Prolonged conflict on the southern Thailand border still continues, especially in four provinces – Pattani, Yala, Narathivat, and Satun. These four provinces are the home base of the Malay-Muslim community. However, conflicts have almost never occurred in the province of Phattalung, particularly in the region called ‘Two Religion Community Life’. This is because people can find solutions to every problem using cultural negotiation. This research aims to describe the results of cultural negotiation and social learning between Muslims and Buddhists in solving daily life problems. The most important data collection techniques are in-depth interviews and observations. There are five critical informants chosen purposively: Islamic and Buddhist religious leaders, community leaders, school principals, and community members in the Tamot and Khaocan regions. The results found that there are several forms of cultural negotiation in Phattalung, including annual ritual prayers conducted together by Muslims and Buddhists, agreement on how to slaughter animals to be served during ceremonies, tradition of food bartering, and agreement on animal caring. Furthermore, social learning to preserve the results of the negotiations is carried out through the establishment of voluntary medical groups whose members consist of young men and women from the Muslim and the Buddhist community, sports and arts activities, commemorations of national holidays, and conducting annual religious rituals at the same place and time. This study also found four important aspects to strengthen the social learning in multireligious society – moderate values derived from their respective religious teachings, moderate values taught by the country, the existence of trust among citizens, and win-win solutions to the emerging problems.
This research promotes the world that there is a heterogeneous religious community in the Phattalung province, Thailand which has a building construction of tolerance and harmony of locality namely the ‘Two Religion Community Life’ by preserving the cultural negotiation values through social learning.
In daily life, religion needs culture as a social basis to become a medium for the actualisation of its teachings (Christie, Gunton & Hejnowicz
This happened between the Muslims and Buddhist communities in Tamot, Southern Thailand, especially in a region called ‘Two Religion Community Life’. Cultural negotiation is frequently related to difference in religions. Silvestri and Mayall (
Likewise, the differences between Buddhist and Muslim identity for several countries in Asia must be approached by cultural negotiations based on shared values (Frydenlund & Jerryson
Consequently, global ethics teach that peace between the world’s religions will not be created without continuous dialogue and negotiation until new norms are agreed.
The occurrence of cultural negotiation depends on the process of adaptation of a person or a community to their environment (Chatterjee
Relevant to the Frounfelker et al. (
Information about the uniqueness of two or more parties in the context of diversity is needed in the effort to understand each other’s identities (Swasgita
Cultural negotiation often occurs in multicultural communities that are vulnerable to conflict (Zaw
The preservation of the results of negotiation through social learning is important to maintain harmony in the life of the community in order to create a peaceful atmosphere (Laiti & Frangou
Humans can accumulate experiences that continue to grow over time by learning (Nabavi
This study intends to describe in depth the phenomena that exist in social reality in order to obtain meaning from a life context (Bungin
The most important data collection techniques are in-depth interviews and observations. The technique of determining the subject of research uses purposive sampling. Interviews were conducted with key informants, namely Islamic religious leaders (Kyai, Mufti) and Buddhist leaders (Bikkhu), community leaders, school principals in the region, and community members (lecturers, teachers and Kyai children) in the Tamot and Khaocan regions, Phattalung, Southern Thailand. During the interview, the researcher also noted observers’ expressions, moods, symbols or artifacts, such as the state of the house, school, mosque, temple, place of praying together, shared burial place, and so on. The results of these observations are also used to conduct data validation for interviews, or vice versa, while data analysis uses an interactive analysis model from Miles and Huberman, which consists of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing (Miles, Huberman & Saldana
Religion is an important determinant of people’s lifestyles, perspectives, attitudes and behaviours (Altun et al.
The optimism addressed by Appleby (
World civilisation can exist only through peace. However, it is inevitable that problems often arise in diverse religious communities as a result of differences in identity which are often difficult to negotiate. In general, the difficulty in negotiating is experienced because the different communities do not understand each other and have not taught each other optimally, because each community keeps its distance. Nugroho (
In order to create mutually beneficial, mutually supportive, and mutually supportive relationships between parties of different religions, meeting spaces are needed so that they can engage, learn from each other, increase dialogue, and negotiate becoming multireligious communities. Therefore, they can relax the tyranny of identity and can agree upon the same norms and values and ultimately become a shared culture.
