Both are myths cultivated and curated by Western tropes and a War on Terror that reared another ugly face in Myanmar. Buddhism was manipulated and made into a death cult by Suu Kyi and her military generals, who unleashed a genocidal Islamophobia on the Rohingya people, a people native to Rakhine State.

XREF: Connects to broader literature on how religion is co-opted by nationalist and militarized state power — parallels to Christian nationalism or Hindu nationalism debates.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 673