Integration should not be a one-way street

Frontier
MYANMAR
Opinion
Saturday, August 03, 2019
By THAN TOE AUNG | FRONTIER

Advocates of interfaith harmony gather at central Yangon's Mahabandoola Park in May 2016. (Steve Tickner | Frontier)  

It’s time for us to embrace the idea that you can wear a beard, kurta or hijab, and have a Muslim name, and still be fully Burmese.

ONE OF Burma’s most prominent monks, Sitagu Sayadaw, once observed that Muslims are “guests” and Buddhists are “hosts”, and that “the guests must obey the hosts”. Similarly, I have heard Buddhists say that Muslims in Burma (a name I use in preference to Myanmar) need to respect Buddhist culture and “assimilate” into it.

Rohingya Trading Identity for Partial Citizenship, More Rights in Rakhine State

The Irrawaddy
By Moe Myint 7 March 2019

Lawmakers take a rare stand for persecuted Muslims in western Burma after learning that the movement of about 500 people recently awarded citizenship remains restricted.

YANGON — More than half of the 7,000-plus Muslim Rohingya who have applied for citizenship in Rakhine State over the past three years have now been accepted following a wave of approvals in just the last few months, according to the Ministry of Labor, Population and Immigration.