No Place For Muslims In Burma’s Democracy Even as the Myanmarese are busy coming to terms with democracy, the party in power is using anti-Muslim sentiments to create a vote bank BY AVALOK LANGER IN CURRENT AFFAIRS No place for Muslims in Burma’s democracy “Myanmar is a Buddhist country. The Buddhists come first and both the Christians and Muslims in our country must get used to this.” This statement from a Burmese businessman-cum-civil rights activist took me by surprise. From the picturesque view of downtown Yangon provided by the rooftop restaurant we sat in, I found myself mentally transported two weeks back in time and into a traffic jam. “Aung San Suu Kyi is wrong. She is obsessed with human rights, but some people don’t deserve human rights. Muslims are behind terrorist attacks around the world. They come into our country, marry our women and convert them, but we are not allowed to marry their girls. Why do they never convert to Buddhism?” asked a taxi driver, who was trying to explain to me the “logic” behind his anti-Muslim stance. Both men — educated, extensively travelled (the taxi driver was also in the merchant navy) and representing two different strata of Burmese society — told me with equal passion that Muslims do not have a place in the new Myanmar. Their words reveal a Buddhist nationalist mindset that has manifested itself in violence against Rohingya Muslims. This mindset has led to brutality of the kind witnessed on 1 October when Buddhist mobs killed a 94-year-old Muslim woman and torched more than 70 homes in Rakhine state. In the Arakan state in west Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh, thousands have been displaced and hundreds killed in waves of violence against the Rohingya Muslims. International NGO Human Rights Watch has called it “ethnic cleansing”, with the administration often turning a blind eye to the violence. The impact has also been felt in India, with a spate of Rohingya refugees reaching the country from Arakan. (Also, last year, images of violence against Rohingyas in Myanmar were misused to depict violence against Muslims in Assam, leading to an exodus of people from Northeast India living in Bengaluru, fearing a backlash.) Buddhists comprise 80 percent of Myanmar’s population, while the Muslims make up 4 percent (2.4 million). There has always been a latent resentment among the Buddhists against the Muslims, and this has also influenced the legal edifice of the Burmese state. Rohingya Muslims have been excluded from the 1982 Citizenship Law, which defines the criteria for being a Burmese citizen and lists the ethnic groups that are eligible for citizenship. Speaking to a group of Burmese civil society activists, I learnt that several laws have been enacted over the years to ensure that the Muslims remain on the back foot. For example, limitations were imposed on the observance of Islamic religious festivals like Eid. Muslims had to seek permission from the local authority and pay a hefty tax before doing any animal sacrifice. There was also a cap on the number of marriages permitted within the Muslim community in a given period of time, forcing many to go to Bangladesh to get married. On returning, they would find that they had lost their household registration and would need to re-establish themselves. Another law banned the Muslims from having more than two children. I was told that these restrictions were initially meant only for the Rohingyas, but were gradually extended to all Muslims in Arakan state. Moreover, to change the demography of Muslim-majority areas, the government tried to bring in Buddhists from other parts of the country, and also from Bangladesh, to settle there. Today, the ‘969 Movement’ under the leadership of Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu is strongly pushing an anti-Muslim agenda. (969 is a Buddhist symbol seen as a counter to the Islamic 786, an auspicious numeral.) Referring to Muslims, Wirathu had reportedly said, “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog… If we are weak, our land will become Muslim.” Buddhist monks have been carrying out a signature campaign to put in place a ‘Race Protection Law’ that would prevent Muslim men from marrying Buddhist women. They have already collected around 2.5 million signatures. The proposed law stipulates a maximum sentence of 10 years for any non-Buddhist man who marries a Buddhist woman without the permission of the woman’s family as well as the local authority. So, what is at the heart of the growing Buddhist-nationalist sentiment that’s fuelling violence against Muslims? And who stands to benefit from it? For years, Buddhist monks have been central to the pro-democracy movement, though Muslims, too, have taken part in it. Images of monks being thrashed and killed by the military government are still fresh in the collective memory of the nation. With fresh elections slated for 2015, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the party in power, needs to create a vote bank to challenge the hugely popular National League for Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu Kyi (also known as ‘Daw Suu’). Though a quarter of the seats in Parliament are reserved for the military and the USDP also expects the families of all 2 million government employees to vote for it, that may not be enough. That’s why the Buddhist-nationalism card becomes significant. The Buddhists form the NLD’s political backbone, as the party and Daw Suu are yet to garner the support of the minorities. By aggressively pushing a pro-Buddhist agenda and targeting the Muslims as enemies, the government is trying to make a dent in Daw Suu’s support base. “When she speaks for the rights of Muslims, she is criticised by her own community. If she remains silent, the ethnic minorities feel alienated,” explains a civil society activist. “Before 2012, no one would have imagined that President Thein Sein would stand a chance against Daw Suu, but today he does. He is seen as the saviour of the Buddhists.” The activist points out that while the violence was in full swing, someone called Hmu-Uaw was spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, calling them terrorists and posting graphic pictures of violence allegedly carried out by Muslims on social media in an effort to incite anger and retribution. It was later revealed that Hmu- Uaw was a senior adviser to the president. There is a familiar pattern leading up to the violence. It starts with a rumour of a Buddhist woman being raped or molested by a Muslim man. Pictures and videos start doing the rounds, people from outside come in and incite the angry locals, and the authorities delay acting as long as they can — until the Muslims are forced to flee the area. “Not only is a vote bank created for the party in power,” says the activist, “but the government also gets to occupy the lands left behind by the fleeing Muslims.” Though it was Eid and downtown Yangon has a large Muslim population, not once did I hear the azaan, the Islamic call to prayer. I walked into a small toy shop, owned by a man who looked like an Indian, to buy a Sepak (a traditional ball made out of cane). When I asked him if he was Indian, he said, “My father was from India. We are Muslim. Are you too?” Muslims in Myanmar have been forced into becoming more aware of their identity, not as Burmese or South Asians, but as Muslims. They shut their shops early, hire Buddhist staff as waiters in the restaurants and remove all Islamic signs from their taxis as the 969 Movement urges locals to boycott Muslim businesses. By playing on latent resentments, the party in power has been able to create a vote bank and increase its popularity — at the cost of a community everybody seems to love to hate. avalok@tehelka Switch To Desktop Version Tehelka TEHELKA HINDI TEHELKA FOUNDATION THINKWORKS AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS JOBS & INTERNSHIPS MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 05:56:39 +0000