A Seat at the Table
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Thai Muslims have made substantial contributions to the Burmese community. They built the school at Bangalawalay Mosque. According to Adisak, Thai education department officials have also consulted with Burmese Muslim schools about curricula.
Ekachai added that the Thai government has provided some funding to Burmese mosques for vocational training. In general, however, Burmese Muslims must rely on their own meager resources, or non-governmental support.
Thein Htun, 64, was a sergeant-major in the Burmese army’s Light Infantry Division 28, before fleeing Hlaing Bwe in Karen State for Mae Sot in 1992—he was accused of friendly connections with Karen rebel forces. Seven years later, he opened a small school for the children of migrant workers. Of the 98 students there, 87 are Muslim.
According to Thein Htun, Thai education officials often visit the school to examine the curriculum, but it receives no assistance from the Thai government or from local Thai Muslims. It survives principally on support from a local Catholic missionary.
“The school charges no tuition and costs 12,000 baht (US $300) per month to operate,” said Thein Htun. “When funds are available, teachers receive a small salary.”
The curriculum blends traditional subjects with religious education. Students receive religious instruction in morning and afternoon sessions, including Arabic and moral lessons drawn from the life of the prophet Mohammad. In between, they study English, Thai, Burmese, math, science and geography.
“We do what we can for the students, but few will have the opportunity to study beyond what they receive here,” said Thein Htun.
Prospects for the children of Burmese Muslims fortunate enough to hold “pink” ID cards, issued more than a decade ago by the Thai government, are better. They enjoy the full benefits of Thai citizenship, including access to Thai schools.
For the majority of Mae Sot’s Burmese Muslims, however—living, as most of them do, outside the refugee camp system and forced to fend for themselves as migrant workers, short-term laborers and in some cases small business owners—support from the Thai government, as well as the city’s numerous non-governmental organizations, does not exist. Mosques are the principal source of aid and serve as cultural, as much as religious, hubs of the community.
They also provide a point of contact to resolve disputes that arise between Thai and Burmese communities. According to Thai lawyer Ekachai, few serious problems arise. Some instances of revenge beatings for personal offences have occurred within the two communities, but such cases are few.
A principal concern for both communities is the lure of the drug trade. The lack of employment and educational opportunities for Muslim youth make them easy targets for drug gangs, according to Adisak.
Haji Abdool Wadoose, a Burmese Imam, said that mosques in Mae Sot have initiated a weekly program to teach young Burmese Muslims how to better integrate into Thai society, with an emphasis on avoiding any participation, as users or dealers, in the town’s drug trade. “There have been problems in the past with drugs among our young people,” he said. “We have succeeded in resolving these issues, but we are always concerned about protecting our youth.”
The ambiguous position of Burmese Muslims in Thailand has been further complicated in recent years by the government’s delicate relationship with its own Muslim communities. As the IHRC report notes: “Thailand…has a long history of persecuting its Muslim minorities and 2004 saw the massacre in police detention of 84 in Southern Thailand.” That event helped to revive a deadly insurgency movement in which nearly 2,000 people have been killed since January 2004.
The ongoing unrest in southern Thailand has affected the Muslim community in Mae Sot. The city’s rapidly growing Muslim population (Thai and Burmese) has drawn the attention of government authorities concerned that the insurgency could spread. According to several local clerics, Thai military intelligence agents make frequent visits to monitor activity in the mosques and interview local Muslims about possible connections to militant groups operating elsewhere in the country.
By all accounts, Burmese Muslims in Mae Sot have no connection to militant Muslim factions in Thailand or elsewhere. By virtue of their refugee status in Thailand, they are even cut off from their religious peers in other Muslim countries—something that the All Burma Muslim Union hopes to change.
Based in Mae Sot, the ABMU has attempted since its creation in 1980 to provide political leadership for Burmese Muslims in exile.
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