Both before and after negotiations, multireligious communities continue to provide space to meet each other and learn from each other’s identities, so that it will be easy to be open to change (see
Relation among multireligious community, cultural negotiation, and social learning.
In a negotiation, the role of the negotiator or mediator is very important. A negotiator is a person representing each conflicting party in the discussion, while a mediator is a third party to bridge the conflicting parties in the discussion. Tu and Chih in their research analysed the influence of religious culture on negotiations.
Tu and Chih use the four negotiation styles of Casse and Deols, namely: factual style, normative style, intuitive style, and analytical style. The study concluded that religious culture was a significant variable that influenced the factual, normative, intuitive, and analytical negotiating styles (Tu & Chih
The role of negotiator is very important to the result of negotiations: (1) win-win, (2) win-lose, or (3) lose-lose. The negotiator’s or mediator’s understanding of the issue being disputed is very important. These roles are usually taken by formal community figures (community leaders) and non-formal figures (e.g. clerics, monks, priests, or another important figures in the community). These community leaders and religious leaders are generally used as models in social learning (Brett, Gunia & Teucher
In social learning, an individual will learn a lot from his environment through the experience of others, both individually and together. It means that learning can happen anywhere, not only at schools but also in the community. This idea is also in line with the idea of the three education centres envisaged by Ki Hajar Dewantara, an Indonesian education hero, who stated that education may happen in the family, the school, and the community (Hidayati
Oman (
Phattalung province in southern Thailand is located approximately 850 km south of Bangkok and 200 km north of the Phattani region (PeoPlaid
Phattalung, Songkhla, and Nakhonsrithammarat are provinces in southern Thailand where Buddhists constitute the majority (approximately 95%) and Muslims are a minority (approximately 5%). However, in some districts, Buddhists and Muslims are equal in number, living in a mixed environment in the context of daily life. In some regions, these communities have become more clearly separated internally by their religious identity. For instance, Ban Tamot is a Buddhist community, while Ban Hua Chang is a Muslim community (Horstmann
In Phattalung province, there is a region called ‘Two Religion Community Life’, found in Tamot (see
Road sign to the region of ‘Two Religion Community Life’.
In this region, Buddhist temples were built on the remains of a Muslim cemetery and mosque, while Ban Hua Chang, which was once a Buddhist settlement, is now a Muslim settlement. Formerly, the Tamot cemetery was used as a Muslim cemetery, but gradually it was also used as a burial place for the Buddhist population. Thus, Muslims and Buddhists have the same burial place (see
Shared cemetery for Muslims and Buddhists in Tamot, Phattalung, Thailand.
In the fifth lunar month every year, there is a joint praying ritual between Muslims and Buddhists at this burial place (see
The praying place for Muslims and Buddhists.
At the annual ritual, residents of the surrounding community, consisting of Muslims and Buddhists, arrive to a greeting presented by a religious leader in Malay as follows:
Ucap salae yang guna umum dan dibiasa’ae oleh keraja’ae adalah ‘sawaddee’, walau bagaimanapun sama muslim ucapae ‘assalamu’alaikum’. [
The greeting culture can be used as ethical learning from parents to children, from generation to generation, by not looking at differences in religion, ethnicity, or language, because greeting is a cultural ethic and has become a common habit in all religions and nations in the world. Greetings are usually accompanied by a smile, also marking the sincerity of the relationship. Greeting people is also interpreted as a wish for safety and health for the person being addressed. In Tamot, the habit of smiling and greeting is still very strong and taught from generation to generation even though they have different religions. Every generation still practises the culture of smiles and greetings, because they feel they are still one family. They are united by an awareness of ancestral similarities.
