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Paper cranes being folded across the country as a gesture of goodwill and peace have no meaning for Muslims in the restive deep South, prominent Muslim leaders say.
Abdullahman Abdulsamad, chairman of the Narathiwat Islamic Committee, said the 62 million paper cranes the prime minister plans to air-drop over Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat will end up as piles of meaningless litter.
Although the trouble people of other faiths are taking to make them as an expression of goodwill and compassion was appreciated, Muslims had no idea what the cranes stood for.
"To us Muslims it means nothing of great significance,'' Mr Abdullahman said.
"Bluntly put, the folding of paper cranes is just a tactic to whip up hype and it presents no solution to the violence.''
The government should enlist help in other areas to address the concern for the welfare of southern people.
In particular, it ought to provide better protection for those whose lives were at risk from the instability, Mr Abdullahman said.
Niedir Waba, chairman of the association of private Islamic schools in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, said the belief that folding the cranes would return peace to the deep South lacked substance. It was irrational, he said.
Islamic teachings have always been against subscribing to beliefs that did not answer to rationale.
To restore peace in the South, Muslims would recite the Hayad prayer to Allah, he said.
Mr Niedir said southern Muslims did not know the meaning of the paper cranes and could not care less about them.
"It's something foreign to us,'' he said.
People of other religions may be convinced the idea would tame the violence but it may well deliver the opposite, Mr Niedir said.
The cranes could be a ticking time bomb because the Muslims could well be irritated by the gesture, viewing it as irrational and therefore un-Islamic.
He was opposed to attempts to get students in Islamic schools near the border to make the cranes.
Up to 60,000 Muslims were expected to join a mass Hayad prayer for peace and show a common stand on the Tak Bai issue, he said.
No date had been fixed.
Abdullahmae Jehsae, chairman of the Yala Islamic Committee, said the crane folding was politically driven. People nationwide were free to offer goodwill to southerners, but the cranes were unfamiliar to the Muslims. He insisted the authorities must clean up afterward.
He said Their Majesties' recent addresses on the southern mayhem had helped ease the tension.
Mr Niedir urged the security forces not to use force to deal with the unrest and suggested that officials appointed to the South have an understanding of Islam.
Meanwhile, monks and novices in Wat Makrud in Koke Pho district of Pattani have begun a crane-folding frenzy to highlight the message for peace.
Abbot Navakan Sophon said the cranes may not solve the problem, but at least they would convey to southern people the best wishes of people from around the country.
The abbot conceded local residnets had mixed opinions about the birds.
Some Buddhists were put off by the prospect of all the paper litter and were disillusioned that people were still being killed despite the goodwill gesture.
