<![CDATA[In Myanmar, relationships between Buddhists, Christians and Muslims is taboo. For these couples, love found a way]>
When Khine and Min announced their engagement in Yangon, Myanmar, few were in favour. Some of Khine's friends told her that as a Buddhist woman, she should not marry a Muslim man; others warned her that Min's proposal was part of a Muslim plot to take over the country. Her family didn't need to give a reason.
"[There was] already a common understanding about Muslims as bad guys. It was obvious that I was not allowed to marry a Muslim man," said Khine, 30, who requested the use of pseudonyms for herself and Min, 43.
As Myanmar began its transition to democracy in 2011, ultranationalist Buddhist monks, with support from the military, gained increasing influence. One of their main platforms has been focusing on a perceived threat of Muslim expansion "swallowing" the country's Buddhist identity.
In 2012, the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman allegedly by Rohingya Muslim men in Rakhine State led to widespread violence in the state capital, Sittwe, and the confinement of more than 100,000 Rohingya Muslims in camps, where they still reside.
By 2013, the 969 Movement, led by nationalist Buddhist monks, had emerged and gained mainstream popularity. In addition to advocating for Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops, one of the movement's key platforms was opposing Buddhist women marrying Muslim men.
Despite fears of Muslim expansion, Muslims make up only a small segment of Myanmar's population. The 2014 census identified just over 1 million Muslims in the country, comprising some 2 per cent of its population, while an estimated 90 per cent of the country's 51 million people were Buddhist. These numbers, however, do not include the roughly 1 million Rohingya Muslims who at the time resided in Rakhine State; most have since fled to Bangladesh following mass atrocities committed by the military in 2016 and 2017. A United Nations investigation of the 2017 violence found it occurred with "genocidal intent".
Buddhist monks attend the annual meeting of the ultranationalist Ma Ba Tha group in Yangon. Photo: AFP alt=Buddhist monks attend the annual meeting of the ultranationalist Ma Ba Tha group in Yangon. Photo: AFP
Negative perceptions of "other races", and Muslims in particular, are also instilled in the Buddhist-majority country through schools and institutions. From 2010 to last year, the fifth-grade civics education curriculum contained a poem which said children had the responsibility to "maintain the dignity of one's own race" and avoid having one's race "swallowed by another". It included the line: "We hate mixed blood, it will make a race extinct."
The motto of the Myanmar government's Ministry of Immigration and Population, as stated on its website, is "The earth will not swallow a race to extinction but another race will."
Khine understood these perceptions; she once subscribed to them. "I used to hate Muslims a lot," she said. As a teenager, she and her friends would read Burmese-language books. "We didn't know the source ... [the books said] Muslims are very bad, [that] they want to take control of the world; they will marry Buddhist women and make them deliver many babies," she recalled reading.
Khine once visited a friend's home to convince his parents to make him break up with his Muslim girlfriend.
At university, she unknowingly befriended a Muslim classmate. "It was a little shift," Khine said, "the first step of change in my life." She met Min when providing relief for Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and they began dating a few months later. She said she first tried to push Min's religious background to the back of her mind. When they finally talked about religion, more than a year into the relationship, Khine realised she and Min shared a similar world view.
The couple dated secretly. When Khine's colleague found out, she tried to break up the relationship, as Khine had once done to her friend.
Laws pertaining to marriage between those of different faiths vary throughout Southeast Asia. In Singapore and Malaysia, marriages involving Muslims are categorised separately from civil marriages, and are subject to their own customary rules. Indonesia's constitution permits people to marry who they choose, but many civil servants refuse to conduct interfaith marriages, citing ambiguities in the legal wording.
Myanmar interfaith couple Julie and Rocky. Photo: Emily Fishbein alt=Myanmar interfaith couple Julie and Rocky. Photo: Emily Fishbein
In 2015, the monk-led ultranationalist group Ma Ba Tha " an abbreviation for the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion " successfully advocated for the passing of four "Protection of Race and Religion" laws in Myanmar. According to one " the Buddhist Women Special Marriage Law " before a Buddhist woman can marry a non-Buddhist man, the couple must go through an administrative process, including the public posting of a marriage application and allowing the community to submit objections.
