M.MAS 7/22/15 vulnerability of Buddhism or a particular ethnic community to being erased or supplanted in Myanmar. Variants on the phrase ‘one people swallowing another’ were regularly used, for example, invoking the slogan of the Ministry of Immigration and Population: ‘A nation will not disappear even if it is swallowed up by the earth. But a nation will disappear if it is swallowed up by another people.’29 Secondly, Muslims were presented as a personal threat to the narrator or to the narrator’s local community of residence. Narrators described Muslims as violent, untrustworthy, and devout. This is an understanding of Islam in unitary terms, as a homogenous and universal category. Islamic religious practices were referenced to prove this, in terms both general (‘Islam is an ideology of violence’) and specific. Cow butchering was a common example. Cows are revered by many in Myanmar and, for some Buddhists (and all Hindus), beef is taboo.30 Even for those Buddhists who eat beef, that Islam would require butchering a revered animal is a powerful statement about violence embedded within the religion. Another common example given was the position of women, especially their perceived treatment and perceived lack of freedoms within Islam. In conceiving of Islam as intrinsically violent, narrators thus constructed an image of Muslims in which being devout is equivalent to being violent. That is, the image is of ‘Muslims’ as an Other that is dangerous because of religious belief. Outward indications of religious devotion such as the sound of prayer or clothing choices, then, are not just markers of difference but of ‘extremism’ and the potential for violence. The following excerpt from an interview with a young Buddhist man in the Ayeyarwady Delta comes close to illustrating the connection drawn between views of Muslim devoutness and ‘extremism’: My aunt’s husband is Muslim... As he is my aunt’s husband, we tried to see him as an uncle at first. Later, what happened was, they are very good at mobilizing for their religion. They are very religious people… For them, from children to old people, they only trust their god. Then, eventually, they persuaded my aunt to their religion. At first, my aunt worshipped [Buddha] but later, she did not. He would persuade her with different ways until he got it. Now, she and the children who she gave birth to became Muslim… I was also a friend with an Islam [Muslim]… However, as I observed his behavior and his beliefs, I noticed that he was very serious in his religious belief. To say it rudely, he was like an extremist. I didn’t discuss this with him… I just lived innocently with him. If he asked me, I talked to him and if he called me, I answered… However, I was not comfortable. He is from a different religion and also an extremist… At that time, I really wanted to do something to him but I tried to control myself. Later, it was fine. I just let it go and didn’t argue with him much.31 29 In Myanmar, ‘Myay myo yweh lu myo: ma pyouk: lu myo hma lu myo: pyouk meh.’ Note that, although lu myo: can be translated as ‘nation,’ ‘ethnicity,’ or simply ‘people,’ here we understand it to refer to ‘nation.’ As of July 2015, signs bearing this slogan still hang on the walls behind immigration officers at township level immigration offices. A much larger sign bearing this slogan hangs in the office of the Minister of Immigration and Population. See, Sai Latt, “Burma’s Ominous Political Debate over Ethnicity,” The Irrawaddy, June 25, 2013, http://www.irrawaddy.org/contributor/burmas-ominous-political-debate-over-ethnicity.html. 30 There is no consistent doctrinal position within Myanmar Buddhism regarding the consumption of beef. While some Buddhists in Myanmar might attribute their abstinence from eating beef to ‘religious’ reasons, some who also identify as Buddhist might forego eating it for reasons more related to astrology, magical practice, or simply because, as in other rural environments, farmers are reliant on cows for labor and food production. In the past, sizeable movements opposing the slaughter and consumption of beef have arisen in Myanmar. One of the more notable recent efforts was by the famous Ledi Sayadaw around the turn of the twentieth century, who argued that, if the Burmese were to have any hope of winning their freedom from British colonial rule, they must cultivate their collective moral practice more assiduously; he suggested that people refrain from eating beef. See, Erik Braun, The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2013). 31 Man, 20, Buddhist, Myanmar, Pathein February 2015 MSPT 5. 8