M.MAS 1/12/17 Interviewees’ analysis For the squatters’ advocate, the motivation to approach the family and discourage them from going along with the monk’s suggestion came from a desire to prevent further conflict from occurring. From her own experience, she believed that it would particularly affect poor people, regardless of religion, saying that “Both Bamar and Kalar33 will be affected.” Other people that she discussed the case with also reinforced this feeling, saying that they did not want further conflict to happen. The squatters’ advocate was both personally influenced by and able to draw on the recent negative impacts felt by people in other areas affected by religious violence. “When there is a conflict, the ones who suffer most are the grassroots people. The consequences are that the price of rice rises, and they announce martial law, so we cannot work within our working hours. So, we have less income and that affects our livelihoods.” She also drew on an experience she knew of, in which a friend in an area affected by a riot had loaned money to a Muslim woman who was then unable to repay her because she was afraid to travel. Religious conflict in that area had also affected small businesses that she knew of. In that area, normally Muslims would buy raw materials from Buddhists to make furniture, but the rise in tensions had limited interaction between the communities. Finally, the squatters’ advocate said that an escalation of violence was particularly frightening for squatters, because if fires were set they could destroy both everything peopled owned and their basic ability to stay on the land they occupied. Finally, those interviewed conveyed a strong sense that conflict was being orchestrated or encouraged by people who do not have the public interest at heart, and that these (unnamed) people’s ulterior motives have to be questioned: “The people who want to create conflict are drawing plans but we can say that people from [her area] are very smart as they do not follow the plan of the people who want to create conflict. Even if they didn’t realise [that it was part of a plan] and were about to go along with it, other people can explain to them and stop them. For example, like my friend, when they are very upset, they would like to kill the person who killed their son. However, we explained to them the situation and they accepted it because they have their own brain to think. As we have the saying ‘don’t set the fire,’ they didn’t allow this situation to [get out of control] because of them.” This finding is consistent with many of the views expressed throughout our research and with interviews conducted by other scholars and journalists. 33 Note that the word kalar is controversial—many feel that it is derogatory, but many do not; its use does not necessarily index communal animus on the part of the speaker. Most contemporary Burmese language dictionaries list the primary definition as “person from South Asia,” but the term’s etymology is contested. Etymological controversies aside, while many feel that the term is not intrinsically pejorative others feel that current usage is and strongly so. Maung Zarni, for example, uses the American English word “n---er” as a translation that emphasizes the negative rhetorical force of the word and while the appropriateness of such a choice might be debated it is consistent with other scholarship that has drawn comparisons between racial politics in the United States and dynamics between Burman and non-Burmans in Myanmar (See Walton 2013). One Muslim man that we interviewed in Mawlamyine during our Listening Project research, meanwhile, offered the following reflection on being referred to as “kalar”: “Since I was studying… if you’re small, they’d call you kalar lay (‘small kalar’), if you’re strong and big, you’d be called kalar gyi (‘big kalar’). There weren’t many Muslims at my school, only a couple Muslims in one class. We had some good [non-Muslim] friends but there were also naughty ones, however there was nothing like being badly discriminated or something. I still felt something when I was called ‘kalar’. But I can understand them [non-Muslims] because it’s a habit for them, calling us ‘kalar.’ However, they don’t know how we feel” (Man, 34, Muslim, “Pathi,” March 2015, Mawlamyine). 10/24