From Multicultural Trust to Cooperation for Sustainable Development

 26 พ.ค. 2565 12:19 น. | อ่าน 4468
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In the event that any society, whether it is a small society like family or larger society, has no trust, suspicion will subsequently be occurred. In this situation, there must be no happiness in such society.

To change any society that is full with suspicion without trust among people to be the society that is full with trust and happiness for normal and happy living, it is necessary to use any method to establish or rebuild “trust” and foster “trust” as well as use “trust” as the foundation to enhance sustainable development and peace of such society.

In southern border provinces, there is an example society or community that could rebuild “trust” until it was called by King Prajadhipok’s Institute as “The Community of Excellence on Peace Building”. This example community is a community in Ta Sab Sub-District, Muang District, Yala Province.

Formation of Distrustfulness

After explosion of violence in southern border provinces in 2004, there have been many negative effects and these negative effects have been spread to local areas in other areas of southern border provinces. One of affected communities is a community in Ta Sab Sub-District, Yala Province.

Such situation as mentioned above leads to suspicion among local people with different religions in the community, for example, a Buddhist village in Ta Sab Sub-District, built a fence to prevent intrusion of outsiders with strict guarding at night time.

Mr. Masadee Hayeepee, the Mayor of Ta Sab Sub-District, told about the situation at that moment that "Each family stayed inside their house at night and no one dared to meet other persons. It was full with suspicion, silence, and gloomy atmosphere covering all areas of this sub-district that was different from the previous time when everyone could talk to one another like family members."

The most challenging question to turn crisis as opportunity is “How to rebuild trust to be in normal condition.”

Trust Rebuilding Process

The starting point to turn crisis into opportunity is “leader” and “solution of leader.”

Mr. Masadee Hayeepee, as the Mayor of Ta Sab Sub-District, initiated solution to solve       such problem by using the most basic method, i.e., discussion and consulting to reduce suspicion/ distrustfulness. When suspicion/distrustfulness is reduced, the outcome is “trust/reliability” of local people. This process is subsequently called as “Ta Sab Model”

Ta Sab Model was originated from inviting some elderly person to drink coffee in the morning informally as they used to do. It was started from a small group before expanding to other coffee shops in other villages.

After a period of time, suspicion was slightly reduced before being developed/expanded by holding some activities at night at the school. These activities were multicultural activities, for example, di-Hula and bilingual shadow play (Thai/Malay or Jawi). From night activities, they were developed as annual activities and the results obtained from these multicultural activities helped to reduce suspicion significantly.

When trust among local people who were Buddhists and Muslims could be rebuilt, the next process was further development in other dimensions, for example, community development through triple entente connection with government, private, and civil society sectors under participation of local people and seniors. When this process had been repeated regularly, children or juveniles would be able to see the picture of trust/reliability in community level to provincial level making people could live together happily.

From Trust to Sustainable Development Based on Cultural Richness

Ta Sab Sub-District in Yala Province is considered as an area with cultural richness because this area was the connected area between western and eastern trading over 200 years ago, i.e., merchants, travelers, and adventurers from both sides of the world travelled to this area causing combination of culture, religions, arts, and so on.

Therefore, when trust was rebuilt through “Ta Sab Model”, development based on cultural capital in the area was concretely occurred through various forms of triple entente activities including modeling of botanic learning sources of community, modeling correct Islamic teachings, Ta Sab History Learning Center, Senior Schools, health groups, community enterprises supporting grassroots economy, for example, processed coconut shells group, goat milk group, biogas model development group, and local wisdom weekend market for inheriting local culture, etc.

Any development that is occurred in any society must be started from “trust” of people in such society. Strong trust will lead to “cooperation” to utilize existing cultural capital to provide happiness to people in such society. The empirical example that can confirm this effectiveness is “Ta Sab Model” that can be applied to every area in southern border provinces or even other communities throughout Thailand.

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