Inter-Marriage The issue of inter-faith marriage in Myanmar is primarily a social and religious one. Various hardliners, including Ma Ba Tha monks, regularly express fears that Buddhist women who marry Muslim men will find themselves in a vulnerable position, where they can be forcibly converted to Islam or physically abused. However, there also have been attempts to tie these social worries into national security fears. Some have posited that Muslim men may attempt to use marriage as a tool of conversion and a means to acquire power, particularly through marriages to daughters of prominent military officers.123 The prevailing sentiment is best articulated by Maung Tha La, a former diplomat, who claims that Muslim men “emigrate into the Union of Burma, the land of abundant food and pretty damsels, to marry the native maidens ... to spread Islam ... and ultimately overthrow the government.”124 The peril of marriage to Muslims, particularly Muslim men, is a theme that is widely disseminated on social media. One fairly typical example is included on the right, and is a variant of a common theme that juxtaposes ‘before’ pictures of seemingly happy interfaith couples with ‘after’ pictures of the same women as victims of domestic violence. This Facebook image is particularly explicit; the yellow text states, “If you marry a Muslim man, this is what happens to you.”125 However, many of the images appear to be fake or framed without proper context; in this case, the beheaded woman Image 17: A social media post warning Buddhist appears to be of a different ethnicity from the woman on the women of interfaith marriage and ‘violent’ Muslim right, and a victim of Mexico’s cartel violence. The comments men who kill their wives section displays some of this willful ignorance. Despite some comments pointing out the inaccuracy, several others approve of the post, stating, “Great post! Beware my sisters!” and “O Burmese women, maintain the integrity of your race!” 126 The Ma Ba Tha has successfully used the inter-marriage issue to enact legislation that human and women’s rights activists claim infringe on minority rights. A website likely linked to the Ma Ba Tha released a statement in 2014 explaining why the organization deemed the issue important, alluding to legal loopholes that in their eyes leave Buddhist women vulnerable. The statement explains that nonBuddhists have their own customary law, while the Burmese are only subject to Burmese customary law. Consequently, when a Buddhist woman marries a non-Buddhist man, she is subject to his religious laws, rather than the Burmese customary law, thereby endangering the Buddhist woman’s rights.127 Messaging on that same blog in later months expanded on these explanations, as seen on a post from January 20, 2015, entitled "Respecting and Upholding Equality.” 128 It defended the development of the Race and Religion Laws, especially the Special Marriage Law, arguing that current legislation was not enough to protect Buddhist women. It further asserts that the proposed bill would be promoting women’s rights, rather than limiting them.129 Theme 3: Threats to Religious Sanctity The third key narrative is the idea that Muslim values are inherently incompatible with Buddhism. This narrative is expressed in a wide variety of perceived Muslim characteristics of which Ma Ba Tha monks disapprove, including the Muslim practice of slaughtering cows at Eid, women’ veiling practices, and various forms of criminality that are attributed to Burmese Muslims. Many of these practices are often described as ‘offending’ the sensibilities of Buddhists, and consequently create flashpoints for inter-faith tension. One senior Ma Ba Tha monk, Ashin Parmoukkha, alluded as much when he noted 20