Question!
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dfemc
sarNie Adult
because national superiority is one element to creating a nation-state/national identity. by providing condenscencion, it creates a sense of personal pride that allows the ppl to rally around.Hiatus said:
ethnic conflicts is something that exists all over the world. blah blah...u know the usual B.S. get into anthropological arguments about humans having been this way blah blah, or the biological perspecpective of teh in group and teh out group, or a historical perspective of colonialism and how it disrupted teh social fabric (of the mandala system already in place), blah blah...ah so dayam much; shoot just depends on which angle u want to take this? what is ur orals on? Southeast Asian history? doesn't ur research provide? hmm...if ur taking the orals, u should be the one to provide us with insights from ur findings... :unsure:
good luck...hope it all goes well. and look forward to learning more.
marduk
Sarnie Clown!
Umm...I don't know if you got all of what dfemc said, but I'll pull out some of what she said and make it a little more concrete. By the way, this is what I believe and it is also by no means complete.
First off, I don't think the thais hate the laos. I do think they definitely look down on them, but they don't hate them.
If you want to look at it through an anthropological point of view, I really don't see why there should be much tension between the two. Now this might make a lot of nationalist thais and laos mad at me, but I believe they are essentially the same people. Their written language both evolved from sanskit and indian writing while their spoken language are both monosyllabic tonal languages believed to have originated from the area between Vietnam and China. If you look at it from that view, then they might have originally been part of the same tribe at one point and eventually just came to separate through history.
Culturally, they are similar too. Their food might be a little different but I think that's a result of regional differences and availability of resources.
So why exactly would the thais look down on the laotians? It's difficult to say, but I think the regional advantages play a huge role. From the moment they both established themselves as two different people (with the differences in their languages and where they live), there is a lot of mistrust between the two. The thais got the better end of the deal in securing the land for their country. They have access to the ocean and the way the Mekong flows through their country provides a good way for them to farm. Thus, economically, they have a huge advantage. Because of this, I think the thais always believed they were somewhat better. It didn't help either that Thailand was the only country in Southeast Asia to not be colonized. A good amount of Laos used to be part of Thailand and Thailand gave it away to the french in order to avoid being colonized. So at that point, they separated themselves historically from Laos. So just from that, there's this feeling of superiority associated with the thais thinking "hey, we weren't colonized but you were. instead of being subjects of france, we were their "friends." therefore, we must be better than you." This further increase the gap between the two economically and culturally.
The final "nail on the coffin", I believe, is what transpired during the late 70s and early 80s. Laos, not being as ecomically well off as Thailand nor having a good relationship with the US, decided to embrace communism (there are numerous other reasons too). That provided the final difference between the two country. As a result, Thailand became a base for US operations against Laos. This increased the tension between the two. With the fall of communism, I believe there's a feeling within the thai people of having made the right choice by not going communist along with almost the rest of Southeast Asia. This gives them a bigger feeling of superiority. After all, they didn't suffer a castrophe like having their country separated (like Vietnam), suffering genocide (the Khmers), or just outright economic suffering (Burma and Laos). When we've reached the present, you can see that Thailand (relatively speaking), emerged pretty much unscathed through all the problems that their neighbors went through. Thus, you can see that if you were in that position, you'd probably have a superiority complex too.
Now, before all you thais go hooting and hollering and getting mad at me for what I wrote, I just want to say that I'm thai too. My grandfather was one of those who were sent ot Laos to run and "control" the country. I think I understand their feeling of superiority.
And finally, there's this phrase in Thai that I think sums up their feelings on Laos. The phrase doesn't apply to just the relationship and it goes like this (roughly translated) - "if you hang out with good people, you'll rise along with them. if you hang out with bad people, you'll go down with them." I think that's what the thais believe. If they were too much of a good friend to Laos, then they might go down with them. It's better for them to hang out with the big boys like the US and China.
First off, I don't think the thais hate the laos. I do think they definitely look down on them, but they don't hate them.
If you want to look at it through an anthropological point of view, I really don't see why there should be much tension between the two. Now this might make a lot of nationalist thais and laos mad at me, but I believe they are essentially the same people. Their written language both evolved from sanskit and indian writing while their spoken language are both monosyllabic tonal languages believed to have originated from the area between Vietnam and China. If you look at it from that view, then they might have originally been part of the same tribe at one point and eventually just came to separate through history.
Culturally, they are similar too. Their food might be a little different but I think that's a result of regional differences and availability of resources.
So why exactly would the thais look down on the laotians? It's difficult to say, but I think the regional advantages play a huge role. From the moment they both established themselves as two different people (with the differences in their languages and where they live), there is a lot of mistrust between the two. The thais got the better end of the deal in securing the land for their country. They have access to the ocean and the way the Mekong flows through their country provides a good way for them to farm. Thus, economically, they have a huge advantage. Because of this, I think the thais always believed they were somewhat better. It didn't help either that Thailand was the only country in Southeast Asia to not be colonized. A good amount of Laos used to be part of Thailand and Thailand gave it away to the french in order to avoid being colonized. So at that point, they separated themselves historically from Laos. So just from that, there's this feeling of superiority associated with the thais thinking "hey, we weren't colonized but you were. instead of being subjects of france, we were their "friends." therefore, we must be better than you." This further increase the gap between the two economically and culturally.
The final "nail on the coffin", I believe, is what transpired during the late 70s and early 80s. Laos, not being as ecomically well off as Thailand nor having a good relationship with the US, decided to embrace communism (there are numerous other reasons too). That provided the final difference between the two country. As a result, Thailand became a base for US operations against Laos. This increased the tension between the two. With the fall of communism, I believe there's a feeling within the thai people of having made the right choice by not going communist along with almost the rest of Southeast Asia. This gives them a bigger feeling of superiority. After all, they didn't suffer a castrophe like having their country separated (like Vietnam), suffering genocide (the Khmers), or just outright economic suffering (Burma and Laos). When we've reached the present, you can see that Thailand (relatively speaking), emerged pretty much unscathed through all the problems that their neighbors went through. Thus, you can see that if you were in that position, you'd probably have a superiority complex too.
Now, before all you thais go hooting and hollering and getting mad at me for what I wrote, I just want to say that I'm thai too. My grandfather was one of those who were sent ot Laos to run and "control" the country. I think I understand their feeling of superiority.
And finally, there's this phrase in Thai that I think sums up their feelings on Laos. The phrase doesn't apply to just the relationship and it goes like this (roughly translated) - "if you hang out with good people, you'll rise along with them. if you hang out with bad people, you'll go down with them." I think that's what the thais believe. If they were too much of a good friend to Laos, then they might go down with them. It's better for them to hang out with the big boys like the US and China.