Previous 59 / 77 Next

Inter Faith Week Inter Faith week is a campaign in Britain that promotes and encourages interfaith encounters and activities including discussion groups, music and arts festivals, competitions and school visits to local houses of worship. Salman Farsi, a spokesman for a London mosque said that for years his mosque has been a target for far right groups.141 As part of Inter Faith Week this mosque held an Islamic awareness course, open to the public, in which they were taught about Islam's intellectual history, the diversity of beliefs and denominations within the religion, and the history of Muslims in Britain. According to course organizer Juber Hussain, many of the participants had questions about Sharia law, and Islam's stance on divorce, inheritance and polygamy.142 So what can Myanmar learn from this? Gopin argues that interfaith interventions like this have the potential to change the attitudes of people, and notes the development of the Catholic Church’s attitude towards Judaism, which has progressed from providing educational materials.143 A campaign like this not only shows the targeted minority, like Myanmar’s Muslim community, that there are people willing to listen to them and learn about their beliefs, but it gives participants a chance to address fears, rumours and questions they have. However, these courses will arguably only attract those who are already open minded and willing to learn about Islam. All Out All Out is a global online campaign aiming to help the LGBT movement work towards equality and bring awareness to the public through education and engagement.144 All Out have a primary campaign website, but they also have a significant following on 141 Kuruvilla, C., (2015) ‘How The UK Is Strengthening Interfaith Bonds After Paris Attacks’, Huffington Post, available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-the-uk-is-strengthening-interfaithbonds-after-the-paris-attacks_564ef088e4b0d4093a573479?yazqto6r [November 2015]. 142 Kuruvilla, (2015). 143 Gopin, M., (2002) ‘Religion, Violence and Conflict Resolution’, Peace and Change, vol.22, no. 1, p.14. 144 All Out, available at: http://allout.org/en/ [November 2015]. - 59 -

Select target paragraph3

● ● ●

Religion, hate speech and social media in Myanmar: Analysing methods of intervention

Academic Publication

Preview

Language

English

Topic

Hate Speech
Rohingya Crisis

Author(s)

Bethany Davis

Date Published: Dec 1, 2015

Abstract: Myanmar is home to one of the longest running intrastate conflicts in the world, involving a series of ethnic and religious clashes that have caused harm to all parties involved. The ideology of a homogeneity based on Buddhism and the Bamar ethnicity has marginalized minority groups, which make up a third of the population, and has particularly affected the Rakhine state’s Buddhist and Muslim communities, the latter of which are subject to what international human rights organizations are calling an ethnic cleansing. Since the government relaxed restrictions to the access of foreign websites, the social media site Facebook has become a popular means to disseminate misinformation and rumours, and this has created mistrust and hatred against Muslims across the country, heightening the polarization between Buddhist and Muslim groups. This study will combine conflict analysis with the assessment of different approaches of countering hate speech to propose which methods of intervention are most suitable for this situation in Myanmar. Lederach argues that to counter hatred and avoid reoccurrence of violence, deep alterations of the parties’ relationships is needed. This idea forms the basis for chapter three which examines educational methods, interfaith projects and social media campaigns to both prevent and change negative attitudes towards the religious ‘Other’. It argues that education and awareness campaigns are more effective than the implementation of legal regulation as we need to combat the underlying issue. In addition to secondary sources, this study involved field research to collect information about how the youth are influence by hate speech and counter hate campaigns in Myanmar.

Link: Source

Primary Documents

2015-12-00-Religion-hate-speech-and-social-media-in-Myanmar-en-red.pdf
English
Download View

Myanmar Internet Project

Select target paragraph3

Religion, hate speech and social media in Myanmar: Analysing methods of intervention

Primary Documents

Notifications