Geo-Political Reality Bites
Dharisha Bastians
Late last week, increasingly influential hardline groups in the country rallied against the internationally-acclaimed TIME Magazine for its cover story featuring controversial Burmese monk Wirathu, whose 969 movement has been accused of provoking major anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar that has been rocked by riots and the deliberate targeting of Muslim communities in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
Wirathu’s rhetoric, calling on Buddhist Burmese citizens to boycott Muslim-owned shops and businesses and seeking legislation to restrict women from marrying Muslim men, finds resonance in the Islamophobia whipped up by political Buddhist groups operating freely in Sri Lanka, prompting hardliners in this country to spring to the defence of Wirathu being branded by TIME Magazine as the ‘Face of Buddhist Terror’.
