Contesting Buddhist Narratives ing are common, especially in communities that have lacked access to information. As a result, while there is a great deal of religious diversity in Myanmar, one would rightly hesitate before describing it as a context of religious pluralism. Robert Wuthnow makes the distinction: “diversity and pluralism are not the same. We can be diverse without being truly pluralistic. Pluralism is our response to diversity—how we think about it, how we respond to it in our attitudes and lifestyles, and whether we choose to embrace it, ignore it, or merely cope with it” (2005, 286). Particularly pernicious is antagonism toward the religion of Islam and toward Myanmar’s Muslim community. In a country that for a long time restricted access to information, word of mouth became the primary vehicle for relaying information. As communities often lived at a remove from one another, negative rumors about Islam spread quickly and became entrenched as “truth.” These aspects of the current conflict will be explored in more detail below. “Religious” Conflict in the Current Political Transition In June 2012, a little over a year after the new quasi-civilian government came to power, riots erupted in western Rakhine state after the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl by three Muslim men. Rakhine Buddhists retaliated by killing ten Muslims in an attack on a bus, and the fighting quickly spread between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, with Rohingya Muslims suffering a disproportionately greater loss of life and property.7 In October 2012, violence again broke out across Rakhine state, bringing the death toll to at least 200, and with more than 100 thousand displaced (Roos 2013). Although the conflict in Rakhine state initially appeared to be an isolated incident fueled by specific regional tensions, violence directed at Muslims soon appeared in other parts of the country. In the central Myanmar town of Meikhtila (in ethnic Burman territory), riots in March 2013 resulted in dozens of deaths as Buddhists burned Muslim homes, mosques, and schools in response to a jewelry store dispute and the murder of a Buddhist monk by a group of Muslims (Davis, Atkinson, and Sollom 2013). Anti-Muslim violence also occurred in May 2013 in the town of Lashio, located in Shan state (an area with active armed, ethnic-opposition groups that occasionally clash with the Burmese military). Another flare-up of riots occurred in and 7