Racial and Religious Conflict in Asia Pacific, a Portrait of Postcolonial Condition

After more than two months, anti-Muslim riots in Meikhtila, Myanmar on March 20-22, ‘13 have left destroyed buildings and thousands of refugees displaced from their burning home. The three-days conflict has burned houses, mosques, and madrasah. Moreover, it killed more than 40 people and injured hundreds. Even though the situation seems going better, it still becomes a debate among intellectuals on what really happened. The most shocking thing is the riots involved a group of Buddhist monks that actively provoked the riots.

Compare with other religions, Buddhist relatively has less historical background with violence and conflict. The situation in Myanmar is bringing new face of Buddhist. In Youtube, Wirathu, 45 years old Buddhist monk, proudly called himself as “Burmese Bin Laden”. Wirathu and a group of monks have actively provoked movement against Muslim in Myanmar. They sprout 969 symbols in each Muslim store just to remind the Buddhists for not engaging with any business transaction with those stores. Wirathu said “It is our rights to only make businesses with our own people.” Wirathu continued, “If you buy from Muslim stores, your money doesn’t just stop there.” He said it in the late February, and the speech is available in CDs that sold in markets across Myanmar. “It will eventually go towards destroying your race and religion,” Wirathu and his monks believe that Myanmar businesses are controlled by groups of Muslim and well supported by Saudis and pro democratic party, LND that lead by Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Wirathu leads a monastery in Mandalay, named Maesoeyein. The students see Wirathu as a full-spirit nationalist. The Buddhists 969 movement is well supported by monks from Maesoeyein Monastery. The students believe that the movement is a nationalist movement to save Burmese from any threats, in particular from the minority Muslim. Wirathu and his followers support the President Sein’s statement that Rohingya is not a part of Myanmar. They also depicted the Muslim with a racial term “Kalar”, a Burmese term that often applied for a person with dark South Asian skin. It refers to Rohingya or Bengali. “There’s no such thing as Rohingya. They’re Bengalis,” said Ray Wa Ta, 27, a monk who studies at Wirathu’s Maesoeyein Monastery in Mandalay. “They’re brutal. They rape girls. They’re Kalar.”

Despite the fact that Muslim in Myanmar less than 5% of the population, Wirathu and the monks keep producing anti Muslim preach. Politicizing the Muslim Demography, believed that minority Muslim will be a future problem for majority Buddhist in Myanmar.

This kind of issue is not new thing in Asia Pacific. In Bangladesh, for example, with Hindu approximately 16% of the population and Muslim nearly 83%, radical politicians said the Hindu is too numerous and well support by India. In India, despite the fact that Muslim is only 130 Million and Hindu nearly 830 Million, Hindu extremist stated that Muslim is running for majority, and through BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) together with communal organization such as Shiv Sena and Jan Sagh they promoting Hindutva, a practical ideology that promotes Hindu as the way of life, no matter what religion you hold. Radical Hindu keen that Muslim stays in India but they support Pakistan. In Indonesia, a group of radical Muslim also believes that Christian populations are heading to 50% by 2015. In fact, all religion other than Islam is only 20% from Indonesia population. Moreover, in 1998 tragedy, the Indonesian Chinese has become victims of groups of people that accused the Chinese are the main cause of the National chaos. Indonesian Chinese is stigmatized as not nationalists and pro-foreign rather than supporting national interest.

Why does this type of conflict that fears on other religion and ethnic arise in those countries? Racial conflict is popular phenomenon in post cold-war, e.g. Bosnia ethnic cleansing, Tutsi in Rwanda, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Kurds in Iraq, and many other stories on ethnic cleansing. They are actually referring to control the demography of specific ethnic or religion even social class, the objective is to maintain the counterpart size in a level of minority. However number in demography is only the purpose not the cause.

In Asia Pacific countries in particular post-colonial countries, the conflict seems look similar, but the embryo is relatively different. Maybe we may see the social economy that has been changed is a major factor of the racial and religious conflict. For example, a radical Hindu group rises in India along with the financial reform that changes India into a liberal economy that led by the Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh (Currently, India Prime Minister) in 1991. In Indonesia, one of the most notorious religious conflicts is in Ambon that happened when Indonesia entered the reformation era, that changing national political shave from New Order Era into more democratic society. Muslim-Buddhist conflict in Myanmar reached it peak when Myanmar changed their political landscape, allowing opposition to participate in the national election.

It looks like that political-economy changing is the solely cause. It pushes us to accept all the conflict only by political-economy perspective. If we traced the historical background in Myanmar, India, and Indonesia, we may see the embryo of racial and religious conflict is colonialism. It is already been known that any colonialism its not goanna productive enough in term of capitalistic productivity, if the colonialist is not promoting social engineering. One of the most important social engineering in modern era is social categorize, to define specific group and make differentiations from one group and another.

Colonialist helped those countries identified their people through categories based on social stratum, religion, and race. In India, the British has fully excited with census in 1871, to define India by religious categories, to define religion with their potential to support colonial capitalism or revolt against colonialism. In Indonesia, the Dutch in 1866 introduced Wijkenstelsel that segratgated housing for minority Chinese and Arabs, to separate them with Pribumi, solely to maintain social order. In 1799 report by the British, Francis Buchanan-Hamilton helped estableshed Rohingya as non-Burmese based on language, later on by physical appearance that posed Arakan Muslim and Rohingya as Bengalis. Those racial and religious prejudices in colonial era have become a term of reference for colonial administrative policy, for housing segregation, economy subsidizes, and to chose the domestic ally.

In post-independence, many countries using colonial administrative term to govern an independent state. In early-independence, Indonesia used almost 75% of colonial laws. Those laws were used to regulate relations between colonialist and their colony. Myanmar is using social-geography map that was created by the British, including the racial term. Indeed to create a social order a regulation is needed, but “order” in post-colonial condition is a term that first introduced by colonialist to support a specific interest. Sometimes, it is very discriminative. For example, Indonesia government used the logic of “Wijkenstelsel” that segregated housing for Shia minority in Sampang solely to maintain social order in Madura and Wirathu and the monks, that engineered an anti-Kalar/Muslim movement as part of nationalism, justify Myanmar only belong to a specific ethnic group. Those policies and social prejudice has make the Shia, Rohingya and Myanmar Muslim becoming alien in their own land, what kind of crime that can be more sadistic than making a group of people become stranger in their own home.