Thaification

Thaification,orThai-ization,is the process by which people of different cultural and ethnic origins living inThailandbecomeassimilatedto the country's dominant culture:, that ofcentral Thailand.

Thaification was a step in the creation in the 20th century of the Thaination statein whichCentral Thai peopleoccupy a dominant position, as opposed to the historically-multicultural kingdom ofSiam.A related term, "Thainess",describes the particular characteristics that distinguish the Thai from others.

Motives

Thaification is a byproduct of thenationalistpolicies mandated by the Thai state after theSiamese coup d'état of 1933.The coup leaders, said to be inspired byWesternideas of an exclusivenation state,acted more in accordance with their close German nationalist and anti-democratic counterparts to effect kingdom-wide dominance by the Central Thai culture. Minority-owned businesses, like the traditionally-merchantThai Chinesewere aggressively acquired by the state, which gave preferential contracts toethnic Central Thaisand cooperative ethnic Chinese.^[1]

Thai identity was mandated via 12Thai cultural mandatesand reinforced in the heartlands and in rural areas.Central Thailandbecame economically and politically dominant, and Central Thai, unlike the multilingual Siam, became the state-mandated language of themedia,business, education and all state agencies. Central Thai values were successfully inculcated into being perceived as the desirable national values, with increasing proportions of the population identifying as Thai. Central Thai culture, being the culture of wealth and status, made it hugely attractive to a once-diverse population that sought to be identified withnationalistunity.

Targets

The main targets of Thaification wereethnic Chineseand otherethnic groupson the edges of the kingdom, geographically and culturally: theLaoofIsan(อีสาน),^[2]thehill tribesof western andnorthern Thailand,and alsoThaiswho speak theSouthern Thai language.There has also been a Thaification of the immigrant Indian and Vietnamese populations. Thaification also targeted theethnic Malaybut was perhaps least successful.^[3]^[4]

Policies

Thaification by the government can be separated into three sets of policies:

Rural development

In the first set of policies, the government targeted specific policies and actions at fringe groups. An example of this is the Accelerated Rural Development Programme of 1964, the Isan component of which included the strengthening of allegiance toBangkokand the rest of the country as one of its objectives.

Education

The second set of policies consists of policies applied nationally, but that disproportionately affect fringe groups. One example of this is the prescribed use ofCentral Thailanguage in schools. This had little or no effect on the central Thais, or the Siamese people, who already used the language as a native but made bilinguals of speakers ofIsanin the northeast, ofNorthern Thai(คำเมือง) in the north and ofPattani Malay(ยาวี) in the south.

Harsher methods were imposed on the Thai Chinese.^[5]After thePeople's Republic of Chinawas founded in 1949, a series of anticommunist Thai military juntas, starting with that ofright-wing dictator Plaek Phibunsongkhram,sharply reduced Chinese immigration and prohibitedChinese schoolsin Thailand.^[5]Thai Chinese born after the 1950s had "very limited opportunities to enter Chinese schools".^[5]Those Thai Chinese who could afford to study overseas studiedEnglish,instead ofMandarin Chinesefor economic reasons.^[5]As a result, the Chinese in Thailand have "almost totallylost the languageof their ancestors "and are gradually losing their Chinese identity.^[5]

Encouraging Thai nationalism

A third set of policies was designed to encourageThai nationalismin the nation's peoples such as the promotion of thekingas a national figurehead and saluting theflagin school and the twice-daily broadcasts of thenational anthem(Thai:เพลงชาติ;RTGS:phleng chat) onradioandtelevisionat 08:00 and 18:00 as well as in public spaces. Encouraging Thai nationalism had the intended side effect of discouraging other loyalties, such as that toLaos,stemming from the central Thais' fear of Lao cultural and political dominance in the Isan region^[6]and that of Malay (Thai:มลายู;RTGS:malayu) in the south.

References

^Booth, Anne (2007).Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia.University of Hawaii Press.p. 122.
^Ganjanakhundee, Supalak (5 October 2016)."Lao are lazy: The problem with 'Thai superiority'"(Opinion).The Nation.Retrieved6 October2016.
^Ivanoff, Jacques (2010).The Cultural Roots of Violence in Malay Southern Thailand: Comparative Mythology; Soul of Rice.White Lotus Company Limited.ISBN 9789744801623.
^Haji Umar, Umaiyah (2003).The Assimilation of Bangkok-Melayu Communities in the Bangkok Metropolis and Surrounding Areas.Umaiyah Haji Umar.ISBN 9789749121344.
^^a ^b ^c ^d ^eTong, Chee Kiong; Chan, Kwok Bun (2001).Alternate Identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand.Brill Publishers.pp.170–177.
^Reyland, William (2009).Sons of Isan(Google Books ed.). Booksmango. p. 47.ISBN 978-6162450655.Retrieved13 May2015.

External links

"The impact of surveying and map-making inSiam"inTwentieth Century Impressions of Siam; Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources...Editor in chief: Arnold Wright. Assistant editor: Oliver T. Breakspear. Published 1908 by Lloyds Greater Britain Publishing Company, Ltd. London [etc.] Library of Congress classification: DS565.W7Open Library
In Defense of the Thai-Style Democracy.Pattana Kitiarsa. Asia Research Institute. National University of Singapore. October 12, 2006. PDF.

[1] Booth, Anne (2007).Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia.University of Hawaii Press.p. 122.

[2] Ganjanakhundee, Supalak (5 October 2016)."Lao are lazy: The problem with 'Thai superiority'"(Opinion).The Nation.Retrieved6 October2016.

[3] Ivanoff, Jacques (2010).The Cultural Roots of Violence in Malay Southern Thailand: Comparative Mythology; Soul of Rice.White Lotus Company Limited.ISBN 9789744801623.

[4] Haji Umar, Umaiyah (2003).The Assimilation of Bangkok-Melayu Communities in the Bangkok Metropolis and Surrounding Areas.Umaiyah Haji Umar.ISBN 9789749121344.

[Identities-5] Tong, Chee Kiong; Chan, Kwok Bun (2001).Alternate Identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand.Brill Publishers.pp.170–177.

[6] Reyland, William (2009).Sons of Isan(Google Books ed.). Booksmango. p. 47.ISBN 978-6162450655.Retrieved13 May2015.

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