SHIN THANT

53197057
Basic Sociology

Understanding Buddhists Anti-Islamic Sentiments in Myanmar

Introduction
Myanmar is a country divided with different ethnic groups, religions, and political
values (Fink, 2001). This diversity has brought the longest civil war in the world history and
frequent religious conflicts especially between Buddhists and Muslims (Winn, 2012). The
human history has shown that cultural conflicts between different religions or ethnicities is
inevitable due to the fact that cultural conflict is easily emotionalized (Senghaas, 2002). This
paper will find out the anti-Islamic sentiments which has been emotionalized among
Buddhists to understand the longstanding cultural conflicts between Buddhists and Muslim.
The reason this paper only emphasizes the sentiments of Buddhists is that cultural conflict
seems to stem from Buddhists difficulty in accepting Islamic customs and their perception
that Islam is a threat and a violent religion. This paper uses symbolic interaction approach to
understand Buddhists anti-Islamic sentiments. Using this approach, social interaction of
Buddhists toward Islamic customs and Islam is described in this paper.
Samuel Huntington, the author of the book The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remaking of World Order, argued that the big division among people and the leading cause
of conflict will be cultural. Cultural characteristics and their differences are hardly mutable
and also difficult to compromise and resolve when compared with economic and political
ones. When compared between ethnicity and religion, religion discriminates severely and
exclusively among humankind than ethnicity. He mentioned that a person can be half French
and half-Arab but difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim. Consequently, people
identify themselves with ethnic and religious terms, and develop us versus them

relationship with others who have different religious or ethnic background (Huntington,
1993).
This paper argues that notable cultural differences, strict identification of oneself to a
particular religion and negative interpretation of religion resulted the great division between
Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar. Consequently, this division causes prejudice, distrust,
discrimination and ultimately, violence between Buddhist and Muslim community in
Myanmar.

Background
Myanmar is known as The Golden Land or The Land of Pagodas due to its
abundance numbers of pagodas and Buddhist temples (Hirn, 2010). Since the founding of the
nation one thousand year ago, Myanmar embraced Buddhism as the state religion and
Burmese culture was influenced by Buddhists philosophy (Taylor, 2009). Burmese people
are proud of being a Buddhist and living in a country which has been practicing Buddhism
since its founding. Currently, Buddhists occupy approximately 90 percent of the population
and there are about 500,000 Buddhist monks in a population of 55 million people (Fuller,
2012 & Thompson, 2013). Officially, 4 percent of the population are Islam and the rest 6
percent accounts for other religions (The Diplomat, 2013).
After the outbreaks of religious violence between Muslim community and Buddhist
community in 2012 and 2013, anti-Islamic sentiments are rapidly growing among Buddhists.
These growing sentiments are rooted in their views that Islam is a threat to Buddhism,
Burmese race, Burmese culture and the nation. However, these anti-Islamic sentiments are not
new phenomena in Burma and these started since the colonial period when Indians came to
Burma for economic opportunities and majority of them were Muslims. A popular song of
1930s mentioned that Indians were exploiting our economic resources and seizing our
women, we are in danger of racial extinction (Khin, 1988). Since the colonial period, there
were continuing occasional communal outbreaks of anti-Indian and anti-Muslim violence

where riots and killings usually took place (International Crisis Group, 2013). Hence, these
growing anti-Islamic sentiments nowadays should be regarded as an old mentality which has
been rooted in the mind of Burmese Buddhists for at least one hundred years.

Cultural Differences
Social interaction of Buddhists toward Islamic customs is emphasized in this part to
describe the cultural differences between two communities. Islamic customs are negatively
framed by Burmese Buddhists due to the contraction with Burmese customs and beliefs.
Customs such as marriage, dress, religious rituals and diet are different from Burmese
customs. According to Islamic marriage custom, polygamy is allowed and a man can take up
to the limit of four wives (Maqsood, 2009). However, in modern Burmese custom, marriage
is usually between a man and a woman (Marshall, 1979). Polygamy is rare and is not
welcomed in Burmese society. Though polygamy is not widespread among Muslims in
Myanmar, Burmese people show dislike in the aspect of Islamic marriage custom which
allows polygamy. Burmese people want the marriage to be between two persons and believe
that Muslims are likely to have more than one wife as it is allowed in Islamic religion.
Another custom Buddhists do not like is the custom of slaughtering cattle by Muslims
in Myanmar. Slaughtering cattle is one of the rituals for Muslims in Myanmar during Eid alAdha festival. Eid al-Adha also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice is regarded as a special
day for all Muslims and mass number of cows are killed during that festival day (Thein,
2013). Though slaughtering cattle is a religious custom in Islam, that custom is considered
cruel and savage in Burmese society (Chowdhury, 2013). Besides mass killing of cattle in
Eid al-Adha, Muslims are seen as the main traders of beef in the market. The reason
Buddhists find this custom cruel and savage is that Buddhists people regard cattle as
benefactors for their contribution in producing agricultural goods since the old day. Cattles
are still being used widely in Burma for agricultural production. Due to considering the role
of cattle as benefactor to Burmese society, most Burmese Buddhists avoid eating beef (Thant,
2011). Therefore, it is no wonder that Burmese people find that custom disgusting and

