Theme 2: Threats to Burmese Purity In addition to a physical threat, Muslims in Myanmar are seen as a threat to the ‘racial purity’ of the Burmese people. Such latent xenophobia has existed in Burmese society for a long time, especially as British colonialism introduced the mass migration of Indian and Bengali workers. For example, a Burmese newspaper article from 1938 warns of Muslims defiling the Buddhist race, and states, “You Burmese women who fail to safeguard your own race ... are responsible for the ruination of the race.”116 More recently, the government has helped stoke many of the same narratives. A book named “If You Marry a Man of Another Evil Race and Religion,” published by a monk in 2010 with the permission of the government, included a section with stories of Buddhist women who were “sexually abused, raped or forced to marry members of another ‘evil’ religion.”117 Today, the Ma Ba Tha has seized upon these themes and expresses them in two major ways: in warning of the dangers of inter-marriage to Muslim men and in propagating a cultural prejudice that suggests that Muslims are ‘outbreeding’ Buddhists. Polygamy and Birth Rates Complementing the idea of an illegal immigrant Muslim horde crossing the border, many nationalist Burmese propagate a popular social prejudice that Muslim women are more fertile, have more children, and thus, ‘outbreed’ Buddhists. This belief was found in a Harvard study to be “unfounded in both data 118 and logic,” but it is still widely believed and is the basis of the Ma Ba Tha sponsored Population Control Law. Wirathu has stated that, “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind. Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us.”119 Under the new law, women in designated “special regions” are required to space apart the birth of their children by at least 36 months if the government determines an 120 “imbalance between population and resources.” Image 16: Monks at a hold a banner reading, "Oppose Islam, the Faith of Animals. Muslims Procreate Like Rabbits” This law is particularly concerning to an already vulnerable Rohingya population in Rakhine state. In June 2013, the Immigration Minister Khin Yi articulated the view that, “Bengali women living in the Arakan State have a lot of children. In some areas, one family has 10 or 12 children, it’s not good for 121 child nutrition. It’s not very easy for schooling. It is not very easy to take care of the children.” Ma Ba Tha monks have stated the same view. Even Sitagu Sayadaw, a relatively moderate Ma Ba Tha monk, has used the “demographic issue” as a basis to deny the violence against Muslims in Myanmar. He stated in early 2014 that, “Actually in total only two hundred people were killed in Rakhine… (with a slight laugh) these people cannot be eliminated so easily having an unbelievable birth rate… I told them 122 we could not kill you all, because in Burma you have a very high birth rate.” 19