In the relationship among religious communities, smiles and greetings can be a symbol of positive relationship, harmony, mutual support, respect, and acceptance of someone. In Tabanan Bali, Indonesia, there has also been a tolerance of Hindus and Buddhists by using the same place of worship and being taught from generation to generation (Swasgita
Collaboration between community members in Phattalung was also shown at a joint prayer at an annual event located near the cemetery (see
Besides the annual ceremony, there is also another result of negotiation that has been agreed between Muslims and Buddhists in this region. First, in preparing meals for ceremonies, the religious leaders said as follows:
Pada mulonya setiap orea Budha menjemput pesta (seperti pernikahea) orea Islam, tidak nak makea daging yang di hidea, kerana aga tidak halal kerana semeleh tidak baca ‘bismillah’ hal ini jadi pemikirea pemimpin agama dan mareka melaku runding sama orea kampung, dan telah putuskea bahwa jika orea Budha punya hajat, kemuadiea yang semeleh hewan pesta dilakukea oleh orea Islam [
Through the negotiation process guided by religious leaders, an agreement was reached that the slaughtering of animals would be carried out by Muslims, and then they could cook together. Since then, Muslims have been willing to eat the meals served by their fellow Buddhists (U.K. Ahmad, pers. comm., 07 November 2017). This agreement is a manifestation of the sacrifice of both parties and the values of deep tolerance. This negotiation is similar to the negotiation between Buddhists and Hindus in Tabanan, Bali, as they share the same place of worship for Buddhists and Hindus, although the place of worship in Tamot is separated (Swasgita
Second, another problem that has occurred between Muslims and Buddhists in Khaocan village is the problem of petting dogs. Problems occur when there are people who bring their dogs to play in the Muslim village, thus igniting the anger of Muslim citizens. Some Muslims met with religious leaders to report the incident. Negotiations were carried out between Muslim and Buddhist religious leaders and community members and resulted in an agreement that all citizens who kept dogs would not bring them to Muslim settlements, and if they still brought their dog, they would be sanctioned (Ahmad et al.
Cultural negotiation and social learning.
Number | Problems | Negotiation | Social learning |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Descendants following diverse religions (Islam and Buddhist) are vulnerable to conflict. | Shared annual ceremony | Meeting families, creating happiness, introducing children to the long-time-no-see family members, building unity and cooperation, and training the children to maintain the fellowship |
Shared cemetery | Reducing the gap of difference and building unity | ||
Food bartering | Reducing the gap of difference and building unity, developing open attitudes | ||
2 | Muslims were unwilling to eat the feast in a ceremony because of the unlawful practice of slaughtering animals. | Agreement that Muslims will be the ones slaughtering the animals | Collaboration in holding events, building unity among adults and parents |
3 | Playing with dogs and taking them to the Muslim area | Setting regulations with regard to petting dogs | Reducing wounding behaviour, revenge, and conflict |
Horstmann (
To prepare a tolerant generation, a local tolerance that grows and lives in society can be a medium for learning reinforcement. The local traditions become a treasure in building harmony in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. An illustration of the community-building construction of tolerance and harmony of locality can be seen in the ‘Two Religion Community Life’ region in Tamot, Phattalung, Thailand. The harmony was built through cultural negotiations that have been continuously traded for decades. These local cultural traditions should be maintained and passed on from generation to generation through social learning.
Social learning in Tamot and its surrounding areas happens in various social activities, as a means of getting to know and to understand each other, including: (1) meeting of young men and women in health volunteer groups consisting of Muslims and Buddhists; (2) sports events such as soccer and
In Tamot and its surroundings, there are health volunteer activities participated in by young Muslims and Buddhists. Health volunteers called
Also, the
At the district level, community health centres have long been established, and some of them have been upgraded to hospitals where doctors are on duty only three days a week. Each community health centre coordinates the village health centre. The person in charge of serving the community at the village health centre is a nurse assisted by five to 10
This form of collaboration between young men and woman also includes sports, such as soccer and
Activities for social learning.
