INTRODUCTION The persecution and marginalization of Myanmar’s Muslim population have sharply increased in recent years. Buddhist chauvinism towards minority religious communities has ebbed and flowed for decades in Myanmar, but violence in the past few years against these groups has been among the worst in over 50 years. Since June 2012, mob violence primarily targeting Muslim communities has resulted in approximately 135,000 displaced people, 8,500 destroyed homes, and scores of ruined mosques and monasteries.4 Initially, the violence was primarily targeted against the Rohingya Muslims, a minority population in Rakhine State whose origin and citizenship are bitterly denied by Buddhist hardliners. More recently, attacks have expanded to targeting other Muslim populations, including against the Kaman, 5 who are one of the officially recognized ethnic groups of Myanmar,6 as well as Muslim communities that have coexisted with Buddhists for decades, such as those in Meiktila and Mandalay. These prejudices are not limited to the extreme right. Many politicians and ordinary citizens have expressed prejudices against the Muslims, especially towards the Rohingya. Alongside the violence, there has been a growing ultranationalist campaign by elements within the Burmese monkhood to protect Myanmar and Buddhism against an apparently existential Muslim threat. The most visible manifestation of this campaign came in the form of the “969,” a grassroots movement started in Mon State in 2012 by a group of five junior-level monks seeking ‘to protect race and religion in Myanmar.’ 7 The 969 message, which overtly targeted Muslims, spread rapidly across Myanmar, with stickers and flags bearing the group’s logo appearing on taxis, businesses, and homes. Image 1: Monks working with laypeople to hand out 969 stickers The 969 showed significant marketing savvy. Its monks displayed an innate ability to package commonly held grievances and prejudices against Muslims that have existed for centuries into easily digestible content relevant to a modern mass audience. They then distributed these through a variety of new media channels, including social media. The 969 is widely alleged to have helped fuel the violence. A report by the NGO Justice Trust that examined the ‘hidden hands’ behind the June 2012 Rakhine violence found a “recurrent pattern,” with 969 sermons preceding anti-Muslim riots. 8 However, while the 969’s message found widespread resonance, the 969 organization itself remained a decentralized grassroots movement without the infrastructure necessary to catalyze any meaningful socio-political change on a national scale. In late 2013, the 969 was banned by the State Sangha Maha Nayaka (Ma Ha Na), the government-appointed body that oversees and regulates the Sangha, the Buddhist clergy.9 The Ma Ba Tha (the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion or, as it often translates itself, the Patriotic Monks Association of Myanmar) has risen as the 969 has waned. A much more coherent organization than the 969, the Ma Ba Tha has become the steward of the populist anti-Muslim narrative launched by the 969, and in large part as a result, has grown into one of the country’s most powerful socio-political forces. In this process, the Ma Ba Tha has come dangerously close to violating the laws of both the Burmese constitution and of the monkhood. Monks are governed by the rules of the Buddhist Sangha that discourage involvement in politics,10 11 and are prohibited from abusing “religion for political purposes” under Section 36512 and from voting under Section 39213 of the 2008 constitution. Nonetheless, monks have been involved in Burmese politics, such as during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, in which monks participated in anti-government protests. 6