Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other' (Asian Arguments)

For decades Myanmar has been portrayed as a case of good citizen versus bad regime – men in jackboots maintaining a suffocating rule over a majority Buddhist population beholden to the ideals of non-violence and tolerance. But in recent years this narrative has been upended. In June 2012, violence between Buddhists and Muslims erupted in western Myanmar, pointing to a growing divide between religious communities that before had received little attention from the outside world. Attacks on Muslims soon spread across the country, leaving hundreds dead, entire neighbourhoods turned to rubble, and tens of thousands of Muslims confined to internment camps. This violence, breaking out amid the passage to democracy, was spurred on by monks, pro-democracy activists, and even politicians. In this gripping and deeply reported account, Francis Wade explores how the manipulation of identities by an anxious ruling elite has laid the foundations for mass violence, and how, in Myanmar’s case, some of the most respected and articulate voices for democracy have turned on the Muslim population at a time when the majority of citizens are beginning to experience freedoms unseen for half a century. In 2017, Myanmar's military launched a campaign of violence against the Rohingya minority that UN experts later said amounted to a genocide. More than seven hundred thousand civilians fled to Bangladesh in what became the most concentrated flight of refugees since the Rwanda genocide of 1994. The warning signs of impending catastrophe that had built over years were downplayed by Western backers of the political transition, and only when the exodus began did the world finally come to acknowledge a catastrophe that had been long in the making.In this updated edition of the book that foreshadowed a genocide, Francis Wade explores how the manipulation of identities by an anxious ruling elite laid the foundations for mass violence. It asks: who gets to define a nation? How can democratic rights be weaponised against a minority? And why, at a time when the majority of citizens in Myanmar had begun to experience freedoms unseen for half a century, did much-lauded civilian leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi become complicit in the most heinous of crimes? Explores The Growing Divide Between Myanmar's Buddhist And Muslim Communities, And Questions Why Some Of The Most Respected And Articulate Voices For Democracy In The Country Have Become Complicit In The Persecution Of Its Religious Minorities. The First Wave: The Murder, The Smoke And The Ruins -- Sons Of Whose Soil? Britain And The Birth Of A Fractured Nation -- The Art Of Belonging: A Peculiar Transaction In Yangon -- Us And Them: Making Identities, Manipulating Divides -- Ruling The Unruly: Social Engineering And The Village Of Prisoners -- 2012: Season Of Violence -- At First Light The Darkness Fell: Myanmar's Democratic Experiment Falters -- We Came Down From The Sky: The Buddhist Preachers Of Hate -- Apartheid State: Camps, Ghettos And The New Architecture Of Control -- U Maung Soe: An Outcast In Disguise -- In The Old Cinema Hut: Fear, Hope And The Heroes We Forget. Francis Wade. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 272-280). "Explores the growing divide between Myanmar's Buddhist and Muslim communities, and questions why some of the most respected and articulate voices for democracy in the country have become complicit in the persecution of its religious minorities"-- Provided by publisher