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The Asian side of the world - II

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Jean-François Sabouret

Part Two. National challenges and strategies

Buddhists and Muslims of Arakan: religious conflict or national identity crisis?

Maxime Boutry

Texte intégral

1November 2012

2On 28 May 2012, a young Buddhist was raped and killed by assailants who were immediately identified as “Rohingya” Muslims by the Burmese authorities of Sittwe, in Arakan (Rakhine State). In the weeks that followed, the mutual resentment of the two communities – “Rohingya” Muslims and Buddhist Arakanese, which had festered since the end of British colonization, exploded into incendiary brawls, leading thousands of people of both faiths to flee their homes. Despite the curfew imposed by President Thein Sein on 10 June, the conflict continued, amid propaganda from both sides, and Burmese Buddhists across the country joined their “peers” in Arakan with little hesitation. Another fact, still little discussed, is the silence of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on the conflict and, in direct contrast, the almost unanimous “xenophobic” voice of the Burmese, from the Government to the former opposition leaders, towards the Muslims of Arakan.

3As a new episode of the conflict between the Buddhist and Muslim populations in this western region of Myanmar, the current situation has the “merit”, little noticed until now, of offering a preview of Burmese nation-building after the dictatorship. Currently, the issue that raises most interest, in both the Government and the international community, is economic openness (the “last frontier” of South-East Asia). Beyond the huge needs in terms of development of infrastructure and services, however, the lack of national unity is still the main obstacle to recognition of the country both regionally (ASEAN) and internationally. The country’s diversity is not really religious, as in its population of about 55 million in 135 ethnic groups (the official figure), 89% are Buddhist, 4% Christian, 4% Muslim and 1% animist. The Burmese, the main ethnic group, account for only 69% of the population. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, so named after the 2011 elections, is just emerging from more than half a century of military rule over a territory with boundaries inherited from the British colonization and borders are inhabited by ethnic groups with expansionist ideas.

  • 1 Houtman, 1999.
  • 2 Ivanoff, 2011.

4During the past 50 years, national unity was primarily military, enforced notably through “Burmanization” or “Myanmafication”1, especially in areas near the borders, under the reign of the dominant ideology, which is Buddhism and the Burmese language taught in an educational system that leaves no room for minority languages. What differentiates “Burmanization” from “Thaiization”, with comparable pillars (Buddhism, nation and monarchy), is that the latter is based both on the development of the frontiers of the country, led by the Government, and an ideology – kwam pen thai or “Thainess” – taking into account regional differences, thus integrating the existing interactions between different populations2. As the authoritarian head of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese military forces, was removed during the “democratization” of the country, many of the concerns of the State are now transferred to a more popular consciousness. Thus, the need for a national ideology (still inspired by an underlying Burmese identity) gradually appeared, which could be shared to some extent by all the peoples of Myanmar. However, Burmese society has few bases for building such an identity.

  • 3 Lieberman, 1978: 475.
  • 4 Tambiah, 1976.

5Historically, the Burmese kingdom was mostly dominant in the region, but its influence fluctuated and was based on vassalage relations and exchanges (mainly economic) with the surrounding populations. The Arakan and Burmese kingdoms were regularly in conflict, the latter often having succeeded in different periods to extend its influence over the Arakan, especially just before it was annexed by the British in 1826. The symbol of Arakan sovereignty, the Maha Muni Buddha, was transferred to the Burmese capital of Amarapura with 20,000 prisoners in 1785, an enduring symbol (the statue is now in Mandalay) of the animosity between Burmese and Arakanese, which is still seen in numerous stereotypes. It was thus a Buddhist territory drawn under the influence of the Burmese kingdom, as was fitting, since Alaung Hpaya, an 18th century king, portrayed himself as an “embryonic” Buddha whose task was to unify all Buddhist territories3. However, by integrating Arakan into its sphere of influence, the Burmese kingdom gained a border region that acted as a buffer between two major groups, one Muslim and one Buddhist. As the kingdom of Arakan was a maritime power, it was a crossroads and a meeting place with close relations with other powers of the Indian Ocean, including the Muslim sultanates of Bengal. The Muslim world clearly influenced the Arakanese king Mrauk-U (1430-1784), so that the kings dressed like Bengali sultans and coins were embossed in both Arakanese (very close the Burmese) and Persian. And, in accordance with the prevailing model of “galactic polities”4, the region remained a buffer space that was not administered directly by the Burmese central Government, like other regions, such as the various Shan principalities and the Kachin territories, which also acted as links with other sub-regional groupings such as those towards China and Thailand.

