Securitization of Muslims in Myanmar’s Early Transition (2010–15)

Abstract

Between 2010 and 2015, as Myanmar transitioned from authoritarian rule to a more liberal and democratic state, its Muslim population increasingly faced hate speech and violence. This article goes beyond analyses that regard the growing anti-Muslim sentiment as a consequence of a liberalized media environment, enabling people to voice long-standing grievances and prejudice. Rather, the notion of a “Muslim threat” to Myanmar’s Buddhist population is approached as the outcome of a dynamic process of securitization in which an alliance of political and religious elites was forged whose discourse changed the rules of the political field, forcing the reform-oriented opposition into strategic silence. It is argued that in the early period of liberalization, anti-Muslim frames were normalized and thus shaped the securitization of Muslims.