Chapter 3. Propaganda, Sermons and the 969 Symbol
The influence of the 969 movement depended not only on the monks who promoted it but on the language, images and methods through which its message entered everyday life. During the period following the 2012 violence in Arakan, Buddhist-nationalist ideas that had previously circulated through religious and political networks became increasingly visible in sermons, pamphlets, recorded speeches, DVDs, stickers, posters and, increasingly, social media. The result was a communications system capable of carrying anti-Muslim narratives far beyond individual monasteries or public gatherings. By 2013, international observers were documenting 969 propaganda circulating across different parts of Myanmar and warning that religious nationalism and misinformation were contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for Muslims.
Turning 969 into a Public Symbol
At the centre of the campaign was the number 969 itself. Its promoters presented the digits as a Buddhist religious formulation: the first nine represented attributes of the Buddha, the six represented attributes of the Dhamma or Buddhist teachings, and the final nine represented attributes of the Sangha. Contemporary 969 explanations therefore presented the number as an affirmation of Buddhist identity rather than, in itself, an anti-Muslim slogan.
The movement nevertheless transformed this religious numerical reference into an extraordinarily visible political and social marker. The 969 logo incorporated the Burmese numerals, Buddhist imagery including a wheel associated with the Dhamma, and lions associated with the Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Stickers bearing the design were distributed at speeches and appeared on shops, vehicles and other public places. As their circulation expanded, the symbol increasingly identified people and establishments sympathetic to a movement whose public campaigning portrayed Islam as a danger to Buddhism and Myanmar's national character.
The symbolic contest was strengthened by nationalist interpretations of 786, a number commonly used by Muslims of South Asian cultural background as a numerical representation of the Islamic phrase Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim. Muslim restaurants and businesses sometimes displayed 786 for religious or cultural reasons. Within Buddhist-nationalist discourse in Myanmar, however, the number became associated with conspiracy theories. One widely circulated interpretation claimed that because 7 + 8 + 6 equals 21, the symbol represented a Muslim plan to dominate Myanmar or the world in the twenty-first century. Contemporary reporting recorded Wirathu himself referring to a supposed "786 plan." No credible evidence established the existence of such a conspiracy.
The contrast between 969 and 786 was therefore more than numerical symbolism. It encouraged audiences to see ordinary religious and commercial signs as evidence of two competing communities. A Muslim shop displaying 786 could consequently be interpreted not simply as Muslim-owned but, within the nationalist narrative, as part of an organized expansion. The 969 sticker offered a corresponding marker through which Buddhists could publicly identify themselves and their businesses. The detailed economic consequences of this system belong to the next chapter, but the propaganda achievement was already significant: religious identity had been converted into a highly recognizable visual boundary between communities.
The Sermon as a Vehicle for Political Messaging
Sermons were among the movement's most important means of communication. Religious preaching provided nationalist monks with an audience that conventional political activists could rarely command. Buddhist listeners attending a monastery or religious gathering were not necessarily arriving for a political meeting, yet sermons could combine Buddhist teaching with warnings about religion, race, marriage, population and the supposed expansion of Islam.
Researchers studying nationalist sermons delivered during this period found recurring arguments about the protection of race, religion and the Buddhist nation. Muslims were frequently presented not merely as followers of another faith but as a collective whose demographic growth, marriages and economic activities supposedly endangered Buddhism. Academic research examining sermons by nationalist monks has documented how the language of protecting amyo—race or nation—and thathana—the Buddhist dispensation—became intertwined with arguments about defending Myanmar against perceived Muslim expansion.
This rhetoric converted demographic anxiety into religious duty. Rather than requiring evidence of an organized political threat, the argument could treat ordinary features of Muslim life—families, marriages, businesses, mosques or religious practices—as evidence of expansion. USCIRF reported encountering highly inaccurate perceptions about Myanmar's Muslim communities and requests for evidence of claims that foreign Muslims were financing militancy produced no supporting evidence. The commission also documented monks distributing literature that grossly misrepresented Islam and presented Muslims as inherently hostile toward non-Muslims.
