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According to this article, Muslims and Buddhists in Thailand’s troubled south have been sharing a “passion for football.”
This has fostered an “elusive peace” between the two groups after years of bloodshed. Since
2004, there have been approximately 5,000 lives lost in the “near-daily bomb or gun attacks against both Buddhists and Muslims.”
Just last month, Newsweek Magazine ran an article subtitled: A deadly Thai insurgency has Buddhists scramblingfor guns. This insurgency, reportedly led by “ethnic Malay Muslims,” rallies around the belief that the three southernmost provinces that border Malaysia (and have a Muslim majority) should be “independent of Thailand, where more than 90 percent of the rest of the population is Buddhist.”
Wikipedia states that out of Thailand’s entire population of 64 million, approximately 94% is Buddhist and 5% Muslim.
The remaining 1% includes Christian (mainly Catholic), Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, Confucian, Taoist, and Animist adherents. Although Thai law generally provides for freedom of religion, the activities of certain groups are restricted. A 2006 “bloodless
coup d’etat” resulted in a repeal of the 1997 constitution which had “required that the monarch be a Buddhist.”
Although the repealed 1997 constitution had also required the state to “promote good understanding and harmony among followers of all religions,” it seems that football is now helping to accomplish what government alone could not.
Resources
http://news.yahoo.com/football-bridges-religious-divide-thai-south-084209205.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Seau
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/15/thailand-s-buddhists-take-up-arms-against-insurgency.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Thailand
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