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Matthew J. Walton and Susan Hayward
Quasi-historical claims such as this are commonly shared on social media sites. Their questionable historical veracity is beside the point because the monks who make these claims enjoy a respected social status
among Burmese Buddhists, and it is assumed that they have correct
information about the history of Buddhism.
Some of the fears related to Muslims in Myanmar explicitly tap into
the broader narrative of the global war on terror and claims about Islamic society more generally. Ashin Sada Ma makes this anxiety clear
when he directly states, “I fear that some Bengali Muslims are terrorists
and have a mission to Islamize our country” (Galache 2013). U Wirathu has preached that “whatever [Muslims] do, they do it from their
Islamic point of view.” Further, he says: “Everywhere in the world, the
Muslims themselves are the violators of basic human rights…they have
brutally violated freedom of religion in every society they control” (U
Wirathu 2013). The late journalist and National League for Democracy (NLD) member U Win Tin suggested that “no one can deny that
Muslims are usually extremists” (Eleven News 2013). Even Aung San
Suu Kyi reinforced this view in a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) interview in 2013 when, in response to questioning about the
validity of Buddhist fears of Islam, she cited a “perception that…global
Muslim power is very great” (Aung San Suu Kyi 2013).
One of the methods through which 969 and MaBaTha claim that
Muslims will accomplish this dominance is by marrying and forcibly
converting Buddhist women. An excerpt from one of U Wirathu’s sermons is worth quoting at length: “[Muslims] have a lot of money and
no one knows where that money mountain is. They use that money to
get our young Buddhist women. They show that money to attract our
young women...That money will be used to get a Buddhist-Burmese
woman, and she will very soon be coerced or even forced to convert
to Islam…And the children born of her will become Bengali Muslims
and the ultimate danger to our Buddhist nation, as they will eventually
destroy our race and our religion. Once they become overly populous,
they will overwhelm us and take over our country and make it an evil Islamic nation” (U Wirathu 2013). U Wirathu has also updated this claim
for the twenty-first century with the additional assertion that the funds
used to forcibly convert Buddhist women come from Saudi oil money.
Tun Kyaw Nyein and Suzanne Prager Nyein have explored the
historical justification for these fears, as well as the legal protections