9 September
2015 EASTASIAFORUM Authors: Matthew J Walton, Melyn McKay and Ma
Khin Mar Mar Kyi, University of Oxford
In mid-August 2015 Myanmar’s parliament passed the final two of
four controversial religious protection laws. The bills have now
been signed into law by President Thein Sein, joining the
Interfaith Marriage Law and Population Control Law. The
international narrative depicts them as a package of legislation
that discriminates against women and non-Buddhists, being promoted
by anti-Islamic nationalists led by MaBaTha (or the Organization
for the Protection of Race and Religion) and the 969 Movement. In
Myanmar, the legislation is opposed by civil society groups — led
most vocally by women’s and rights groups — who argue that the laws
violate international norms, Myanmar’s treaty obligations, and are
likely to further inflame religious conflict.
Yet this simplistic binary narrative of opposition ignores the
appearance of widespread support for the laws not only among large
swathes of the male population, but also among some women. How do
we explain the fact that some groups of women in Myanmar would back
a set of laws that other groups of women claim will be bad for
women?
To date, the general discourse focuses on the ways prominent
monks may use the laws to gain socio-political influence for
MaBaTha and 969. Similarly, political parties and government
officials are thought to back the legislation strategically as a
way of courting Buddhist
voters. But these instrumental accounts
cannot effectively explain laywomen’s support for the laws. Most
Myanmar women are not in a position to realise these types of
political benefits.
Another explanation either explicitly or implicitly suggests
that women who advocate for the laws do not fully understand them
and are themselves naive, manipulated, and/or exploited by
power-hungry monks and political leaders. This argument is equally
problematic as it is not only demeaning to women — who have
frequently taken a very active, visible role in the protests in
Rakhine State or the nation-wide signature campaigns — but also
strips them of agency by not recognising them as self-aware,
rational actors.
How do women explain their support for these laws and for the
monk-led groups that promote them? Interviews in Rakhine State, for
example, reveal that the most pressing and immediate fear for many
women is the threat, plausible or not, of physical assault or rape
by Muslim men. It is undeniably true that politicians have
continuously overlooked the issue of physical and sexual violence
against women in Myanmar, in part due to the perceived ‘traditional
high status of women’. In their rhetoric, monks like U Wirathu, a
prominent figure in 969 and MaBaTha, have taken it upon themselves
to protect not only Buddhism but specifically, Buddhist women, by
acknowledging these fears and pledging to take action in defence of
women.
Despite this protection being specifically and only offered
against Muslim men, for many women in Rakhine State it is still
more of an acknowledgement of the precariousness of women’s lived
experiences than they see is typically provided by other
groups.
It should be noted that none of the religious protection laws
deal with physical or sexual violence against women. MaBaTha’s
legislative platform does not do anything to directly address this
primary concern that Rakhine Buddhist women have expressed. But the
general stance of the organisation and its representatives has been
to engage sympathetically with Buddhist women. They denounce other
political actors for not responding to their fears and loudly and
publicly claim that they are acting on behalf of women.
There is another dynamic at work here. Despite frequent claims
regarding the traditional high status of women in Burmese culture,
the position of women within Burmese Buddhism remains inferior
culturally, if not as obviously in the political or juridical
sense. Besides a persistent belief that one must be reincarnated as
a man in order to become enlightened, institutionalised paths to
religious authority or influence are closed off to women. Burmese
nuns (thila shin) are not considered to be of similar
status as monks.
Women must also navigate confining roles within marriages and
families, producing additional fear, anxiety or unhappiness. While
entering the monastery offers other ways of living in the world, it
too falls short of enabling the majority of thila shin to
freely pursue their spiritual and ethical objectives, as most women
remain indelibly tied to familial obligations outside the
monastery.
In a highly restricted context like this, supporting 969,
MaBaTha or the religious protection laws can be a way for women to
take a leading role in the protection of Buddhism
— a central and well-regarded means of merit-making.
Prevented from obtaining traditional positions of religious
authority, it’s unsurprising that some women would embrace these
avenues as a way of claiming or asserting a religious identity and
achieving the religious objectives that are limited by their role
within lay and monastic society.
The intention of this analysis is not to challenge or undermine
the argument made by civil society groups that Myanmar’s religious
protection laws are discriminatory against women and non-Buddhists,
violate international human rights norms and treaty obligations,
and are likely to exacerbate religious conflict. These points are
all true. But these reasons appear unlikely to convince enthusiasts
of the laws — including women — to withdraw their
support.
Closer examination of the experiences of women who back a
package of laws that some claim runs contrary to their interest
reveals the self-aware and nuanced ways in which women evaluate and
navigate their religious and cultural circumstances. Civil society
groups will need to engage directly and honestly with the full
range of Myanmar women’s grievances and desires, if they wish to
effectively campaign against these laws and the discrimination and
conflict they are likely to produce.