泰國的南／難題：銀河政體到國族國家轉型過程視野下的泰南穆斯林

Thailand’s South“Problem”: Southern Muslims along the Transition from Galactic Polity to Thai Nation-State

今日泰國南方與馬來西亞接壤的邊界地區，是泰國穆斯林人口的主要聚居區，過去是北大年蘇丹國領地，在殖民力量與國族主義浪潮的影響下成為泰國的南方邊境區域。由於近代泰南衝突多半與「伊斯蘭極端主義」或分離主義連結，因此時常被理解為宗教衝突，並將視野集中關注當地反抗群體的組成與發展歷程。從歷史角度來看，今日泰國南部的衝突係奠基於東南亞的銀河政體（galactic polity）向國族國家（nation-state）轉型中所產生的主權歸屬問題，而轉型為現代國族國家後的泰國將南方邊境問題理解為宗教－族群問題，宗教與政治逐漸成為可互換的範疇，並在治理過程中累積難解的新仇舊恨，從這個角度更能理解泰南問題的複雜性。在當代，透過伊斯蘭教－佛教的張力再現這些繼受之衝突，新聞媒體傳播也強化人們對衝突之印象，將政治層面的衝突本質化為族群宗教身分之衝突，使「泰南穆斯林」，甚至是穆斯林這種宗教身分，都被賦予「泰國潛在危機」的象徵喻意。透過泰南穆斯林的案例，本文希望凸顯的是泰南問題有其主權衝突與近代政治治理的歷史脈絡，而宗教或族群的差異其實不必然會形成緊張的衝突關係，因此僅透過族群或宗教角度去理解泰南議題是不完整的，思索泰南議題以及研擬治理策略時，還是需要對於其歷史背景有更深刻的認識。

Today, Thailand’s“southern border”with Malaysia is a Muslim-populated area. Recently, conflicts in southern Thailand have been widely understood as“religious conflicts,”and research has focused on the formation and development of resistance groups. However, my study argues that from a historical perspective, conflict relations in today’s southern Thailand are rooted in questions of sovereignty arising from the transition from galactic polity to a modern nation-state. Religion and politics have become interchangeable in southern Thailand and new and old enmities have accumulated. Now these long-standing conflicts have been represented as Muslim-Buddhist or Malay-Thai tension, and the media has naturalized the political conflicts into ethnic-religious identity conflicts. These representations have given“Southern Muslims”(or“Malay-Muslims of southern Thailand”) a symbolic metaphor of Thailand’s potential crisis. Through the case of southern Thailand, this article aims to highlight the historical context of sovereignty conflicts and modern political governance issues underlying the“southern problem.”It argues that religious or ethnic differences do not necessarily lead to tense conflicts. Therefore, understanding the Southern Thailand issue solely from the perspective of religious or ethnic differences is incomplete. A deeper understanding of its historical background is necessary when considering the Southern Thailand issue and formulating governance strategies.