1 - Wirathu is a prominent and influential speaker, as mentioned, with thousands of followers on Facebook and Youtube which allows his posts to be shared across the nation. Wirathu’s ability to accumulate a significant amount of support by sharing hate and misinformation is largely to do with his status as a monk. In the eyes of Myanmar’s Buddhist citizens who have been taught for centuries to consider Buddhism as the highest moral plane, how could someone of such spiritual authority be wrong? 2 – Advocates of the anti-Muslim campaign draw on the global demonization of Muslims in the wake of 9/11. Wirathu’s words are both creating and playing on this fear of Islam and a rising Muslim population in certain parts of Myanmar. 3 - Buddhist lynch mobs have killed hundreds of Muslims and forced thousands from their homes, while Wirathu denies any role in the violence, it is unlikely that his anti-Muslim preaching has not strongly influenced these attacks.104 4 – As I discussed in chapter one, Myanmar has suffered from a long history of ethnic and religious tension. The military backed government’s preoccupation with homogeneity based on Buddhism and Burman (Bamar) ethnicity has consistently undermined Myanmar’s religious and cultural diversity. The failure to recognise the rights that the 1947 constitution granted to ethnic and religious minorities, and to resolve the tensions between these groups, led to the rise of insurgency groups and further conflict.105 The way in which Wirathu scapegoats Muslims and calls for unity to defeat them has allowed him to utilize society’s already existing tensions; it works to his advantage that Myanmar’s background of civil war and instability has resulted in fear and distrust. 5 – Wirathu has taken advantage of loosened restrictions on expression during a fragile time of transition, and broadcast his hatred through Facebook and Youtube. In 2014 violence erupted in Mandalay after Wirathu posted on 104 Fuller, (2013). 105 O’Shannassy, T., (2000) Burma's Excluded Majority: Women, Dictatorship and the Democracy Movement, CIIR, pp.9,10. - 45 -