The greater part of the academic scholarship and media commentary on the violence that has afflicted southern Thailand since 2004 — currently the most serious such conflict in Southeast Asia with over 5,000 people killed since the conflict began — has focused on the role played by Islam in the conflict. Indeed, within the context of the United States' prosecution of a global ‘war on terror’ since 2001 the violence has been categorised as one of a number of ‘Islamic conflicts’ that afflict various regions of the world. But as Michael Jerryson points out in this important and provocative study, the conflict in southern Thailand is just as much a ‘Buddhist conflict’ as an Islamic one. This book has three aims: first, to focus on the role that Buddhism has played in the violence in southern Thailand; second, to highlight the dearth of studies of the relationship between Buddhism and violence; and third and more broadly, to critique the scholarship based on idealised Buddhist traditions, as opposed to studying how Buddhism is actually lived out by people in concrete social contexts.

The study is based on periods of fieldwork conducted by Jerryson in the southern Thai border provinces during the height of the conflict in 2004, 2006, and 2008. He spent a considerable period of time living in Buddhist temples (wat) in Pattani province, where he observed the daily Buddhist rituals of both the monks and laity and conducted interviews with temple abbots, monks, Buddhist lay people, and military personnel. The data Jerryson gained as a result of this fieldwork has been used to paint a highly disturbing picture of the implication of Buddhism in the violence in the south.

The book is divided into five chapters: ‘Histories’ describes the erasure of the history of the Patani Malay Muslims from Thai nationalist history as it is taught in the schools and universities, and how the dominant nationalist narrative serves to ‘polarize and intensify ethno-religious relations’ (p. 48); ‘Representation’ argues that the Buddhist monks in the south have become politicised to the extent that they have become symbols of the Thai nation-state; ‘Practice’ describes how the deterioration of security conditions in the south and the sense of beleaguerment felt by the Buddhist community has drastically affected the everyday practice of Buddhist monks (for example, abbots and monks habitually carry guns to protect themselves, technically in violation of the code of monastic conduct, the Vinaya); ‘Militarisation’ describes the arming of Buddhist monks and temples; while the final chapter, ‘Identity’, argues that Buddhism has been a central element within a racialised conception of Thai national identity that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under the auspices of the absolute monarchy. In this Buddhist conception of the Thai nation there is, in reality, no place for Malay Muslims.

The most controversial chapter of the book, and the one that is likely to cause most discussion, is chapter four, ‘Militarisation’. The chapter looks at how Buddhist monks and Buddhist temples play an active, rather than a simply defensive, role in the conflict. Many wat in the southern border provinces have been transformed into virtual military compounds, complete with fortifications and the permanent stationing of soldiers and police inside the temple grounds. Some temples act as military headquarters and centres of military intelligence, where army officers and monks exchange information. Worst of all, some wat, including the famous Wat Chang Hai in Pattani province, have become centres for the detainment, interrogation and torture of suspected Muslim militants. But perhaps the most controversial finding of Jerryson's research into the militarisation of Buddhism in southern Thailand is the existence of thahan phra, or ‘military monks’: soldiers who have been ordained as monks but who remain on active duty as ‘armed soldiers, marines, navy or air force personnel’ (p. 116). According to Jerryson, military monks are covertly organised by an ‘independent department’ and operate ‘semi-independently’ of the military (p. 118). The existence of such military monks is shrouded in secrecy. The national religious authorities refuse to acknowledge their existence and abbots, journalists, and the laity are reluctant to speak about them. The acute sensitivity is no doubt due to the fact that ordaining active military personnel as monks is a serious contravention of the monastic code. But another reason for the secrecy is the reports that suggest the direct involvement of Queen Sirikit in the organisation of the military monks. The Queen's concern about violence against the Buddhist community in the south is, however, no secret. The Queen has also been active in helping to organise an armed militia of Buddhist laity, the ‘Village Protection Volunteer Project (Or Ror Bor). The militia receives training at the royal family's Taksin Ratchanives Palace in Narathiwat province before being armed and sent on assignment to protect temples or Buddhist communities. The militarisation of temples and monks underscores the close association between Thai Buddhism and the state — and its most powerful constituent components, the monarchy and the military.

This is a darkly disturbing and depressing book. Yet it will have a beneficial impact on scholarship about the conflict in the south if it encourages scholars to shift the emphasis in explaining the conflict as due to the tired stereotype of ‘radical Islam’ to analyse the close nexus between Thai Buddhism and the state, and the implications that this nexus has on the ongoing violence in southern Thailand.