Patani’s Contemporary Political History, Student Movements, and the 1975 Pattani Central Mosque Demonstration

Abstract

This article aims to examine Patani’s contemporary political history by analyzing the 1975 demonstration at the Pattani Central Mosque as a significant milestone reflecting the transition from “elite politics” to “mass politics.” It points out that the boundaries of knowledge regarding Patani/the southern border provinces after 1909 remain limited, despite this being a period marked by tensions between the Thai state and Malay society due to centralization policies, state nationalist policies characterized as internal colonialism, and the suppression of leaders such as Haji Sulong. These conditions led the conflict to diverge into two paths: armed underground struggle and nonviolent demands within a democratic framework.

The article argues that the student movement known as the “Selatan Group” emerged as a new actor that transformed the paradigm of struggle. Its primary role was to integrate democratic consciousness with Patani Malay nationalist consciousness through a nonviolent ideology grounded in a distinct identity separated from both the underground movements and the state’s communist discourse trap. Furthermore, the article analyzes the relocation of the demonstration to the Central Mosque of Pattani as a sharp spatial strategy that established the mosque as a “space of exception” functioning as a cultural stronghold for bargaining power. Through the collective action of the masses, the demonstration transformed the Patani Malays from “victims” into historical agents capable of shaping their own history and became a prototype for subsequent Patani mass politics.