Page 255 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

HARUN YAHYA (ADNAN OKTAR)
253

Thailand, and the origin of
fully 35 percent of the coun-
MYANMAR
try's exports. Patani's
LAOS
Muslims, however, who THAILAND
make up 10 percent of the na-
tion's total population of 55
CAMBODIA
million, have been oppressed
for the last 200 years, and
now face a policy of genocide.
The suffering of the
PATANI
Patani Muslims first began in
1782 when the Rama Dynasty
came to power in Patani. The
dynasty moved its capital to
Bangkok and set up a modern
administrative system. At
just that time, fighting broke
out between the Patani
Muslims and local people known as the Siamese, and it continued for
several days. Many Patani cities were burned, its military headquarters
was destroyed, and some 4,000 Patani Muslims were taken prisoner by
the Siamese during the course of the fighting.
The Siamese savagely tortured those prisoners, bringing them to
Bangkok bound to each other with rope threaded through their ears
and legs with a needle, and putting them to work digging a canal
67
with no tools or equipment. Patani's sultan was also brutally killed by
the Siamese. Thailand was divided into seven regions after the war, and
Patani made to pay taxes, spending the next 70 years under Siamese
rule. The Patani Muslims claim that they are not of the Siamese race,
and that they are not Thai but rather Indonesian and Malaysian. In fact
they speak Malay, the language of the Malaysian Muslims. Although
that language has been written in the Arabic alphabet for hundreds of
years, they have been obliged to use Roman letters by the Thai govern-
ment.