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Thai cyber-actors : evidence of an Islamophobic effect

chapter
posted on 2016-01-01, 00:00 authored by Virginie Andre
The long-standing Patani Muslim separatist resistance of Southern Thailand is not one that is well known, and its contemporaneous spill over onto the Internet even less so. The more radical Patani online propaganda is in fact symptomatic of the relocation of the struggle within the sphere of influence of global jihadism, distancing itself from the ethno-nationalism characteristic of a previous generation of fighters. New media propaganda, in particular Jihad 2.0, has opened a new sphere of influence to the Patani neojihadist movement, allowing the militants to expand their propaganda campaign to a wider audience, while reaching out to a younger Melayu public. While Jihad 2.0 has presented the resistance movement with new ways to diffuse its message, in a more innovative and appealing manner, it also has enabled it to engage with its audiences more interactively. Because the message is no longer linear, anyone can contribute to the dialectics of the struggle, which in fine results in the alteration and reshaping of its ideological discourse in unprecedented directions. Arguably the ‘glocalisation’ of Islamophobia within Thai culture has resulted in the alteration of the Thai cultural stereotype of the Muslim khaek ‘Other’, transforming the khaek into an evil violent Muslim, both in real and virtual worlds. This further leads to discriminatory attitudes and behaviours towards Muslims, which causes the hardening of the views of the online Patani community of support towards the Thais and possibly its radicalisation.

History

Title of book

Fear of Muslims? International perspectives on Islamophopia

Series

Boundaries of religious freedom : regulating religion in diverse societies

Chapter number

7

Pagination

111 - 130

Publisher

Springer

Place of publication

Cham, Switzerland

ISSN

2214-5281

ISBN-13

9783319296968

Language

eng

Publication classification

B1.1 Book chapter

Copyright notice

2016, Springer

Extent

14

Editor/Contributor(s)

D Pratt, R Woodlock