In February 2014 I went to Myanmar to do some field research for my thesis. I was doing a MA degree in International Relations, and specialising in Human Rights. My thesis was about the Rohingya in Myanmar, a stateless Muslim minority persecuted by the government and by the Buddhist majority (available on Amazon).
I started my trip in Yangon, where I had a very insightful interview with Abu Thar-Aye who patiently answered all my questions and handed me some precious governmental documents. I then went to the Rakhine state to conduct more research.
The long bus ride from Yangon was quite stressful, not only because it was very bumpy and I could not sleep but also because I was interrogated twice. I guess I looked suspicious going to a troubled zone alone, the immigration officers at the checkpoints thought I was a journalist. I even had someone sent to sit next to me for a couple hours asking me endless questions and telling me about their made-up life as a ‘journalist’.
I arrived at a bus station around 3 am, confused about where I was. Someone told me to wait until 5 am for the first rickshaw to take me to Ngapali beach where I was going to stay based. The first one I found had just transported fish so I was sitting in a delightful wet fishy tuk tuk.
During that time, Myanmar was in reality still under military control and it was impossible to wander out of tourist zones in the Rakhine state. That meant I could not have any direct contact with Rohingya people.
Other Myanmar Muslims would barely talk to me, out of fear I imagine. I therefore decided to focus on Buddhists, as they were far more open to talking with me. I was hoping to hear their point of view on the situation, as my thesis was Rohingya orientated, I wanted to add a different scope to try and ‘understand’ the Rakhine Buddhists.
I was shocked by all the things I heard.
One thing that touched me in Myanmar in general was how people looked at me when we were talking. They would look at me with shiny eyes, and I could sense the brightness of their souls.
These beautiful-looking souls would tell me about how they strongly believed it was their responsibility to eliminate Islam in order to protect the Buddhist Dharma. For them, it was all good-hearted intentions, and they considered Islam to be toxic and dangerous to their community, they therefore had to eliminate this threat to their religion.
I heard similar speeches from young men in Yangon who considered Islam to be a danger to their community, especially to their women. They assured me that the violence was justified and that it would not end until all the ‘kalar’ were out of the country.
So these men wearing Buddhist monk robes torching down Muslim villages, schools and orphanages based their actions on pure intentions? This just left me more confused than I had ever been before in my life.
One day as I was watching the sunset by the beach, a man with a nice smile came up to greet me. He told me I was warmly welcome to go and have dinner at his restaurant to meet his wife and children, and that he would offer me free drinks and dessert. I was very touched.
I then learned that he was one of the leaders of the 969 movement , the extremist Buddhist group which organized violent mobs on Muslim shops and villages.
I believed I had developed a good instinct in reading people, but this experience in Myanmar was like a big slap in the face. I did not understand anything about humanity, good and bad intentions, 'good’ and ‘bad’ people.
It seems like humans can do the worse things based on true good intentions.
