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A blow to Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar?

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Buddhist ultranationalist monks from the radical Ma Ba Tha group attend a meeting to celebrate their anniversary with a nationwide conference in Yangon, Myanmar 27 May 2017 (Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun).

In Brief

On 23 May 2017 Myanmar’s State Sangha Maha Nayaka (MHN) Committee, a government-appointed group of monks responsible for regulating the country’s Buddhist clergy, announced a four-point order effectively banning the Organisation for the Protection of Race and Religion, known as Ma Ba Tha.

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Ma Ba Tha was established on 27 June 2013 and has spent the past four years promoting its version of Buddhist nationalism. It successfully lobbied for four race and religion restrictions which became law in 2015, attacked the National League for Democracy party (NLD) and Aung San Suu Kyi, painting them as pro-Muslim and anti-Buddhist, and conducted pro-Buddhist social work.

Former president U Thein Sein supported the four proposals, so Ma Ba Tha threw its support behind him and condemned the NLD ahead of the 2015 general election. When the vote was drawing near, Ma Ba Tha stepped up its attacks on the NLD. But then the NLD won.

Initial speculation suggested that Ma Ba Tha would disappear. Yangon Regional Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein said in July 2016 that the organisation was unnecessary. But it remained.

Even before the order announced on 23 May, the MHN has tried to make moves against Ma Ba Tha. On 12 July 2016 the MHN released a statement declaring that Ma Ba Tha was an organisation not in line with existing Sangha (Buddhist) organisation law and rules. But it failed to state whether MBT was legal and didn’t clearly condemn it.

Despite its weak legal implications, the move still garnered considerable praise from Myanmar democrats, although some were more reserved in their assessment.

Ma Ba Tha then largely stopped its anti-Rohingya, anti-Muslim activities and anti-democracy discourses. The organisation’s central leadership based in Yangon tried to distance itself from the hate-mongering of its more provocative, controversial campaigners like U Wirathu and likeminded groups such as the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union and the Myanmar National Network.

The MHN has attempted to take action against these other Buddhist nationalist groups before. They banned U Wirathu from preaching for one year. In defiance, he continued to tour the country, asking his deputies to give speeches on his behalf and playing pre-recorded speeches while he would sit with his mouth covered with two pieces of red and black tape (red referring to the NLD flag and black to Muslims).

Monks from the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union and civilian Buddhists from the Myanmar National Network and the Patriotic Association continued to stir trouble. They forced closure of four madrasas in Yangon, disrupted Muslim ceremonies, removed Muslim shops from the Shwedagon Pagoda, patrolled Muslim houses allegedly to search for illegal Bengalis, and protested against the Minister of Religious Affairs and Culture Aung Ko for his alleged persecution of Buddhist monks and favour of Muslims. But most of those monks and people are now in prison, facing trial, or in hiding.

So the MHN order on 23 May could be the final blow to Myanmar’s Buddhist nationalist movement. But the anti-Rohingya, anti-Muslim, anti-democracy, anti-human rights and anti-inclusion discourses that Ma Ba Tha preached and propagated in the past four years will linger among their staunch supporters.

Ma Ba Tha has already cancelled its fourth anniversary celebrations that were to be held on 27 and 28 May but it is yet to explain what it will do. Their northern Myanmar branch in which U Wirathu is highly involved has declared via Facebook that they will not obey the order. Ma Ba Tha headquarters in Yangon announced it will hold a meeting during the planned anniversary commemoration dates to brief its members on the ruling.

Celebration might be called for but some serious concerns remain.

The MHN order raises a serious legal issue around the classification of Ma Ba Tha as a religious organisation, and whether it comes under the jurisdiction of the MHN at all. Ma Ba Tha has said before that it is both constitutional and legal because of laws providing for freedom of association and that do not require religious associations to be registered — correct points in a strict legal sense. Ma Ba Tha has both monastic and civilian leadership and membership although it is led by monks, which makes it neither a Sangha sect nor a Sangha association.

Another potential hurdle is that the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs may not fully implement the MHN order. And the state will have difficulty in countering Ma Ba Tha’s four years of spreading intolerant ideology across Myanmar. We cannot be sure of whether the state, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture will quickly and effectively respond to Ma Ba Tha if it comes back in another form.

Claiming to let laypeople do what monks are not supposed to do, on 29 April 2017 Ma Ba Tha formed a civilian-only group called Dhamma Wuntha Rakkita Apwe (the Rightful Patriots Association) — effectively just renaming an existing Ma Ba Tha branch — to continue Ma Ba Tha’s mission.

We don’t know about Ma Ba Tha’s fate yet. The future of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar remains to be seen.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS).

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