Myanmar Muslims not interested in al-Qaeda

They may be at the receiving end of an ongoing hate-filled campaign by their own countrymen but Myanmar Muslims are not about to sell their soul just to get back at the people who don’t think they deserve the same rights and respect as the rest of the country’s people. 

No, we are not talking about Myanmar Muslims adopting the Christian philosophy of turning the other cheek when some one hits you. 

We are talking about their decision to reject a recent stated aim by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri about how his terror network will be focusing on Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, also known as Burma. 

Zawahiri’s aim is to spread his campaign of terror in these countries. He cited injustice and oppression. 

While no one can deny that race relations and state-community relations have been in trouble for some time in these countries, adopting terrorism as an approach was not an option for local Muslims.

If anything, such a stance suggests that Muslim citizens were willing to explore other ways to resolve their differences with their respective state and society. 

The Burmese Muslim Association (BMA), in a statement, urged people in the country to live in harmony regardless of racial and religious differences. 

The BMA statement called Myanmar their “motherland” and said that they would not tolerate any threat to it. 

In some way, it was a plea from the Muslims to the rest of the country’s people, half of whom are Buddhists of Burmese ethnicity. Not long after the military government of Myanmar entered into what some said was irreversible political reform, Burmese Buddhists, including monks, started an anti-Muslim campaign, urging people to boycott Muslim-owned businesses. 

Communal violence and clashes between Buddhist and Muslims have become a common occurrence, not only in Rakhine State where most of the stateless Rohingya live, but in major cities like Mandalay as well.

Myanmar authorities have been accused by leading international human rights organisations of turning a blind eye and in some cases, like the attacks against the Rohingya, were accused of providing support to the attackers. 

Myanmar troops responded to the al-Qaeda leader’s video statement by beefing up security along the border as if it could really help deter anything. 

It was not exactly a surprise for the al-Qaeda chief to cite these regions as new targets for his network of terror. After all, sites of communal violence have strong religious tensions.

The conflict and insurgency in southern Thailand may not fit the bill but it doesn’t mean that the country is out of the loop.

Thai security planners, especially those officials dealing with the ongoing conflict in the Malay-speaking southernmost provinces, should also take note of this latest al-Qaeda development. 

While the political context of the southern Thailand insurgency is still very much based on Patani Malay nationalism, if and when the issue becomes an Islamic one, then groups like al-Qaeda will not need an invitation to attack Thailand.

But few Thai officials understand the danger of playing the religious card in their strategy to discredit Patani Malay separatist militants.

All of the militants in Thailand’s deep South may be Muslims but they are nevertheless fighting for the liberation of their historic homeland. This explains why insurgency violence is confined to the Malay-speaking region in the southernmost border provinces. 

Thai officials need to understand that Islam is just one of the cards that could be use to counter the southern insurgency and that they have to be sophisticated about it so they don’t come across as being ignorant about the conflict that claimed more than 6,000 lives since January 2004.

But instead of telling the Malays how to be a good Muslims, perhaps a more effective means for reconciliation is to put an end to the culture of impunity and heighten the sense of ownership and social mobility of Malays in this restive region.