Number | Activities | Members | Objective | Social learning |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Medical volunteer | Muslim and Buddhist young men and women | Recording data on newborn children, giving immunisation injections, monitoring the condition of infants, collecting data on patients who have just finished treatment at the hospital, and reporting on them to nurses or doctors at the community health centre, maintaining the cleanliness of the village and providing counselling about clean living to the community. | Make friends, have an open mind, have a better understanding of others, appreciate differences, and preserve the agreed negotiation results. |
2 | Soccer and |
Muslim and Buddhist youth | Maintaining health and providing positive activities for youth. | Make friends, have an open mind, have a better understanding of others, appreciate differences. |
3 | Art performance | Youth and children | Commemorating national days, such as National Children’s Day, strengthening patriotism. | Make friends, have an open mind, have a better understanding of others, appreciate differences. |
Continuous meetings can increase the interest in mutual understanding among various diverse groups in a community. In a meeting, a person will tend to tell stories, engage in dialogue, convey ideas and views about something, perhaps about himself, his family, his career, and even his religion. Telling each other will reveal many things about what they like and what they do not like, what they admire and what they hate, so that they can increase their understanding of each other’s thoughts and feelings. This state of affairs can reduce prejudice (Banks
Percy-Smith (
A cultural negotiation process cannot just happen. Each party is certainly based on the existence of in-depth knowledge and experience of each identity. However, mutual understanding can be built. It is in line with the statement that knowledge is cumulative and thus is gained through a collective process. The many and varied experiences which, according to Bandura, are called vicarious experiences can be an amplifier and an important element assisting an individual to learn (Pierce & Bandura
Beside varied experiences, the next reinforcing element in learning is the previous success factor, which Bandura called performance accomplishment. In the context of the three cultural negotiation activities, it can be understood that their success in establishing a relationship the previous time made them happy and want to repeat the same experience. The success of negotiation as an experience for an individual is possibly influenced by advice, suggestions, or information received previously, which Bandura called verbal persuasion. Verbal persuasion includes suggestions, advice, warnings, or self-persuasion to explain incomprehensible things and make sense of them (positive thinking). The spirit of negotiating until it succeeds also becomes the actualisation of emotional arousal, which assists in controlling emotions to eliminate negative emotions, such as imagining unpleasant things before they actually happen. For example, they might imagine what would happen if they did not get along well and conflict occurred, and their children and grandchildren would grow up sad and threaten society with destruction.
According to Bandura, there are four reinforcing elements in social learning, namely: (1) vicarious experiences, (2) performance accomplishment, (3) verbal persuasion, and (4) emotional arousal. In his theory, Bandura did not explain in detail the characteristics of the environment which became the medium of learning and explained the four elements of reinforcement in social learning as already mentioned. In the context of a diverse community of religion, culture, and language, the four elements are not yet sufficient as a reinforcement of social learning, because the community has a uniqueness that is different from society in general. In the case of verbal persuasion, for example, an explanation can be added about the sources of values in social learning, such as: (1) moderate values derived from religious teachings, and (2) moderate values taught by the Kingdom. Meanwhile, emotional arousal can be added to the principles of life in overcoming conflicts, such as the existence of trust and win-win solutions.
The first meeting of Muslims and Buddhists took place when Muslims came to a place called Sindh, now located in Pakistan. They came to see Buddhist temples and monks. Muhammad ibn Qasin (a general of the Umayyad dynasty) was the first person to arrive there. He wrote to Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (an Umayyad governor): ‘What should I do with people who are not Muslim?’
The first thing Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf said was: ‘Treat them as Ahl Al-Kitab – people with the Book,’ referring to the Jews and Christians. The second instruction was: ‘Do not attack their monks,’ and the third was: ‘Do not destroy their temples.’ The fourth instruction was: ‘Collect jizyah from them.’ Jizyah is a per capita tax for non-Muslim free men as a compensation for protection and exemption from military service. This was how Muslims treated Buddhists, long before Westerners came to know Buddhism (Yusuf
Islam and Buddhism differ from one another in terms of doctrine, but both have existed in social relations with each other for centuries. Muslims and Buddhists have been involved in religious exchanges in their meetings in Central, South and Southeast Asia. Their initial meeting was followed in several cases by the conversion of Buddhists to Islam, as happened in Central and Southeast Asia. But there are also other areas where Buddhism and Islam have continued to coexist along the way, as has happened in India and also on Southeast Asia’s mainland, such as some regions in Thailand (Yusuf
The Buddhist expression of
The occurrence of harmony in the community which is motivated by religious reason was also carried out by Swasgita (
Negotiation of identity between religions in the context of nation requires basic values that can be the initial capital for the negotiation process, so that citizens do not hesitate in negotiating because they are protected by their country. Seeing the diversity of religions that are vulnerable to conflict in Thailand, the Kingdom has built three pillars of teaching that can support citizens to learn from each other and understand each other. The three pillars of teaching are intended to build a culture of harmony among citizens in Thailand, especially for employees or teachers who will be assigned to the southern region. They are: (1)
The royal values are intensely socialised community leaders and religious leaders so that they have a strong commitment, because they are generally asked by the community to become mediators or negotiators in solving problems that arise in society (
Supporting values of appreciating diversities taught by the Kingdom of Thailand.