Khine and Min married before this law was passed; however, in order to get married in court under civil law, both needed to be Buddhist. In December 2011, Min signed a certificate acknowledging a willing conversion to Buddhism, and the couple married five months later.
Despite Min's on-paper conversion, the couple continue to maintain separate religions. They celebrate Buddhist full-moon days as well as Muslim Eid, and when Khine travels, Min puts flowers on the Buddhist shrine in their home.
When they had their son in 2013, they hired a Christian carer so he would not be more exposed to one parent's religion than the other. "We tell him, 'You can decide'," Khine said. "But if he says this in front of my family members ... they will contact me immediately and say, 'You need to watch out. We don't want your son to be a Muslim'."
When Khine and her son applied for their passports in June, they needed to wait in separate lines " "national races" for Khine, and "mixed blood" for her son, the latter a designation for Burmese Muslims and those of South Asian and Chinese descent. Khine's passport was issued immediately, but she was informed that her son would have to undergo security clearance, including a home interview, which, two months later, had not occurred.
Myanmar police lay out barbed wire outside the United States embassy before the arrival of supporters and monks belonging to the hardline Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha in 2016. Photo: AFP alt=Myanmar police lay out barbed wire outside the United States embassy before the arrival of supporters and monks belonging to the hardline Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha in 2016. Photo: AFP
When Julie's friends found out about the relationship, some tried to convince her to break up with Rocky. "People [in Myanmar] think that if the guy is Muslim, [the girl's] life will be hell," Rocky said. "They think that Muslims are terrorists ... that [Muslim] religion, race, little by little can control the power."
While Buddhist women must go through an administrative process to marry men of other religions, if both partners are non-Buddhist, their marriage falls under customary practices. Julie and Rocky's marriage was presided over by an imam; Julie was not required to convert to Islam.
After marrying, they rented a flat in Yangon's suburbs, where neighbours regularly harassed them. "When people saw that a Muslim had married a Christian, they popped our tyres, broke our wipers, licence plates, mirrors," Rocky said. "It happened often ... We never went out. We never even opened the window ... we were really scared." Their doorbell rang frequently, he said, but when they opened the door, no one was there.
Daily interactions with strangers can still be uncomfortable. "[People] don't like us," Rocky said. "Some people ask [Julie], 'Why are you married to him? You don't have people left to marry?'"
Like Min and Khine, the couple maintain their separate religions. "I am flexible. She is flexible. The main thing is that we understand each other," Rocky said.
The couple, who run a shop in downtown Yangon, have decided not to have children. "Their blood will be mixed," Rocky said. "We don't want them to suffer."
Myanmar interfaith couple Ravina and Zide. Photo: Emily Fishbein alt=Myanmar interfaith couple Ravina and Zide. Photo: Emily Fishbein
Ravina, a 23-year-old Christian, and Zide, a 20-year-old Muslim, met through a shared interest in street dance and began dating about a year ago. Ravina, who works in a salon, and Zide, a transcriber in an office, hold hands in public and are open with Zide's family and friends, but not Ravina's.
"Everybody in my social environment will gossip," Ravina said, adding that within her community, "it is really bad that he is Muslim". When a few of her friends found out, they raised serious objections, she said. "They are afraid I will change my religion."
When the couple goes on dates, Ravina said people looked at them from head to toe and some laughed at them. Zide said their peers were generally more accepting than older generations, but "there is always someone who will try to find a problem ... They gossip, look at us like it is their job".
Zide goes to the mosque every Friday; Ravina to church every Sunday. They have agreed that if they marry, "she will believe what she believes and I will believe what I believe", Zide said.
At the office where Khine works as a trainer on interfaith dialogue, colleagues and trainees asked her whether it was true that she married a Muslim. "They might stop talking to me or attending my training ... After they know I am married to a Muslim, they change."
She hopes that, in the face of an often seemingly bleak situation, person-to-person connections will slowly bring change. "We need to have interactions first to really understand each other," she said.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
