Xenophobia has no place in Thailand

Like a recurring epileptic fit, xenophobic anti-Burmese outbursts recently struck again. Illegal migrant workers were rounded up prior to recent international meetings, and former pro-democracy Burmese student activists in Thailand ended up on the receiving end of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's wrath.

Historical enmity, threats to national security, the supposed "ungratefulness" of the Burmese people - all these old canards are cited whenever a crackdown is launched.

So what are the options of sensible Thai people who value good neighborly relations with the Burmese people? Can ordinary Thais do anything to patch the rift?

There are a few good reasons why Thais, especially the civil society, should make an effort to amend past mistakes and current mistrust.

First, the public should be more caring towards migrant laborers, legal or otherwise, as well as former student activists who are seeking refuge in Thailand. There are surely bad people amongst them, just as there are surely bad people amongst Thais, but that doesn't make all of them evil.

The fact is, many irregular migrant laborers from Burma, usually referred to as illegal migrant laborers, are routinely exploited by different parties. Unscrupulous employers treat them as slave labor. Corrupt police extort money from them. And the public simply turns a blind eye - some saying they deserve it for what Burma did to Siam more than 100 years ago.

Many of the 300,000 or so Burmese laborers who are registered to work here have their registration cards withheld by their employer, on top of having registration fees deducted from their meager pay. It's not uncommon for migrant construction workers to be told they will be paid at the end of month - only to face immigration police rounding them up instead. It's a form of cynical "cost-cutting" that appeals to profit-minded employers.

That's just the general brushstroke of injustice. It doesn't include individual examples of cruel treatment, such as the case of Ma Suu, an 18-year-old ethnic Mon maid who was beaten, burnt and left for dead. Ma Suu said she was accused of stealing but the person she said had employed her denied even knowing her. Ma Suu eventually succumbed to her wounds and died saying she hoped that her next life wouldn't end up like this one.

There's no reason why these people deserve to be treated badly, especially when Thais expect foreigners to treat their own laborers abroad decently, whether in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan or Japan.

It's questionable whether the ethnic minorities who make their way here are descendants of the people who sacked Ayutthaya twice and burnt it to the ground. Some, in fact, themselves fought the conquering armies. Yet many relish their plight now, saying it's what they deserve for those long-ago wars. These people risk becoming slaves to history rather than its students. When this occurs, as it seems to be doing in Thailand at the moment, hatred simply begets more hatred.

What's more, most irregular migrant workers are engaged in so-called 3D jobs that most Thais are no longer willing to take. These jobs, which include processing fish on trawlers, factory work and agricultural labor are either dirty, dangerous, or demeaning - or all of the above.

This, labor experts say, constitutes the reality of the global market. Such jobs will need doing for the foreseeable future, and not by those clamoring loudest for those doing them to disappear.

Despite the fact that they're generally referred to as "illegal", it doesn't make migrant workers "criminals". The real criminals are exploitative employers, human trafficking rings and corrupt police officers, who systematically extort money from the trade in migrant labor. Using migrant labor and rebel students as scapegoats only serves to blind the public from seeing the structure of exploitation that is such a part of Thai society.

Many Thais genuinely fear what will become of these workers and their children once they've secured their place in the country. Will they have a sense of loyalty to Thailand? There's no easy answer but it is important to remember that Thailand has long been a nation of multi-ethnicity and migrating populations.

Those who truly believe Thailand would be better off without large numbers of migrant workers and dissident students should realize that the best way to accomplish this is for Thais to support the democratization of Burma.

Sadly, it's possible history will say that we let our neighbors down in their time of need on two fronts - both ignoring their plight in their own country and turning them away when they beg for refuge in ours.

If such a climate of hatred and indifference continues, Burmese history texts written sometime in the near future may read like this: "For decades after the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi, dissidents and workers fled to Thailand. However, neither the government nor public did very much to help them. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers were exploited in near slavery conditions. Such remembered injustices do little to improve current Thai-Burmese relations, which have been shaky since democracy was finally restored in Burma."