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Almost all
representations
of Thailand
refer to it as
Buddhist. The
majority of its
citizens
identify
themselves as
practitioners of
Theravada
Buddhism,
although a
history of
sectarian
disputes within
this strand of
Buddhism has
also provided an
idiom for
regional
political
movements.
Today, the
status of
religion is
changing.
Debates about
the
constitutional
formalization of
the national
status as a
Buddhist polity
have recently
emerged, largely
in response to
contemporary
sociopolitical
conflict in the
southern border
region.
The complex
status of the
monarchy's
relationship to
constitutionality,
and the
enshrinement of
religion (sasana)
as that to which
all citizens are
obliged, is,
moreover, being
re-conceptualized
at a time when
older movements
of a national
liberationist
sort are being
refigured as
religious
struggles. To
understand these
developments and
their
implications for
the future of
Thailand and
mainland
Southeast Asian
relations, this
paper asks what
it means to
speak of
religion in
Thailand today,
and traces
Thailand's
changing
position in the
post 9/11 world
in pursue of an
answer.
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