Buddhist monk says Muslims and Christians are dogs, interlopers

In a sermon posted on YouTube earlier this month, a Buddhist monk delivers a warning to his audience about Muslims and Christians in Myanmar: “Do not underestimate them.”

Referring to Myanmar as a ‘Buddhist country’, the monk explains his fear of the two religious minorities, which he admits are small but implies are growing.

“If their groups are stronger, what will they do to us? They will fight back,” he says, apparently aware that his chickens will one day come home to roost.

“It has been an unreasonable claim of [some] Buddhists that the population of Muslims and Christians is increasing. The monk talked about it in the video and showed his irrational fear,” said Aung Kaung Myat, who translated the sermon into English.

Research published by Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation in 2013 concluded that there is no evidence of a Muslim population boom in Myanmar.

Throughout the sermon, the monk confuses religion with ethnicity (and fails to recognize ethnicity as a social construct altogether).

“In Myanmar, how many ethnic races are there?” he asks.

The audience responds: “Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Chin, Mon, Bamar, Rakhine, Shan.”

“Is Kalar in the list?” the monk asks the audience, using the derogatory term used in Myanmar to refer to Muslims or to people with darker skin. “Is Christian on the list?”

“No,” the audience replies.

“They are not hosts; they are guests…. They are interlopers in our house,” the monk says, reviving an idea popularized by Sitagu Sayadaw, arguably the most prominent monk in Myanmar, during the intercommunal conflict in Rakhine State in 2012 that left dozens dead and over 100,000 Rohingyas displaced.

“This concept was started by Sitagu, a famous monk in Burma, and it spreads like a meme. Basically, people of religious minorities are seen as second-class citizens because they believe in different religions,” said Aung Kaung Myat, the translator.

In 2012, Sitagu Sayadaw said: “Buddhists are hosts and Muslims are guests; the guests must obey the hosts.”

The monk in the video continues: “When a monkey takes over the throne, it is tolerable for us. A monkey will leave after it has played around on the throne. But a dog will even pee on it. That’s why [those with] wrong beliefs are like dogs.”

At the end of the video, the monk describes Myanmar people as “the most incompetent race in the world” for not achieving as much development as Muslims and Christians in the country have. This refrain is often repeated by people seeking to justify Buddhists’ resentment toward religious minorities in Myanmar and toward international organizations, which many Buddhists believe are disproportionately interested in the wellbeing of the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

This sort of hate speech has been going on in Myanmar for years and has been gaining frequency.

“It’s not likely the audience will start a riot after the sermon. But the content of the sermon will be inside their heads for a long time,” said Aung Kaung Myat.

“What most upsets me is I heard the voices of children in the video. He’s inciting hate and violence into these children’s heads,” he added.

The monk in the video has not yet been identified.

Subscribe to the WTF is Up in Southeast Asia + Hong Kong podcast to get our take on the top trending news and pop culture from the region every Thursday!



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on