  • 5 Boutry, 2012.

6Despite the discontinuous relationship between power and territory caused by British colonial rule and perpetuated by the military authority, “Burmanization” – this time as an inclusive (“bottom up”), nondiscriminatory process – of new spaces continued in the form of hierarchical interactions between the Burman majority and other populations. Its objective is “recycling” otherness in a broader concept of society, e.g. by standardizing local cults and integrating ritual practices in a system identified as “Burmese”, which can thus be linked to the Buddhist universe (which itself includes other cults such as possession by spirits, nat). This process is continuing on the frontiers of the Burmese social space (e.g. in Ayeyarwaddy and Tanintharyi) and is not exclusive; instead, it can push its limits to include new natural and social environments5.

  • 6 Anderson, 1991.

7The opening up of the country reveals the double reality of state-building and social constructions “in the field”, with no real correspondence between the two that could lead to the development of a “national community”6. For the majority of Myanmar’s population, the most noticeable sign of governance shift remains freedom of opinion in the country’s newspapers, seen also in less censored access to the Internet (including social websites such as Facebook and Twitter), on which torrents of anti-Muslim and anti-Buddhist propaganda were dumped. The Internet and the oversudden freeing of the press, however, do not reflect the way in which the people who socialize the territory appropriate it. Burmese opinion on the new episode in the Arakanese conflict therefore crystallizes quite “naturally” around the differences between Buddhism and Islam. It is clear that the sudden surge of Burmese solidarity towards the Arakanese, who they still mistrust, is largely due to a desire to defend a territory that is part of the Buddhist cosmogony, against a Muslim minority (about 800,000 Rohingya in Arakan). The Rohingya’s ethnic “label” was first internationalized in the 1950s after the claims of the Mujahids (Bengali intellectuals who wished to join Arakan to Pakistan before it was separated from Bangladesh) and then after two major refugee crises in 1978 and 1990–1991. The “threat” of a Muslim invasion, considered serious by the Burmese immigration services since the 1970s, is reinforced by the fact that the Arakan border opens onto Bangladesh, a territory that is barely larger but is home to more than 140 million Muslims. The claim of a Buddhist identity is an expression of legitimacy over the territory rather than a religious ideology.

  • 7 Boutry, 2011.

8The greatest risk incurred by contemporary Myanmar in the process of opening up is slipping out of the population’s control, initiated by the fast forward leap from dictatorship to democracy, is the ideologization of social values that denies the reality of a much more complex and nuanced identity than a religious Buddhist, Christian or Muslim identity for the country’s populations. It is high time to try to solve the paradox of this nation that was artificially united “from the top down” even though it is on a territory built “from the bottom up”, a seen in the examples of interethnic trading networks, rituals and historically constructed borders7. Deprived of this vision, all the stakeholders in Myanmar – civil society, the Government and the opposition embodied by Aung San Suu Kyi – are already in an impasse and are forced into silence in the face of the simplistic prospect of a religious conflict, which has already given rise to numerous extremist reactions in both Buddhist and Muslim circles. The Government’s response and the attention it will pay to the development of its regions in order to reconcile local “cosmographies” and the national community remain to be seen.

Bibliographie

Bibliographical indications

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of nationalism, 1986, London, Verso Books, 1991.

Boutry, Maxime (éd.), « Les frontières “mouvantes” de Birmanie », Moussons, Recherche en Sciences Humaines sur l’Asie du Sud-Est, no 17, 2011, 198 p.

Boutry, Maxime, Les trajectoires littorales de l’hégémonie birmane, Bangkok, IRASEC, 2012.

Houtman, Gustaaf, Mental culture in Burma Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, Tokyo, ILCAA, 1999.

Ivanoff, Jacques, « Une modernisation sans développement. Construction ethnique et ethnorégionalisme en Thaïlande », in Dovert, S. et Ivanoff, J., (sous la dir. de), Thaïlande Contemporaine, Paris, IRASEC/Les Indes savantes, 2011, p. 473-516.

Lieberman, Victor B., “Ethnic Politics in Eighteenth-Century Burma”, Modern Asian Studies, 12(3), 1978, p. 455-482.

Tambiah, Stanley J., World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand Against a Historical Background, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Notes

1 Houtman, 1999.

2 Ivanoff, 2011.

3 Lieberman, 1978: 475.

4 Tambiah, 1976.

5 Boutry, 2012.

6 Anderson, 1991.

7 Boutry, 2011.

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