The (New) Buddhist Nationalisms? Symmetries and Specificities in Sri Lanka and Myanmar

Abstract

A large proportion of mainstream media coverage of Sri Lanka and Myanmar has grouped Bodu Bala Sēnā (BBS), the 969 Movement and the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion (MaBaTha in its Burmese acronym) as a single phenomenon. Referred to variously as Buddhist terrorism, Buddhist militarism or Buddhist nationalism, these groups appear in popular media as separate iterations of a shared type. However, beneath the many ostensible symmetries—particularly commonalities at the level of group representation—subtle but significant differences also exist in the groups’ political and religious positionalities and their dispositions towards the promises and perils of development and globalization. Not only are these points of specificity important for purposes of descriptive precision, they are essential for understanding the various stimuli, formations and directions of Buddhist activism in South and Southeast Asia today.