70 Hate Speech Ignited: Understanding Hate Speech in Myanmar so powerful and dangerous and why it is so important to counter whenever possible. Myanmar unfortunately has been in the midst of deeply rooted cycle of hate and the cycle of distrust and intolerance has been spiraling in the wrong direction. After the well-known lawyer U Ko Ni, who had served as a senior adviser to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD, and advocate for a new Constitution, was assassinated at the Yangon International Airport in 2017, ultranationalists took to Facebook to celebrate.436 They said that the gunman was a “Buddhist hero” who had “saved the future of Buddhism by killing U Ko Ni [as] a Muslim and a political leader,” according to an activist.437 Follow- ing U Ko Ni’s assassination, U Wirathu warned race traitors, disruptors, and non-supporters to “eat as much rice as you can,” a cultural reference implying that their days were numbered.438 Activists believe being bombarded by so much hate and misinformation affects people. For ex- ample, they showed us Facebook posts where users shared thoughts like, “I don’t know anything [about Muslims] but I want to kill . . . because if we don’t kill the Muslims, they will kill us.”439 Interviewees detect a sense of fear and urgency driving these narratives. They think people are compelling others to believe that, “you will lose your religion if you don’t do it, you will lose your land if you don’t do it, you will lose your identity if you don’t do it.”440 Local CSOs made clear that the constructed narratives of hate and resulting violence have resulted in loss of trust and sense of community.441 CSOs noted that people have become fearful and divided,442 and there is a palpable sense that people “[don’t] trust each other anymore,” one in- terviewee described.443 Another explained that “the elders tell their children not to associate with Muslim children and restrict their children from going anywhere near the Muslim area.”444 Ultranationalists’ rhetoric of hate has reached far and wide and even affected attitudes of tol- erance within minority communities themselves. For instance, CSOs stated that there have been divisions within persecuted Muslim communities.445 Because of hate speech, some Muslims who consider themselves “Myanmar-born” have been resentful of Rohingya, following the ultranationalists false narrative that Rohingya’s are “foreign interlopers.”446 A few people mentioned in the interviews that some Muslims feel they would not be scrutinized and ostracized were it not for the Rohingya.447 According to CSOs, some groups and individuals that have been targeted also can end up employing hate speech as a retaliatory response.448 “People who are being attacked also use hate speech to counter, so hate speech is being used by both sides,” explained one CSO interviewee.449 Those at the consultation meetings believe that past oppression and trauma has exacerbated hate436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 Shoon Naing and Simon Lewis, “Myanmar Sentences Two to Death for Murder of Muslim Lawyer Who Advised Suu Kyi,” Reuters, February 15, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-lawyer-verdict/myanmar-sentences-two-to-death-for-murder-of-muslim-lawyer-who-advised-suu-kyi-idUSKCN1Q40TT. 002-R3-02 4. Wira Thu Masoeyein, “Translated Title: Eat As Much Rice As You Can,” Youtube (February 6, 2018) (accessed February 10, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i14ghT7QTcI. 001-R1-01, 6. 002-R1-01, 6. FGD (January 2019 and December 2019). Ibid. 002-R1-01, 3. 002-R3-02, 3. FGD (January 2019). Ibid. Ibid. FGD (January 2019 and December 2019). 002-R3-02, 3.