outraging for them. The other notable customs Buddhists find difficult to accept are Islamic
dresses such as hijab, jubbas (Muslim mans dress), and kufi hats (cap like hat) in which they
regard those dresses as foreign and those dressing customs as not belonging to Myanmar.
Strict Identification of Oneself to Particular Religion
Buddhists people are obsessive with the desire of Myanmar to be a forever
Buddhist country. This obsession has made Buddhists afraid of other religions especially
Islam which they think Muslims are having more children than Buddhists and Muslims are
marrying Buddhists. Although there is no official data for birth rate of Muslims in Myanmar,
Buddhists people think that the birth rate of Muslims are rapidly increasing. A majority of
Muslims live in Rakhine state of Myanmar which is close to Bangladesh. Rakhine state
spokesman said The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of
the Rakhine (Buddhists) (Tang, 2013). This fear is not limited to only Burmese Buddhists.
There are cases in other countries also where the perception of Muslim birth rate cause fear
and conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims. Samuel Huntington concluded that major
difference in population growth between Russians and the Muslims in South fueled the fault
line wars (Huntington, 1997).
Buddhists believe that increased birth rate of Muslims is the strategy of Muslims to
spread Islam all over the country. During the protest against visiting Organization of Islamic
Cooperation delegation to Myanmar, Buddhist monks hold the banner which said Oppose
Islam, the Faith of Animals! Muslims procreate like rabbits" (Zarni, 2013). The fear can also
be found in the government authority level. On May 2013, two child limit policy for
Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state was imposed to control their birth rate (Tang, 2013). This
mentality is rooted in the general public of Buddhists who have negative views toward Islam
and fear that Burma will become a Muslim country if the population rate of Muslim is not
controlled.

Another obsession deals with the fear of losing race and religion due to the interfaith
marriage between Muslims and Buddhists. Islam does not allow interfaith marriage with nonMuslims with the exception that only Muslim men can marry a Jew or Christian (Siddiqi,
2002). Therefore, in order for Buddhists to marry Muslims, Buddhists have to convert to
Islam. There is no official data of interfaith marriage between Muslims and Buddhists.
However, Buddhists people feel that Muslim men are trying to get married with Buddhist
women and force Buddhist women to believe in Islam.
This fear can be found in Buddhist monks where they drafted a law banning marriage
between Buddhist women and Muslim men. According to the law, a Buddhist woman needs
to get permission from parents and local government officials to marry a Muslim man. In the
meantime, a Muslim man needs to change his religion to Buddhism to marry a Buddhist
woman (Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2013). Wimalar, one of the monks who involved in
drafting the law, said Muslim men try to win the love of poor Buddhist women for their
reproductive tactics. They produce a lot of children, they are snowballing. We have a duty to
defend ourselves if we dont want to be overwhelmed, (The Diplomat, 2013). The campaign
which try to approve this proposed law has collected nearly 2.5 million signatures throughout
the country (Michaels & Mann, 2013).
Buddhist people think that Muslim men marrying Buddhist women has religious aim.
Their religious aim (referring to Islam) is to increase the number of Muslims so that they can
influence the world When there are a lot Muslims in India, Pakistan occurred, a Buddhist
monk said to Buddhist audiences during a sermon (Islam Loving Monk, 2013). It is also
believed among the Buddhists that Muslims who get married with Burmese nationals receive
financial supports from the mosques in order to strengthen Islam (RNDPO, 1988).

Interpretation of Islam
Buddhists people understand Islam as a religion which has nature of violence.
Huntington argued that Muslims or non-Muslims cannot deny the fact that Muslims are war
enthusiasm and ready to use violence and he concluded that it is Islam which has a violent
character (Senghaas, 2002). In this regard, the mentality of majority of Buddhists in Myanmar
reflects Huntingtons argument. The general opinion of the Burmese public is that Bengalis
(Muslims) are extremists who are merciless, selfish and unsavory (The Rakhine Inquiry
Commission, 2013). Wirathu, the infamous monk for its harsh comments about Islam, said,
Muslims are fundamentally bad. Mohammed (prophet of Islam) allows them to kill any
creature. Islam is a religion of thieves, they do not want peace, (The Diplomat, 2013).
The proponents of Islam as a violent religion always highlight Jihad to justify
relationship between violence and Islam. Robert Spencer, an analyst of Islam, stated that the
ideologies of Jihad and Islamic supremacism endanger the peace and human rights everyone.
Like the view of Robert Spencer on Jihad, Burmese Buddhists view the ideologies of Jihad as
a dangerous ideology which can disturb the stability and peacefulness of the nation. When
thinking about Islam, Jihad comes to the mind of Burmese Buddhists and the understanding
of Jihad in their mind is associated with religious war in which Muslims fight to spread Islam.
In a report of the sentiments of the Rakhine Tai-Yin-Tha (Children of the soil, indigenous
people) in Maungdaw district, it is stated that Bengali Muslims holding the dogmatic view on
Jihad from Maung Daw are willing to do anything to people of other religions (RNDPO,
1988).
According to BBC, Jihad means struggles; struggle to live out the Muslim faith as
well as possible, struggle to build a good Muslim society, and the struggle to defend Islam
(Holy War), with force if necessary (BBC, 2009). Definition of Jihad by other sources
written by Islamic organizations has similar definition with BBC. Therefore, the interpretation
of Jihad by Burmese people is somewhat misleading or incomplete understanding of the term
Jihad. The historical legacy of violence between two communities and ongoing Islamic

fundamentalists terrorist acts in other countries have made Buddhists to think Islam as a
religion of violence.
Conclusion
This paper discussed social interactions of Buddhists toward Islam in three aspects;
cultural differences, strict identification in particular religion and interpretation of Islam.
Differences in marriage customs, religious customs, and dress customs created animosity
between two culturally different groups. Buddhists obsessive fear of increased birth rate in
Muslim populations and interfaith marriages were also pointed out. Finally, the paper
discussed about Buddhists interpretation of Islam as a violent religion. The findings from this
paper should be carefully considered to build trust, reduce prejudice, eliminate fear, and bring
peace between this two communities. In this regard, it is suggested that openness, collective
learning, and looking for common values, institutions and practices are necessary both to
prevent clash and to live peacefully and harmoniously between this two communities.

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