Such narratives were particularly dangerous for the Rohingya because they overlapped with an already established political vocabulary portraying them as foreigners. Rohingya had long been subjected to the claim that they were recent immigrants from Bangladesh rather than an indigenous community of Arakan. The nationalist discourse could therefore combine two allegations: first, that Rohingya were supposedly foreign "Bengalis"; and second, that Muslims collectively represented an expanding religious population threatening Buddhist society. The Rohingya consequently became useful evidence within the propaganda narrative itself—their existence in northern Arakan could be presented as proof of the Muslim demographic expansion the movement claimed to fear. Reports from this period documented fears of Rohingya or "Bengali" overpopulation being invoked in political discussions about Arakan.
Constructing the Muslim as an Existential Threat
A recurring feature of 969 rhetoric was the transformation of social competition into an existential struggle. Muslims were portrayed as reproducing rapidly, accumulating businesses and property, marrying Buddhist women and converting them to Islam. These claims suggested that Buddhism could disappear not necessarily through military conquest but gradually through demographic and economic change.
Wirathu became notorious for using dehumanizing comparisons when discussing Muslims. In one widely reported example, he compared Muslims to rapidly reproducing African carp, language subsequently cited in documentation submitted to the British Parliament and reproduced in international reporting. The importance of such language lies less in the individual insult than in the worldview it conveyed: Muslims were described as an invasive population whose numerical growth threatened the society surrounding them.
The rhetoric also relied heavily on stories about Muslim men and Buddhist women. Allegations of rape, forced conversion, interfaith marriage and high Muslim birth rates were repeatedly incorporated into nationalist messaging. Human Rights Watch reported that 969 proponents urged Buddhists not only to avoid Muslim businesses but also to refrain from marrying Muslims or converting to Islam. The emphasis on Buddhist women transformed women's relationships and reproductive choices into questions of national survival.
This was an important ideological development. Individual crimes allegedly committed by Muslims could be narrated as evidence about Muslims collectively. Rumours and isolated incidents could therefore acquire significance far beyond the underlying event. The conduct of one individual was capable of being represented as proof of an organized religious threat.
For Rohingya, this collective logic was especially dangerous. The Rohingya were already denied recognition as a national ethnic community by the state. When nationalist rhetoric additionally associated Muslim population growth with territorial or religious conquest, Rohingya families themselves could be represented as a security problem. In this environment, restrictions on marriage, childbirth and movement could be rationalized through the language of protecting Buddhist society rather than recognized as discriminatory controls imposed upon a persecuted population.
From the Monastery to the DVD Market
The reach of 969 propaganda was greatly increased by inexpensive reproduction technology. A sermon delivered to hundreds or thousands of people could be recorded, copied and heard repeatedly in places the original preacher had never visited. Contemporary accounts describe DVDs of nationalist sermons being sold or distributed at markets and monasteries, alongside photographs and other material portraying Buddhists as victims of Muslim violence.
The U.S. State Department subsequently documented proponents of 969 distributing pamphlets and DVDs across communities throughout Myanmar. These materials included anti-Muslim messages, arguments justifying discrimination and calls for Muslims to be socially and economically isolated. This meant that the movement no longer depended on the physical presence of a famous preacher. Recorded sermons could reproduce his authority repeatedly and inexpensively.
Print material performed a similar function. Pamphlets could compress complicated political grievances into memorable claims about Muslim population growth, religious conversion or threats to Buddhism. Stickers provided an even simpler form of communication: a person did not need to read a long political tract to recognize 969. Its presence on a taxi, shopfront or vehicle could announce affiliation instantly.
This combination of sermon, recording, pamphlet and symbol helped 969 move between religious and everyday spaces. A message heard in a monastery could be carried home on a DVD, encountered again on a vehicle and reinforced through printed material. Repetition gave the narratives familiarity, and familiarity could make unsubstantiated claims appear credible.
Social Media and the New Information Environment
Myanmar's political opening also coincided with a rapidly changing communications environment. The loosening of censorship and expansion of internet access created important new freedoms after decades of military control, but the same opening also gave nationalist actors channels through which rumours and inflammatory material could travel more quickly.
The U.S. State Department documented proponents of the 969 movement making widespread use of social media to disseminate hate speech and incitement. USCIRF similarly concluded that nationalist movements used social media to communicate intolerant messages that exacerbated religious tensions.
The significance of social media was not simply greater distribution. It altered the speed at which emotionally charged claims could move from one locality to another. Rumours about an alleged crime involving a Muslim and Buddhist could be detached from reliable verification and shared as evidence of a nationwide pattern. Images of violence could circulate without adequate explanation of when or where they had been taken. Stories already framed through a Buddhist-versus-Muslim narrative could therefore reinforce one another even when the events themselves were unrelated.
