Ashin Wirathu, center, leads a procession of monks and nuns along the streets of Mandalay, Myanmar on Sept. 21. (Photo by John Zaw)
Hardline Buddhists in Myanmar have launched nationwide rallies to celebrate a set of controversial laws on race and religion. But leaders from minority faiths say it's another troubling sign of how religion is being used to sow conflict in a divided country.
Thousands of people, including monks and nuns, took to the streets of Mandalay on Sept. 21. Crowds shouted "Victorious! Victorious!" while marching in the country’s second-largest city.
The rallies, scheduled to take place through September, were organized by the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, known as Ma Ba Tha — an influential Buddhist nationalist group that pushed Myanmar's government to pass the divisive laws.
Ashin Wirathu, a Ma Ba Tha member and outspoken monk known for his fiery speeches denouncing Muslims, addressed thousands of cheering supporters during the rally.
"We need race and religion laws to protect our Buddhist women from the Islamization of jihad," he said. "… We are now able to save our women through the legislation."
Wirathu and other hardline Buddhists had lobbied for the restrictive laws, which were signed into law in August. The race and religion laws include bills that impose mandatory "birth spacing" for women; monogamy laws that would punish people with more than one spouse; marriage laws that require Buddhist women to register their marriages in advance if marrying a man who is not Buddhist; and a law regulating religious conversions.
Critics say the laws are a blatant attempt to target Myanmar’s Muslim minority and the often persecuted Muslim Rohingya group in particular.
Catholics and other faith leaders, however, see the legislation as a strike against pluralism in multiracial Myanmar.
Father Maurice Nyunt Wai, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar, said the Ma Ba Tha celebrations are blurring the lines between religion and politics ahead of nationwide elections in November.
"We have much concern that religion is used for political purposes and things could become unstable ahead of Nov. 8 polls," Father Nyunt Wai told ucanews.com.
Buddhist monks march on the streets of Mandalay on Sept. 21. (Photo by John Zaw)
Repercussions
Aye Lwin, the chief convener of the Yangon-based Islamic Center of Myanmar, also expressed fears that the hardline monks were dividing the country based on faith.
"This is a well planned and organized way to use religion as a political tool, especially targeting minority Muslims," Aye Lwin said.
There is broad distrust of Muslims among many in the Buddhist-majority country. Rohingya people in western Rakhine state bore the brunt of violence that erupted in 2012 between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. Dozens of people were killed and tens of thousands were forced to flee their homes, the majority of them Rohingya.
While many critics believe the race and religion laws are targeting the Muslim community, some also fear that the legislation could have repercussions for other minority faiths, including Christians.
Timothy Muna Paul, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Myanmar, said the marriage and religious conversion laws could be troublesome for Christians.
"I feel that the religion laws could affect minority Christians in the country," Muna Paul said.
Previously, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon condemned the legislation, calling the laws the product of "hatred."
"Any effort to dilute the pristine image of Buddhism and its message of universal love needs to be resisted by all people of our nation," he said in a Sept. 10 statement urging Myanmar’s leaders to review the laws.
