Policy and legal matters
Currently there are efforts to implement a law against inter-faith marriages that would, in a very clear way,
criminalize certain interactions with the country’s Muslim and Christian populations. The current draft of this law
stipulates that Buddhist women will be precluded from marrying Muslim men, and that Muslims would need to
convert to Buddhism before such marriages would be approved. There has been much consternation about
the role of these proposed restrictions in contemporary Myanmar. They will serve to undermine some of the
confidence of the population at a time when communal harmony is fragile. Among nationalist, Buddhist elements
there is great anxiety about the perceived incursions that Muslims have made. Some of those anxieties are
focused, simply, on the growing number of Muslims in the country. In other cases there are more personal reasons,
including economic grievances and religious prejudices, which are leading to the entrenchment of cleavages.
These blur the boundaries between ethnic and racial concerns, especially where Muslims are perceived to be
foreigners, identified by their darker skin and alien cultural practices.
Perhaps the most significant division between the Bamar majority and some ethnic and religious minority
populations is seen in the level of recruitment to the military. The preeminent role of the armed forces during
Myanmar’s recent history makes the lack of non-Bamar personnel an issue of significant concern for the long-term
acceptance of state security organizations. Histories of abusive interactions with ethnic minorities are problematic
in a context where the representativeness of the military has long been criticized. The police, a paramilitary force
under the overall control of former military officers, struggles for respect, especially in those parts of the country
where the local population is reluctant to trust any uniformed government personnel. Recruitment for the security
sector that better reflects the ethnic and religious composition of the country will require attitude changes from both
the government and the population-at-large. For now there are major challenges of perception that undermine the
confidence that many of Myanmar’s people have in those who are supposed to keep them safe.