Later events demonstrated how dangerous this mechanism could become. The U.S. State Department reported that the July 2014 Mandalay violence erupted after rumours of rape were reposted by Wirathu on social media and spread further online. That episode falls outside the immediate chronological centre of this chapter, but it illustrates the communications infrastructure that was developing during the 969 period: an allegation could move rapidly through nationalist networks and contribute to an atmosphere in which collective retaliation became possible.
Repetition, Rumour and Collective Guilt
The effectiveness of this propaganda did not require every listener to accept every allegation. Its deeper effect was to establish a framework through which subsequent events could be interpreted. If audiences had repeatedly been told that Muslims were expanding demographically, seeking Buddhist women, acquiring Buddhist property and attempting to dominate the country, then an ordinary dispute involving a Muslim could be interpreted as confirmation of a much larger conspiracy.
USCIRF's 2013 assessment found that prominent monks were promoting claims of a Muslim conspiracy through speeches, videos, rallies and social media. The same assessment recorded several competing explanations for the spread of anti-Muslim violence, including Buddhist nationalism, political manipulation and economic grievances. The available evidence therefore does not justify reducing every outbreak of violence to a single cause. It does, however, demonstrate that organized anti-Muslim messaging had created a vocabulary through which local disputes could be understood as part of a national religious confrontation.
This distinction is important. Propaganda does not mechanically cause every individual act of violence. Local conflicts, political interests, economic grievances, rumours, security-force behaviour and longstanding prejudice also mattered. But propaganda can define who is feared, explain why that group is supposedly dangerous and normalize discriminatory responses before violence occurs.
International Crisis Group described the violence of this period as taking place amid rising Burman-Buddhist nationalism and the growing influence of the monk-led 969 movement, which it characterized as preaching intolerance. Human Rights Watch likewise documented nationalist monks spreading anti-Muslim hate speech. These findings support treating the propaganda environment as an important part of the historical context without claiming that every violent incident was directly commanded by 969 leaders.
From Religious Symbol to Instrument of Exclusion
By 2013, the meaning of 969 could no longer be understood solely through the Buddhist numerology from which the number had been drawn. In practice, its public meaning had been reshaped by the campaign surrounding it. The symbol appeared alongside sermons warning of Muslim expansion, literature promoting separation, DVDs carrying nationalist speeches and social-media messages depicting Muslims as a collective threat.
There was resistance within Buddhist society itself. Not all monks supported 969, and Buddhist critics argued that its anti-Muslim message contradicted Buddhist principles. Former monk and activist U Gambira publicly rejected the movement's interpretation of Buddhism, while multi-faith activists distributed alternative stickers and messages calling for religious harmony. Their opposition is important because it prevents the historical record from falsely equating Buddhism or Myanmar's entire Buddhist population with the nationalist movement.
The state's own senior monastic body also eventually acted. According to the U.S. State Department, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee decided in July 2013 that forming 969 organizations violated Sangha rules and issued a September directive calling for an end to such organizations. The intervention demonstrated that 969's claim to represent Buddhist protection was contested even within formal Buddhist authority.
For the Rohingya, however, the consequences of the propaganda environment extended far beyond arguments over Buddhist doctrine. The movement helped nationalize ideas that Rohingya had already confronted in Arakan: that Muslims were outsiders, that their population represented a demographic danger, that coexistence threatened Buddhist identity and that separation was a legitimate form of protection. The Rohingya experience thus became connected to a wider anti-Muslim narrative spreading across Myanmar.
The significance of Chapter 3 is therefore not simply that inflammatory sermons existed. 969 helped construct a communications environment in which exclusion could be presented as self-defence. Religious symbolism gave the campaign familiarity; sermons supplied moral authority; DVDs and pamphlets made the message reproducible; stickers made affiliation publicly visible; and social media increased its speed and geographical reach. Together these mechanisms helped transform prejudice into a recognizable national discourse.
The next step was to turn that discourse into everyday economic behaviour. The instruction was increasingly not merely to fear Muslim influence but to identify Muslim businesses, redirect Buddhist purchasing power and build a separate Buddhist commercial network.
Continue reading → Chapter 4 — The “Buy Buddhist” Campaign and Economic Boycott of Muslims