Nationalism Headache

NATIONALISM has never been serious than today in Myanmar since it has been independence in 1948. During colonial era, nationalism was deemed as a sign of united front by people from all walks of life. It however is much different with today nationalism. It apparently started one year ago in western Rakhine state which is close to Bangladesh border. A rape murder triggered to sectarian violence that left few thousands homeless and hundred death. Understandably most of victims are estimated stateless Rohingya Muslim because the most serious violence happened on their land. Since then, the religion violence has been escalated and the government failed to response swiftly. To date, the police and court yet to brought perpetrators to justices which show the degree of rule of law within country.

Unfortunately, it is not end within itself and spread to other region in the following months. It delayed the government's democratization process effectively and earned international criticism. Most recently the government spokesman told media the the accusation of government and military behind recent and on-going sectarian violation was groundless. To make the matter worse, some monks participated in the campaign popularly known '969' to alert our people to discourage buying at Muslim own business. It is true there have been some form of rumors through internet media. Our people have apparently been divided to two group by those speculation. As people are less educated, some slip into those false news to generate either political gain or religious or at least legal right of citizenship by illegal Bengali. I believe, most of such speculation came from exiles who always want to see our nation shake. 

Amid shaky situation, Time magazine's this month cover story make our situation worst. It prompt the government issue a letter of objection against the article which said "the face of terror buddhist' by a leading campaign monk, U Wirathu. Our people feel unfair to be criticized as a violence religion rather than world's most peaceful religion. At the same time, some monks trying to draft a law to protect our women marrying Muslim men and being altered. Some support the move while another see them as a religion extremists. I am seeing a lot argument on social media website these days and sick and tired of it. The government seem not step in to stop the movement. There are ton of things to be done in country and our government and people keep busy with such nationalism movement. We are now in critical junction and our leaders must have enough intelligent to overcome the current crisis. Otherwise we are again in danger risking the nation to reverse. I would like to ask our people, religion leaders and government not to panic on baseless rumors and solve the problems with logic and rule of the law. I am sure that we all don't want to return previous state.