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Appendix A Focus group discussions took place in Smile Education and Development Foundations office in Yangon, October 2015. The focus groups were led by myself and Dr Mark Owen - director of Winchester Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace, and head of Winchester University’s MA Reconciliation and Peacebuilding. Interview questions were as follows:  What are your opinions on Buddhist/Muslim relations? Are they negative/positive?  What are the main sources of influencing opinions on religious groups? What is it that makes these influential?  Does it influence yours or your friends’ views?  Is there a clear difference between attitudes in different generations?  Do you think pro-Buddhism speech has a negative impact on religious minorities?  Does hate speech cause violence in your opinion?  What do you think the best tools for countering hate speech are? Should more be done to restrict it?  How do we balance freedom of expression and control hate speech? - 77 -

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

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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.

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

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