[untostaronaf]

Drugs fuel descent into hopelessness in far South

Rofiah used to believe her traditional village in the far South was the best and safest place for her sons to grow up as good Muslims. Not anymore.

"Drugs are everywhere," she says, her voice full of worry. "It's the biggest problem not only in our village, but in all the surrounding communities.

"There's only one way to save my sons. I must send them away to live and study outside the region."

Ask any mother in the Muslim-dominated deep South about their main concerns, and their replies will not be about the deadly ambushes, the bombings, or the drive-by shootings.

"It's about drugs. It's about our children," says Rofiah, with a deep sigh.

Eight years of southern violence and military occupation have taken a heavy toll on male Muslim youths who are growing up surrounded by fear and frustrations, and with no apparent future.

At a young age their days are occupied from early morning to late at night with having to attend both religious and regular schools. But they soon hit a brick wall when they grow up.

Unemployment is high because of the insurgency and also because their religious education makes them uncompetitive in the mainstream job market, according to many employers.

Even when local Muslims are equipped with the required job skills, they can only get low-level positions. In the current centralised administrative system, the bosses are almost always Buddhist outsiders.

Meanwhile, nature is no longer an economic refuge or place of escape. Once abundant fish stocks in the seas have been depleted by trawlers, industrial waste and environmentally destructive prawn and cockle farms.

Once close-knit families also fall apart when fishermen fathers must leave home to work elsewhere or worse, when the fathers are arrested by security forces, or killed in the protracted southern violence, thus forcing mothers to struggle on their own to feed the kids.

Fuelled by the generation gap and teenage angst, the boys look around and see no hope, only resentment and frustration at seeing their Muslim brethren violently abused and oppressed by the Buddhist authorities.

Feeling alienated and angry, many become sympathisers of the insurgency movement. Others choose to drown their gloom and sorrow in drugs, which make them pawns of drug gangs who lure them into committing acts of violence for money or in exchange for drugs. Many do both.

In some communities, the number of drug addicts stands at 70-80%.

"It's when drug addicts are also drug pushers," says Rofiah. "It's when not only boys with family problems are at risk, but also those from normal homes due to peer pressure.

"This is the most painful suffering mothers have to bear _ to see our children's future destroyed right before our eyes."

It is easy to spot young drug addicts in her community, she says. "They're unkempt. They're lazy. They do not observe the daily lamad prayers or go to the mosques. They're loafing around in groups. And they're everywhere in the communities.

Other problems also arise. Theft has become all too common. Families are also put under strain when a member is a drug addict. Domestic violence often follows.

When the male youths become bums, the local Muslim girls start looking elsewhere _ often at clean-cut soldiers in smart uniforms, and despite community frowns at cross-cultural relationships.

When it is time for the soldiers to leave, the girls are ditched, or they elope together. The parents' hearts are broken. The fury of local boys is fanned, particularly when rape is involved, resulting in many violent attacks on soldiers in revenge.

Even in sincere relationships, marriage does not guarantee a happy ending. The insurgents view such marriages as part of state political and cultural oppression, so they look to kill the husbands. They often succeed.

The hopelessness among youths, the drug problem, the violence _ these are mere symptoms of a larger problem of ethnic discrimination and political centralisation.

And as long as the insurgents and the government cannot sit down and talk sense, home will be too dangerous a place for Rofiah to allow her kids to stay. When terrorism gets out of hand, Bangkok mothers, too, will soon live Rofiah's pain.