Interesting Article on Muslims in Southeast Asia

Article from the International Herald Tribune. The commentary is written Michael Vatikiotis. Quoted part of the essay here:

Southeast Asia's Muslims once lived in a comfortable world largely free of economic pressure and social prejudice; there were enough resources to share with non-Muslim neighbours and precious few issues to divide their communities. That was before the financial crisis of the late 1990s and before access to global media brought the plight of Palestinians into their living rooms.
.This new reality was driven home to me as I sat in a small Muslim restaurant here in southern Thailand. The people around the table, all Muslims, were grumbling angrily about their debt and shrinking job opportunities; but tempers really started to fray when the TV news showed yet more footage of Israeli tanks blasting away at Arab homes in the Gaza Strip.
.Southern Thailand was until recently a model of tolerance, with a Muslim majority living side by side with a Buddhist minority under the umbrella of the Thai Buddhist state. But after a year in which more than 500 people have died in bombings and random shootings and at the hands of harsh military and police action, the region is a brewing cauldron of religious and ethnic conflict.
.Take a drive through the rice fields and rubber plantations of this narrow isthmus and the evidence is clear. Armed militia guard a Thai Buddhist school, and a Buddhist temple wall is draped with barbed wire. Temples have been turned into army barracks; the entire region is under martial law.
."We never had a problem like this before," lamented Niedir Waba, a 66-year-old who heads a religious school south of Pattani. "That's because the people committing this violence are influenced by events around the world and beyond our control."
.The rise of Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia has its roots in far-off conflicts like Bosnia and Afghanistan. Angry young men have returned from those wars as radicals with dangerous ideas and the skills to implement them. But less well understood is why ordinary Muslims are drawn to sympathize with their cause - or at least turn a blind eye - which in turn arouses suspicion and deepens the state of conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim.
.One common misunderstanding is that the practice of Islam is a ritualized and personal affair, much like Christianity for many Western Christians. Not so. For the millions of Muslims in Southeast Asia, Islam is a way of life and a badge of cultural identity. It follows that perceptions of Islam under threat are deeply felt.
.It also follows that in times of anxiety Muslims turn to their religion for more than a basic spiritual release - Islam becomes a shelter and a shield.
.Polls among Indonesia's Muslims show that the more law and order break down, the more they support the implementation of conservative Shariah law at a national level. When pressed, few would like to see Indonesia become a full-fledged Islamic state. But they yearn for a sense of moral order, and in the absence of a functioning civil society, the only reference they have is Islam.
.A better understanding of the sources of Muslim angst could help attack the roots of the shadowy militant movements behind the bombings and the violence in southern Thailand, in Indonesia and in the Philippines. A vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and tolerant but want their dignity and their faith respected; experience has taught them that they can trust their religious leaders at the community level, but not the civil servants and the military or police.
.It seems obvious, then, that to delegitimize the militants and ultraconservatives who are a threat to stability and security, states need to accord full respect to the Islamic faith and set about providing cleaner, more transparent forms of government so that Muslims won't need to turn to militant mullahs. Southeast Asia's Muslims have not become less moderate or tolerant, but they do feel demeaned and beleaguered. Desperate times often call for desperate measures.