Thai MP Visits Malay Scholar to Boost Southern Border Peace
Police Colonel Thawi Saet-song visited Malay language scholar Ustaz Ma Dawo in Pattani’s Yarang district to discuss preserving the Malay language and Jawi script. He praised the scholar’s lifelong work protecting linguistic heritage as vital to southern border peace. The scholar thanked him and announced his forthcoming book on Malay Jawi script as Pattani heritage.
On 17 October 2069, Police Colonel Thawi Saet-song, a party-list MP and leader of the Prachachat Party, visited Yarang Subdistrict in Yarang District, Pattani Province, accompanied by party officials. He met with Ustaz Ma Dawo, formerly editor of the Malay magazine Fajar and a leading figure of the Pattani Writers Association, to discuss revitalizing the Malay language and the Jawi script in the southern border provinces. Thawi praised Ma Dawo as a great contributor to Malay society, a local sage who has devoted his life to safeguarding linguistic and intellectual heritage. Ma Dawo expressed gratitude, noting that Thawi’s team has never abandoned cultural workers in the area, and revealed that his forthcoming book titled “Malay Language Jawi Script as Pattani Heritage” is nearing publication. He also recalled a lesson from past peace talks, quoting BRN leader Hassan Toyib’s insistence that language must never be abandoned, underscoring that language is dignity, spirit, and the heart of sustainable understanding and justice in the deep south.
