Thai Buddhists: Civilians or Scapegoats?

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/14/thailand-insurgents-should-cease-attacks-civilians

Civilian is defined as a person who is not active in the armed forces or police; a person who pursues a civil life; a person who is not responsible and cannot be involved in any political or social conflict.

However, somehow civilians are always the ones who are affected the most in armed conflicts. Some people just don’t seem to understand the simple concept of who a civilian is.

One textbook example of such people is the Malay Muslims insurgents.

I am referring to the situation in Thailand that is quite simple. Civilians in Thailand, the Thai Buddhists, are paying the price of hatred between the Buddhist authorities and Malay Muslims insurgents.

The insurgents wish to discredit the Thai Buddhist authorities and take over control. Initially, their main targets were just military camps, but having seen their failure of this strategy, they decided take out their hatred on the innocent civilians.

Coercion is nothing new to us. Its been used as a tactic by every radical group in history. However, Malay Muslim insurgents took it to a whole new level when they decided to kill teachers in front of 3-4 years old children, scaring the future of Thailand.

There is simply no justification for shooting civilians at point blank range with assault rifles!

The insurgents defend their horrendous actions under the name of Islamic law, which is what every other Islamic militant group does. I still believe that Islam is being interpreted in the wrong way because no religion, no God approves of such brutal measures.

I, just like most of us, cannot even imagine what a Thai Buddhist civilian must be going through at this current moment because I have never lived my life under the constant threat of being shot. Neither can we sympathize with those civilians because if we had faced such situations ourselves, we wouldn’t be just sitting on our laptops and writing blogs that make no difference!  

So, are those Thai Buddhists civilians or are they mere scapegoats of the war between two ethnic groups? Honestly, it doesn’t matter to us! It might be hard for some of us to realize but whether buddhists civilians suffer or no, we are going to treat the situation in Thailand in the same way, by doing nothing about it.