M.MAS 7/22/15 being promoted, directly and indirectly, by influential actors in Myanmar society. For individuals, navigating this terrain requires interpreting contemporary events as well as reconsidering what is known about the past. People have diverse memories of religious relations in Myanmar and where these are inconsistent with contemporary experience, it is either these memories or their understanding of the contemporary moment that must be recast. Conclusions and questions More listening is needed. Narratives of threat and self-defence like those discussed here are not static. Such narratives will change, both in the arguments used to justify them and in their object. More than a few narrators, for example, made note of concerns about Chinese in Myanmar. ‘Here, we only hate the Kalar,’ the young man who had earlier seen Muslim devotion as a synecdoche for Islamic extremism told us. ‘But the people who are destroying our country are the Chinese people… Even though people say that they hate Kalar, the Chinese people are the ones who are turning our country into a slave.’62 Nonetheless, we have sought to nuance understanding of how narratives about threat and virtuous self-defence in Myanmar are being produced in everyday life, including describing common features of the ways in which such a narrative is justified. This understanding generates two conclusions and clarifies three questions that we believe are important for anyone interested in reducing conflict or promoting peace and reconciliation in Myanmar. Expand focus beyond ‘hate speech’ and ‘rumours’ Common understandings of collective violence in Myanmar that emphasise the centrality of ‘hate speech’ and ‘rumours,’ need to be rethought, along with responses which make them the principal focus. By recognizing the narrative of Muslim threat as a ‘master narrative’ in Myanmar at present, we also recognize that hate speech is not necessary in order to construct a narrative of Muslim threat. In our interviews, respondents expressed anti-Muslim sentiments not through overtly hateful or dehumanizing speech, but rather through reference to ostensibly reasonable and credible sources such as international news coverage of global events.63 Simply put, there was no need to use hate speech when, as Appadurai notes, the larger narrative framework is established and need only be illustrated and reinforced through reference to individual ‘little stories.’ This does not mean that hate speech is not present in Myanmar. Monks such as U Wirathu are visible offenders in this category, as are a number of particularly aggressive politicians and public figures. Hate speech is a serious problem. In Myanmar, hate speech makes it difficult, even dangerous, to offer opposing viewpoints. To the degree that hate speech is legitimized by media outlets, religious, or government authorities, it shifts the boundaries of acceptable discourse about an enemy Other, further marginalizing and dehumanizing those in that category while also naturalizing the characteristics that make them fearsome. But, if we make ‘hate speech’ our central focus, we risk missing the other ways in which the narrative of Islamic threat is being produced and reinforced. Focusing primarily on the worst instances of hate speech risks obscuring the other actions that are effectively mobilizing and solidifying the sense of threat in Myanmar. These need more attention. Similarly, an understanding of violence in Myanmar that concentrates on rumours or misinformation directs focus towards only one of the myriad forms taken by discourses supporting narratives of Muslim 62 Man, 20, Buddhist, Myanmar, Pathein February 2015 MSPT 5. This coincides with literature on organized hate movements that employ rhetorics of what Meddaugh and Kay have called ‘reasonable racism,’ which they define as ‘tempered discourse that emphasizes pseudorational discussions of race, and subsequently may cast a wider net in attracting audiences.’ See, Priscilla Marie Meddaugh and Jack Kay, “Hate Speech or ‘Reasonable Racism?’ The Other in Stormfront,” Ournal of Mass Media Ethics: Exploring Questions of Media Morality 24, no. 4 (October 30, 2009): 251–68, doi:10.1080/08900520903320936. 63 17