Digital and Social Media: Connecting with the World Outside, Part 2
In this complex scenario, Myanmar’s social and historical realities contradict common Western sentiments toward Myanmar Buddhist practices as a uniquely peaceful and non-violent religion. Consequently, a political, social, and religious backlash began to jeopardize foreign support for democratic reforms underway in Myanmar.
Responses among global Buddhist networks to the discourse on Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar included the Dalai Lama, who admonished Burmese monks and, together with his fellow Nobel Prize recipients, has called for an end to violence. Others echo the view prominent in the West that Buddhism is inherently non-violent and peaceful, obscuring the political and social realities of those historical moments when Buddhists have been both victims and perpetrators of violence. Some Western media outlets stressed a resurgence of Buddhist nationalism and Burmese xenophobia. Time Magazine identified the Burmese monk Wirathu as the “Face of Buddhist Terror.”
Jack Kornfield (2014), a well-known American meditation teacher, published his firsthand report about the causes of violence in Arakan, but not without explaining “real” Buddhism. Under the title “Buddhists Betray the Teachings,” he describes social causes for the Rohingya conflict and then concludes that “surprisingly, there is widespread ignorance in Burma of the many core Buddhist teachings. Most of Buddhist practice is devotional… In this culture of devotion, the teachings of the noble truths and eightfold path, of nonviolence, mindfulness, meditation, and virtue are not emphasized.” This pejorative rhetoric deprives Myanmar Buddhists of voicing their own perspectives, while Abeysekara (2002:203) reminds readers that the voice of authenticity always belongs to the community of practitioners.
New transnational publics now also include diaspora communities who locate themselves in a more complex social world than their peers at home. In a letter published in 2018, a group of Burmese Buddhists living abroad asks their fellow countrymen “to consider whether the hyper-nationalism gripping the country now is compatible with the teachings of the Buddha… His teachings promote critical thinking, compassion, and striving to make ourselves and the world around us better. He warned against the dangers of attachment—to one’s race, religion, and nation—as these attachments prevent us from seeing the four noble truths and following the eightfold path.”
Example: The letter can be read on this website.
Concerns about press freedom in Myanmar continue to linger, as the podcast below explains.
Example:
Myanmar journalists reporting for Reuters on the 2017 massacre of ten Rohingya men in Rahkine remain imprisoned under the pretext of a colonial law that prohibits sharing state secrets.
Facebook is the universal platform in Myanmar that many users identify as the internet per se, because it is usually pre-installed on digital devices. Debates in the West about Facebook’s role in enabling the organization of violence have been hosted by serval media outlets. Following a rapid and yet unmonitored rise in hate speech since 2012, Facebook has been criticized for insufficient monitoring and a general lack of accountability in checking the spread of hate speech. As part of his testimony before Congress, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about the company’s lack of social responsibility in Myanmar. The spike in hate speech is captured in the chart below:
Examples: Here are links to important discussions about the role of Facebook in facilitating the rise of anti-Muslim communal violence in Myanmar.
- What Role Has Social Media Played in Facilitating the Spread of Hardline Nationalist Sentiment in Myanmar?
- Burma Gives a Big Thumbs Up to Facebook
- How Facebook's Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar
- How Facebook Played "Instrumental" Role in Rise of Burma's Ethnic Cleansing Campaign of Rohingya
- When Facebook Becomes 'The Beast': Myanmar Activists Say Social Media Aids Genocide
These cartoons speak to the ambiguous public attitudes Myanmar citizens hold toward Facebook’s role in the country’s public discourse.
Different communication technologies have had a significant impact on the roles of the monastic institution (sangha) in Myanmar. Against a colonial history fraught with encounters that many Burmese still view as anti-Buddhist, the notion of secular governance remains weak and largely unpopular. Following decades of totalitarian rule (1962-2010), the sangha has reclaimed its place in the Burmese public sphere as monks have both supported and contested military regimes in Myanmar. The sangha today in Myanmar is not a homogeneous group that speaks in a single voice, and its affirmed uniformity was clearly an idealized rather than a historical reality. Yet, Buddhist monks continue to enjoy tremendous power among the Burmese public. As monks on all sides of the political continuum seek to participate in emergent social and political reforms, they represent a formidable and unpredictable force in determining this country’s future.
Author Biography
Juliane Schober is Director of the Center for Asian Research, professor of religious studies at Arizona State University and PI on this UISFL project, Asia Mediated. Her primary areas of research include Theravada Buddhist practices in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar (Burma); Anthropology of Religion; Material Culture, Media and Aesthetics; Icons; Ritual; Modernity, Politics, and Religion; Colonial Studies; Conflict and Society; and Sacred Biography.Her book, Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies and Civil Society, was published in 2011 (University of Hawai’i Press). She co-edited Buddhist Manuscript Cultures (Routledge, 2008) and edited Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia (U. of Hawai'i Press, 1997). She has authored many book chapters, journal articles, and essays in encyclopedias.
Juliane Schober is a 2018 Research Fellow of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Buddhist Studies. With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Professor Schober has developed a collaborative project on Theravada Buddhist civilizations in Southeast Asia. She founded the Theravada Studies Group, an academic organization affiliated with the Association for Asian Studies that promotes comparative research in the social sciences and humanities about Theravada Buddhist traditions in Asia and globally though pilgrimage and diaspora networks. She has been awarded grants from the US Department of Education, Title VI (NRC, FLAS, and UISFL), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution.
