Yangon: Myanmar’s ultra-nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement announced Sunday it was rebranding under a new name, days after Buddhist authorities banned the network which has been accused of stoking Islamophobia.
The monk-led movement grew in strength under the country’s previous military-backed government, peddling a form of hard-line Buddhist nationalism that intensified sectarian tensions with minority Muslims.
But after months of distancing itself from the radical group, Myanmar’s top Buddhist clergy on Tuesday ordered the Ma Ba Tha to cease all activities by mid-July or face prosecution.
The threat did little to deter thousands of maroon-robed monks, nuns and lay followers from attending a weekend summit at a Yangon monastery decorated with Ma Ba Tha banners, with many defiantly declaring their intention to keep the movement going.
On Sunday the group released a statement saying they would use a new name: The Buddha Dhamma Philanthropy Foundation.
“We urge all members in all regions and states around the country to work for the country, people and religion using the name of the Buddha Dhamma Philanthropy Foundation,” said the statement, signed by its monk leader Tilawka Biwuntha.
The new name is noticeably less controversial and confrontational than the original.
Ma Ba Tha is the Burmese abbreviation for a phrase that translates as “The Association for the Protection of Race and Religion” — a name the group would also give as its official English title.
With the help of notorious firebrand monk Wirathu, who attended the weekend gathering and has a significant Facebook following, Ma Ba Tha became know for sermons and protests that helped foment the idea that Buddhism in Myanmar is threatened by Islam.
Muslims have lived in Myanmar for centuries but only make up around five percent of the population.
In recent months Buddhist hard-liners have shut down religious events across the country and forced two Yangon schools accused of illegally doubling up as mosques to close their doors.
Police arrested several nationalists this month after a fight broke out in a Muslim neighborhood of Yangon, when dozens of people raided a house believed to be hiding Rohingyas — a Muslim minority maligned by many Buddhists.
Earlier this year the ruling clergy, a body known as Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, banned Wirathu from preaching for a year, though he still spoke at the gathering on Saturday.
The same day Tilawka Biwuntha signalled the group had no intention of disbanding.
“If you write Ma Ba Tha, you can erase the words. But no one can erase Ma Ba Tha from your heart,” he told supporters.
Faced with ban, Myanmar hard-line monks change name
Faced with ban, Myanmar hard-line monks change name
France’s Macron accepts resignation of Louvre museum chief after jewel theft
- Des Cars has faced intense criticism since burglars made off in October with jewels worth an estimated $102m
- Strikes over pay and conditions since December have also led to regular closures
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation on Tuesday of the head of Paris’ Louvre museum, which has been grappling with the fallout from a high-profile jewel heist and rolling strikes.
Laurence des Cars tendered her resignation, which Macron accepted, “praising an act of responsibility at a time when the world’s largest museum needs calm and a strong new impetus to successfully carry out major projects involving security and modernization,” his office said.
Des Cars has faced intense criticism since burglars made off in October with jewels worth an estimated $102 million that are still missing, exposing glaring security gaps at the world’s most-visited museum.
Strikes over pay and conditions since December have also led to regular closures and added to a list of woes that included two water leaks as well as a massive ticket fraud investigation.
Critics including the state auditors’ office have questioned the museum’s low spending on security and infrastructure maintenance while it made lavish purchases of new artwork, only a quarter of which is open to the public, and spent heavily on post-pandemic relaunch projects.
