Asian Studies

Examining Religious Extremism and Political Violence in Myanmar An Experience from Rohingya Crisis

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Md. Al-Amin

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the relationship between religious extremism and political
violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar where Rohingya Muslims were discriminately
executed by the majority Buddhist community with the support and direct participation of the
Military. An alliance between Buddhist monks and the military is clearly behind the ethnic
cleansing in 2017. However, Buddhist monks were not in favor of the Military rule and
protested the military dictatorship. It is argued in this paper that the landslide victory of
NLD (National League for Democracy) in 2012 election changed the scenario. To strengthen
their side, the military donated millions of dollars to monks and temples as well as politically
patronized them. As feedback, the monks formed a nefarious strategic alliance with the
military, which is a mutual and win-win situation because of this alliance both sides paid off.
As either a reward, monks built a hegemonic leadership like as Nazi party of Germany over
the ordinary people, allowing the military to persecute the Rohingya people. Nevertheless,
Ma Ba Tha and the 969 movement played a role in the atrocities against Rohingya Muslims,
this was done so that NLD could not take over power from the Military. The result of this
Buddhist extremism was the uprooting of millions of Rohingya Muslims from their home in
Rakhine, which forced the Rohingya Muslims to take shelter in Bangladesh.

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