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How does colonialism perpetuate religious discrimination? (Aggressors…

- - - - Monks do not offer Rohingyas citizenship status
      - British failure to protect Buddhism
        
        Christian missionaries came to Burma (Harvard; Gravers 7). Their teachings primarily affected Chin and Kachin minorities (Harvard).
        
        British colonial government severed the relationship between Buddhism and the State (Gravers 7; Britannica).
        
        The British declare Burma a ‘plural society’ and organize Burma into ethnically segregated administrations (Gravers 7).
      - British do not include the Burmese in reforms.
        
        In 1909, the British made reforms in India to pacify the Indian nationalist party. Some of these reforms were to be made in Burma too.
        
        In 1920, the Burmese learned that British changed its mind and would no longer offer reform to Burma. Therefore, the lawyers led a countrywide protest of boycotting British goods. In 1923, the British implemented reforms.
        
        In 1937 the British separated Burma from India and granted it its own constitution. The masses believed this indicated that the British would exclude Burma from next phase of Indian reform (Britannica).
      - Nationalists protest the reconstruction of ruined mosques and interfaith marriage (Gravers 8).
    - - Thakin is Burmese for master and the Burmese were required to use it when addressing the British. They rose in rebellion in the late 1930s (Britannica).
      - Witharu describe the Rohingyas as dirty.
    - - Muslims will rape our women.
      - A Muslim author publishes a book in 1931 that contains disparaging remarks about Buddhism (Gravers 7).
        
        Demonstrators and monks demand that the author is punished (Gravers 7).
        
        Buddhist monk publishes letter in The Sun newspaper, which stated that Muslims would exterminate Buddhists. The letter continued to say that Buddhist women who married Muslims suffered and that their children would lose their legal status if they did not convert to Islam. Demonstrations and riots followed (Gravers 7).
  - - - In order to cultivate land for rice production, Burmese peasants had to borrow from moneylenders with high interest rates. The British government would not offer mortgage loans or agricultural loans (Britannica).
      - In the 1920s, Hindu Chettiar and Muslim Cholia moneylenders indebted Burmese peasants in the Delta (Gravers 6).
      - Moneylenders would foreclose mortgages as quickly as possible to profit from land values and high rice prices (Britannica).
      - Dispossessed Burmese were unable to find employment (Britannica), because the colonial government brought workers from British India who saturated the workforce in southern Burma (Gravers 6).
      - Villagers resorted to theft and robbery which created racial discourse that Burmese were lazy and undisciplined (Britannica).
- - - - In the case of Burma, Buddhist faith distinguished the Burmese national identity from its British oppressors and Indian immigrants.
        
        A study by Grim and Finke indicates that a nation’s attempt to inflict religious homogeneity can result in increased violence in the region (Grim and Finke 635).
        
        Grim and Finke state that “to the extent that a religious group achieves a monopoly and holds access to the temporal power and privileges of the state, the ever-present temptation is to openly persecute religious competitors” (637).
        
        Because the Buddhist faith is a precondition for Burmese nationality, challenging Buddhism is the same as challenging the state.
        
        As established under the colonial system, state violence is sanctioned method of protecting identity.
        
        Buddhist/Myanmar identity is under threat of Muslim conversion which also threatens other religions, the nation, and the economy (Gravers 2). Its protection legitimizes violence against this threat (Gravers 4).
      - When a state claims a specific religion, it equates religious demands from minority groups with challenges to the national identity.
        
        Fox defines religious demands as “the demand for religious rights and/or privileges” (427). These demands challenge the “religious monopoly, domination, and/or ideals of the majority group, thereby provoking discrimination as a response” (Fox 427).
        
        Discrimination results from a struggle to asset religious legitimacy, or “the extent to which it is legitimate to invoke religion in political discourse” (Fox 428).
        
        Social regulation of religion leads to government regulation of religion, which leads to persecution, which reinforces the social regulation of religion (Grim and Finke 641).
      - The Rohingyas were not recognized in the 1947 Panglong Agreement as a Burmese ethnicity (Harvard).
    - - Subjects must demonstrate their belonging by cooperating in the social institutions, even if this means forgoing their immediate interests (Lloyd 217).
        
        Even if the subject did not experience the trauma first-hand, they share the shame and resentment (Lloyd 216).
  - - - Buddhist families hang Dhamma flag outside of house to signal their identity and avoid violence (Gravers 11).
    - - Riots incited by rumors of a rape of a Buddhist girl or woman (Gravers 11).
        
        It is suspected that rumors were started by the military in order to create fear and demand for state protections (Gravers 11).
    - - The military denies bribing the women to accuse Muslim men of rape, posing as thugs, or using Facebook stunts to depict Aung San Suu Kyi as a supporter of Muslims (Gravers 11).
      - In 2014, an anonymous monk publishes an article that describes are Buddhist women are abused by Muslim men and forced to convert (Gravers 12).
    - - They call Muslims “black foreigners from India” (Gravers 13).
      - They accuse Muslim men of forcing Buddhist women into marriage (Gravers 13).
      - They claim that Muslims control the economy and harm the economy by only trading among themselves (Gravers 13).
    - - In 2013, Time magazine published a feature called ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror,’ which angered Burmese who felt that their religion was demonized and misunderstood. This article created tensions about Western intrusion (Gravers 15).
    - - Perpetrated by military and police responding to an attack by Rohingya militants
        
        Rapings, beatings and killings
      - In early 2018, 800,000 Rohingya had fled the country since 2016
- - - - Young Men's Buddhist Association and the General Council of Buddhist Associations create nationalist slogans such as "to be Burmese is to be Buddhist" (Harvard).
      - The identity is defined by its prior trauma (Brown).