Critics of Ashin Wirathu and his denim-clad disciples say
the monk incites racial violence against Rohingya refugees. He claims he is
merely protecting his people
Myanmar army allegedly left Rohingya refugees with bullet
wounds and burns: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/12/myanmar-army-allegedly-left-rohingya-refugees-with-bullet-wounds-and-burns
“Aung San Suu Kyii would like to help the Bengali, but I
block her,” says Ashin Wirathu with some pride.
Branded the “Face of Buddhist Terror” by Time magazine,
Wirathu has his own compound within the Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay. Before
being offered a comfortable chair, visitors are greeted by a wall of bloody and
gruesome photographs.
The pictures show machete-inflicted head wounds and
severed limbs, disfigured faces and slashed bodies; Wirathu claims, without the
slightest evidence, that the images are of Buddhists who were attacked by
Muslims.
Next to the display, under which a monk is methodically
sweeping the floor, stands a long table. The newspapers spread across it
confirm that, for Wirathu’s followers, daily reading is a matter not just of
spiritual texts but also of politics.
An orange-robed assistant adjusts a film camera on to a
tripod; another brandishes a Nikon fitted with a large zoom lens. This
interview will be carefully recorded by the monks in every way.
Wirathu is a man of unassuming features. His baby face
belies the power he holds over nationalist activists in Myanmar as the
spiritual leader of the 969 movement and head of Ma Ba Tha, the Organisation
for the Protection of Race and Religion. https://www.theguardian.com/world/religion
Wirathu perches on one of two teak armchairs; the wall to
his left is covered with poster-sized photographs of him. He stands accused of inciting violence against the minority Muslim population in
Myanmar, where racial and religious faultlines are increasingly exposed. In
2012, fuelled by his speeches, riots erupted in
Meiktila, a city in central Myanmar, leaving a mosque burned to the
ground and over a hundred dead. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/18/buddhist-monk-spreads-hatred-burma
“I am defending my loved one,” he says, “like you would
defend your loved one. I am only warning people about Muslims. Consider it like
if you had a dog that would barks at strangers coming to your house – it is to
warn you. I am like that dog. I bark.”
Wirathu speaks of protecting his flock – “his beloved” –
against what he perceives as danger. His denial of responsibility for the
violence that has followed his sermons contrasts with eyewitness accounts of
knife-wielding monks, denim jeans visible under their robes, leaving Wirathu’s
monastery during the Mandalay riots of 2013.
Islam represents only 5% of Myanmar’s population of 54
million, but nationalists like Wirathu are pushing the idea that the faith puts
Buddhism, and the very essence of Myanmar, in jeopardy. He claims the 1 million
Rohingya Muslims living in precarious conditions in his country – described by
human rights agencies as the most persecuted people on Earth – “don’t exist”.
“It only takes one terrorist to be amongst them,” he
says. “Look at what has happened in the west. I do not want that to happen in
my country. All I am doing is warning people to beware.”
Wirathu adds that if Donald Trump or Nigel Farage need
some advice he will happily share his ideas. These include infiltrating the
Facebook pages of Muslim groups, getting all Islamic schools to record their
lessons, and government surveillance of internet activity, including emails. Wirathu
claims he has his own army of individuals screening the net in Myanmar.
On the well-documented situation of the Rohingya in
Rakhine state – where people have been left without access to medicines, aid,
and basic human necessities such as clean water, sanitation and food – Wirathu
is dismissive. The Rohingya have been mostly couped
up in camps since the 2012 violence, and the silence of Myanmar’s leader Aung
San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy on their plight has attracted
growing criticism. https://www.theguardian.com/world/rohingya
Wirathu rejects the stateless Rohingya as illegal
immigrants, a view echoed by the government. He will only discuss them if the
description “Bangladeshis” is used, and even then Wirathu says the situation is
not as it is portrayed.
“If it is true what [outsiders say], then I would offer
help but I have visited the camps on many occasions. The aid agencies are
refused access because they are using the refugees to fill their own pockets.
Bangladeshis are posing for the media. They are not starving. They have so much
food that they are selling it on in their shops – stealing even from their
own.”
On the allegations that women have been abused and raped
by the military, he laughed: “Impossible. Their bodies are too disgusting.”
There have been calls outside Myanmar for Aung San Suu
Kyi to return her Nobel peace prize for her failure to tackle the situation
with the refugees, which has broken her own promises on human rights.
Wirathu points to four soldiers marching through the
compound, joking that they are there to arrest him, again. In 2003, he was
sentenced to 25 years in prison for his anti-islamic sermons, but was released
nine years later. In the event, the soldiers are there simply to make donations
to his cause.
Wirathu is confident that the power of Ma Ba Tha is far
from dwindling; that the organisation represents Myanmar Buddhism and its
influence over the government is entrenched.
As a passing mosquito wins his empathy, he switches from
his anti-Muslim rhetoric to explain: “I can teach you how to be a better
Buddhist and not kill the mosquito. First, you must have compassion for the
mosquito, imagine it to need you as it has no family to feed it. Second, you
must try to put yourself in its place.”