Trust is the value of believing and being reliable. Trust often appears in economic research terms which examine the role of trust in various economic successes. More research also examines the role of trust in mutual relations, which creates harmony in sociocultural life (Hoorn
In this definition, trust contains the concepts of hope, affecting relationships, cooperation, and being supportive. It means that trust is a relationship of mutual support and cooperation towards a common goal. Suwindia’s research (
Another study conducted by Boehnke and Rippl (
The results of Boehnke and Rippl’s research above can explain further why Tamot people can live in harmony and cooperate with each other, because they feel united by the common ancestor and the spirit to advance their community. In the context of social learning, trust becomes a good reinforcing element in diverse communities, because the cooperative relations that are established break the boundaries of differences, so that efforts to understand each other’s identities are increasingly open. Openness because of trust can also support the exchange of information, whether about health, agriculture, farming, plantations or education, or other matters. Trust also makes people feel comfortable in various meetings because there are no worries that they will be hurt or hurt others.
In the process of interaction among humans, there is often a condition of imbalance or disharmony between the two parties, especially in daily life, as a result of the complexity of life. The condition of disharmony can be natural because of different characteristics of each person, although sometimes there are also parties trying to create a bad atmosphere which disturbs harmony (Tremblay et al.
In solving problems, one can use a win-win solution approach, where no party is harmed. The win-lose approach will often result in a lose-lose solution, which means all parties encounter destruction. So, a win-win solution is a frame of mind and heart that always strives to gain or encourage mutual benefit in every human interaction. A win-win solution means a solution that is profitable and satisfies all parties. With a win-win solution, all parties feel good about the decision. Win-win sees life as an arena not of competition but of cooperation (Sobarna
According to Martin Buber, one of the existentialist philosophers, the win-win solution approach criticises approaches to problem solving between nations that oppose East-West countries, and he refers to this pattern of relations as an ‘I-it relationship’ (Kramer & Gawlick
From this philosophical foundation, Covey (
In the context of social learning, a win-win solution is also important as a model of problem solving that can be imitated by the young generation as well as supporting a comfortable and peaceful environment. This is very important in the context of a multicultural society in order to avoid conflicts. To achieve a win-win situation, negotiation often requires a third party, called a mediator. Both parties who have problems and the mediators are required to have a strong attitude of self-control, and not be easily carried by the flow of disappointment, sadness, compassion, and anger of other people or parties. Problem solving can also be effective if the element of self-control is put forward by all parties. The element of self-control is also important as an amplifier in social learning which Bandura calls emotional arousal, which means controlling emotions to eliminate negative emotions, such as imagining unpleasant things before they actually occur. As before, imagine if people did not get along well and conflicts occurred; their children would bear sadness on their shoulders and threaten destruction.
In this research, we have successfully identified several ways of solving problems with a win-win solution, including: (1) the problem of a shared burial place, (2) the problem of joint prayer, so that there is no one-sided ownership claim of the burial place, (3) the problem of making halal food for Muslims, (4) the problem of Islamic prayer around the temple, and (5) the problem of dogs in Muslim settlement, among other matters.
Thus, it has been analysed that there are four elements of strengthening social learning in diverse societies, in terms of religion, ethnicity and language, namely: (1) moderate values derived from the teachings of the Islamic
Cultural negotiation, social learning, and reinforcement elements in multireligious society.
The description of the community which has a building construction of tolerance and harmony of locality can be seen in the ‘Two Religion Community Life’ region of Phattalung province, Thailand. The harmony was built by cultural negotiations that have been happening continuously for decades. A community that takes the path of peace and living in harmony with mutual trust and overcomes the problem in a win-win solution can be a medium of social learning from generation to generation. In Muslim and Buddhist communities, there are religious values that try to bridge the differences, namely in the teachings of the Islamic
This article was compiled due to the good assistance of and cooperation with the Research and Community Service office (LPPM) UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta in the scheme of Postdoctoral Research Program UIN Sunan Kalijaga 2017. I would like to thank Prof. K.H. Yudian Wahyudi, MA, PhD as the Rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga and Prof. Al Makin, MA, PhD as chairman of LPPM UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta.
The authors have declared that no competing interest exist.
All authors contributed equally to this work.
This article followed all ethical standards for a research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
This research received a grant from The Research and Community Service (LPPM), UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.