Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'other'

For decades the situation in Myanmar or Burma has been portrayed as a case of good citizens versus a bad regime—a peaceful population beholden to Buddhist ideals of non-violence and tolerance trying to endure amid a strong-armed and suffocating rule over the country. But in recent years this narrative has been upended. In June 2012, violence between Buddhists and Muslims in western Burma pointed to a growing divide between religious communities that had previously received little attention from the outside world. Attacks on Muslims then spread rapidly across the country.

As journalist Francis Wade shows in this on-the-ground look at the circumstances in Myanmar, the violence, spurred on by monks, pro-democracy activists, and politicians, has illuminated a hard truth: that in ethnically-diverse societies undergoing the pains of political transition, communities once united in their opposition to ruling powers can turn against one another in the cruelest of ways. In Myanmar’s Enemy Within Wade offers a gripping and vital account of the increasingly dangerous phenomenon of Buddhist extremism, uncovering how complex societies can be exploited by a ruling elite unnerved by democratization. Wade reveals how some of the most respected and articulate voices for democracy in Burma have turned against the Muslim population at a time when the majority of citizens are beginning to experience freedoms unseen for half a century.