“There is a history there, but I am mystified by such a widespread fear of Muslims among ordinary Burmans, so I throw up my hands. But it’s been fanned and cultivated and whipped up by Buddhist nationalists who have their own particular agenda, and by Rakhine who have their own history and anxieties that are deeply rooted and realistic, and by the military, for whom all this helps to solidify their claims to power and control of the economy and state. These attitudes are there and they are deeply rooted but they have been politically mobilized like no one has ever seen. The Rohingya were quite passive historically but now they have become a point of public mobilization. Yet if one wanted to get upset about an “outside” economic threat in Myanmar then the Yunnan Chinese population, and the Chinese companies that control all of northern Burma, would be the source of a more realistic and palpable concern of economic domination than the Muslims have ever posed."
By Nadeem Mahjoub Documentary film-makers G. Troeller and M. C. Defarge once asked a cabinet minister in South Yemen, why socialistic ideas were so readily acceptable in that part of the Arab world. He replied: “Because we have been communists for a thousand years! My mother was Qarmatian.” Official Muslim scholars and clerics, and many so-called moderates (whether individuals or groups) oppose sedition ( fitna ). Tensions and contradictions in society should be solved peacefully and even if the ruler was unjust and impious, it is generally accepted he should still be obeyed, for any kind of order is better than anarchy and sedition. “The tyranny of a sultan for a hundred years causes less damage than one year’s tyranny exercised by the subjects against one another.” Revolt was justified only against a ruler who clearly went against the command of God and His prophet.” 1 Here we look at not what happened in the minds of people who call for calm, oppose dissent and preach the re...
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