Buddhist monks and politicians have used an unshackled media to stoke anti-Muslim violence.
By MURRAY HIEBERT
AND GREGORY POLING
Just two years into Burma’s reform program, the country’s transition to democracy is threatened from an unexpected direction. An unshackled media and new freedoms of speech and movement have contributed to religious tensions between Buddhists and Muslims exploding into violence.
Most Burma watchers hoped last year’s outbreak of violence aimed at the Rohingya was an isolated case, but the phenomenon is spreading. On March 20, anti-Muslim rioting swept the town of Meikhtila in central Burma, far from the Rohingya communities of Rakhine state in the west. Mosques and Muslim-owned shops and homes were torched, scores injured and entire neighborhoods left in ruins. Government media say 32 have been killed.
Burmese authorities declared a state of emergency on March 22, sending in the military to restore order. A tense calm hangs over the city and soldiers have begun delivering some food to 6,000 Muslims who fled to hurriedly established makeshift camps. But in recent days, anti-Muslim mobs have attacked several more towns in central Burma, wrecking mosques and burning houses, including in a village near the capital of Naypyidaw.What began as isolated incidents of vigilante violence last June by a group of Buddhist Rakhines turned into coordinated attacks, often led by monks, against entire Muslim communities, including non-Rohingya. The dead last year numbered at least 100, while hundreds of thousands were displaced and hundreds more perished in ill-fated attempts to flee the country by sea.
A vocal minority of media, religious, and political elites conducted a year-long campaign to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment that had simmered for decades. Taking advantage of the lifting of censorship, broadcasters and newspapers decried the supposed crimes of Muslim communities.
Politicians and religious leaders played a role as well. The head of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party is rabidly anti-Muslim, and he and his followers played a central role in stoking the violence in Rakhine State.
Other politicians, including members of the opposition National League for Democracy, have called for the expulsion of the entire Rohingya population. Amid this clamor, most politicians, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, sat on their hands, calling for calm but refusing to defend the Rohingya.
Even worse have been members of the country’s most influential institution, the Buddhist clergy. Monks delivered sermons demonizing Muslims, with many moving about the country spreading their message to previously unaffected areas. Robed monks armed with knives and sticks have led some of the attacks in Meikhtila, as they did last year in Rakhine.
The coalition of forces lined up against Burma’s Muslims, who make up less than 10% of the general population, has taken the country and the international community by surprise. Some brave monks and politicians from both the government and opposition have spoken out in defense of Muslims. Reports from Meikhtila tell of young Buddhists shepherding their Muslim neighbors to safety. But such positive examples are in the minority.
Those spreading hate in Burma represent the worst dangers of a young democracy, and the disorder they spread undermines public trust in democratic institutions. The central government has shown that it cannot hope to control these outbreaks of violence without calling in the military. And that is perhaps the most dangerous response for a country trying to turn away from decades of military rule.
Burma faces a fight for influence over the majority—those who remain on the sidelines—and its hopes for democracy could hinge on the outcome. The voices of intolerance got a year’s head start while the authorities, the opposition and most of the international community failed to react. The violence in Meikhtila serves as a warning that they need to launch an urgent and concerted campaign to rebuild communal relations in the “new” Burma.
Mr. Hiebert is deputy director and Mr. Poling is a research associate at the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies in Washington, D.C.
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