Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

'politicization of religion, jingoism and xenophobia of ultra-nationalists ... so it's political ... the association of the status quo .. the fastest growing religion is not Buddhism, but' .. "the ultra-conservative, the most dogmatic right wing ones, because people are very insecure and anxious in this age of great change ... so reaching back for security ... a lot of the violence is about identity" .. sorry, i can't remember who said which .. it's lousy, i didn't realize the Muslims of Burma (Myanmar) had been victimized so much .. so much fear, manifest in violence .. and think Muslims are only about 2% of the Burmese population .. yet people are afraid of them taking over .. when Thailand was mentioned about 3-4 minutes into the video, i went for ..

South Thailand insurgency .. bits ..

The South Thailand Insurgency is an ethnic separatist insurgency taking place in Southern Thailand

[...]

Financing aside and despite official Thai agency alternative explanations, the essential cause of the continued violence is likely to be rooted in historical animosity generated by a Buddhist culture taking over and administering, often under an inadvertently corrupt motif, an Islamic culture.

[ Michael Jerryson, said, 'as to be Thai is to be Buddhist so that's why monks are there' ]

[...]

Identity of insurgency

A resurgence in violence by Pattani guerrilla groups began in 2001. The identity of the actors pushing conflict remains mostly obscure. Many local and regional experts have implicated the region's traditional separatist groups, such as PULO, BRN and GMIP, and particularly the BRN-Coordinate (a faction of BRN) and its alleged armed wing the Ronda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK). Others suggested the violence occurred under the influence of foreign Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, but since their modus operandi – attacking army depots and schools – is not a similar MO to other groups attacking Western targets, most view the connections as weak.

Some reports suggest that a number of Pattani Muslims have received training at al-Qaeda centres from abroad, though many experts believe, to the contrary, that the Pattani guerrilla movements have little or nothing to do with global jihadism. Others have claimed that the insurgents have forged links with groups such as the religious-nationalist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines and the quasi-secular Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Indonesia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Thailand_insurgency

969 Movement

The 969 Movement is a nationalist group opposed to what they see as Islam’s expansion in predominantly-Buddhist Burma. The three digits of 969 "symbolize the virtues of the Buddha, Buddhist practices and the Buddhist community."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/969_Movement

then watched the rest .. Jerryson , Barbara Crosette , Lama Surpa Das and Mark Juergenmeyer were all interesting .. a video well worth watching a couple of times ..