We recently came across this interesting blog commentary, left as a response to various articles in Thailand and Reuters by user Jezz, commenting on the ethnic aspect of the political crisis.

What this latest act of war fails to address is what everyone knows but is either too frightened to say or admit – that most of the current issues are a legacy of Thailand’s ethnic history and colonial expansion and incorporation of subjugated peoples. One of common myths I hear from Bangkok Thais is about ‘dialects’ spoken outside of Bangkok. Anthropologists concur that the Lao spoken in Isan is a mix of dialects from Laos itself, and its predominance in that region is a result of Thailand’s incorporation of Lao territory in the last few hundred years. Until the French arrived Laos was a colony of the Thai Kingdom and the Korat plateau was Laotian territory prior to that. As most anthropologists agree, it would be more correct to describe Thai as a dialect of Lao. Of course this is offensive to the ‘dominant’ ethnic Thais – one of the root causes of the ills of the country – and the basis of the ‘Thaiification’ government programs of the 1930s. It follows that as the people of the Korat plateau and the other side of the Mekong were forcibly incorporated into the kingdom between 200 and 100 years ago they are considered ‘subjects’ of the Thai.