas the Melayu thin Thai is
spoken by 1.9%. Percentage-wise, this figure is slightly lower than
that of the Northern Khmer spoken in the region of Surin, Srisaket,
Buriram etc.

About a month ago, a doctoral candidate from Georgetown University USA
came to interview me for her thesis and we discussed among other
things the problem of language in border provinces of the South. Two
weeks later, I was pleasantly surprise to receive a book she sent me
as a gift. The title is Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic
Relations in Asia, edited by Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly. I
would recommend it to the attention of policy makers especially those
who are in charge of education and security policies. The book tells
us in short that to solve ethnic conflict such as the one in the
South, we need a sound language policy. Let me now present some of the
data and ideas of the book. In the nineteenth century, the people
speaking standard Thai constituted no more than 15% of the total
population. Nowadays, more than 90% can speak, read and write in
standard Thai. With the great success in developing a national
language, I would argue that the country's leaders should now make a
critical effort to preserve our linguistic diversity.

Language is an important issue in any ethnic conflict. It is the main
marker determining the membership in an ethnic group and the lost of
language identity is tantamount to the lost of ethnicity. Language
policy has tremendous effects on education, economy, and politics. It
can determine who has better chance to succeed in school, who has
greater opportunities in economic advancement, who has more say in
political decisions, who has better access to public services and who
is fairly treated by government agencies. Language issues, like
religious issues, can be the driving forces behind ethnic mobilization
against the established order perceived as unjust.

There are many examples pointing to the failure of language policies
in the region. At the time of independence, Urdu was spoken by 7
percent of the population in Pakistan, while Bengalis and Sindhis
constituted 56% and 12% respectively. Clearly, the choice of Urdu as
the national language favored some groups and alienated others. The
language issue was the main driving force behind the secession of East
Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh.

The language policy that favors the majority can be a political
platform to easily win an election. The case in point is Sri Lanka
where a Sinhalese party, proposing Singala as the only official
language, won a competitive election precisely thanks to that policy
whose implementation led to Tamil grievances and eventually to the
fight for an independent Tamil state. An unsound language policy to
gain short-term electoral advantage can become a long-term disaster
for the country.

The struggle for power at the centre of the country during the
post-independent era of Burma dominated the struggle for power between
the centre and the nationality groups in the periphery. As a result,
the elites at the centre took it for granted that the promotion of
Burmese language as a national language would forge a national
identity and the problems in the periphery would eventually subside.
Many nationality groups however resented the Burmanisation campaign
and started armed struggles. Although many groups have now signed
cease-fire agreement with the junta who now renamed the country
'Myanmar' and has been propagating the fantasy of the cultural unity
of the 'Myanmar' peoples, many nationality groups still demand a
federal state if not autonomous states of their own.

            In India, the national language issue has been handled
with sensitivity and the creation of states with certain language
homogeneity has helped to diffuse some ethnic problems. Singapore
leadership has the vision of a multicultural society. Although more
than 75% of the population is Chinese speakers, Bahasa Malaysia is
accepted as a national language and English as the de facto official
language. This language policy in Singapore has been successful at
least in creating stability and the sense of fainess.

            In the South of Thailand, the study of Malay language is
not offered in public secondary school and the language is seen as
inherently suspect by Thai authorities. It is about time to develop a
sound language policy if we want to have a harmonious multiethnic
society in the southernmost provinces.

http://arya.in.th/en/?p=8



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