Episode #328: Shaken Faith
“I feel like I’m the narrator, a side character narrating a horror fantasy co-written by H. P. Lovecraft and George Orwell … The only difference is, this is real.”
This harrowing observation by Htuu Lou Rae, founder and coordinator of the activist coalition Doa-a-Yae, captures the chilling reality facing Myanmar’s Muslim communities in the aftermath of Myanmar’s recent, catastrophic earthquake. In this interview, Htuu Lou Rae details the unique vulnerabilities faced by Muslims during the disaster, the long-standing structural discrimination that has amplified their suffering, and the ways in which both the Myanmar military and elements of society continue to marginalize them, even in their darkest hour. What emerges is not only a portrait of the devastation, but a plea for accountability, solidarity, and justice.
The earthquake struck on a Friday, a sacred day for Muslims. But this was not just any Friday—it was Jumu’atul-Wida, the last Friday of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting. ‘Jumu’atul-Wida is a day of profound, spiritual significance. Htuu Lou Rae explains that even non-devout Muslims would have packed into mosques across Myanmar that day to observe Friday prayers. Tragically, it was at that moment—when the concentration of worshipers was at its peak—that disaster struck.
But it wasn’t only timing that made the earthquake especially lethal for Muslims. Htuu Lou Rae points to a decades-long pattern of institutional neglect, when successive regimes had withheld permission from the Burmese Muslim community to perform routine maintenance and repair on their places of worship, rendering many mosques structurally unsound. Consequently, in the violent shaking of the quake, these sites—some many centuries old—became death traps. So while there was no governing body to enforce building codes or structural oversight in Myanmar anyway, which left all Burmese citizens extra vulnerable, the Muslim community was especially hard hit due to that systemic discrimination.
But Htuu Lou Rae explains how the discrimination does not end there. It even affected rescue operations after the quake. He is unequivocal: “The Muslim community has been bypassed by the junta in its rescue efforts!” He contrasts the regime’s narrative—that junta-led teams are actively rescuing all victims—with credible reports from civil society organizations and local media indicating that no efforts have been made to rescue Muslims trapped in collapsed mosques. Htuu Lou Rae is further concerned that some civil society-led efforts have been tainted by anti-Muslim sentiment, which remains pervasive in Burmese society. He shares examples of Muslims being denied housing in the quake’s aftermath, and subjected to online abuse—people posting under earthquake death toll reports with taunts like, “Where’s Allah?” These examples, he argues, are part of a pattern of what he calls “communicative violence” that mirrors the society’s deep, systemic bias.
Htuu Lou Rae is particularly alarmed by the junta’s efforts to instrumentalize the suffering of Muslims for its own political and financial gain. For instance, Myanmar’s military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, recently reached out to Pakistan publicly for earthquake aid. Htuu Lou Rae sees this as a cynical ploy to use the Myanmar’s Muslim population as “bait” to acquire resources for its own benefit; in other words, it appeals to a majority Muslim government for aid, posturing as a country that cares about its own Muslim community, yet it is extremely unlikely that any of that aid will ever reach Burmese Muslims. The junta’s primary focus has always been and continues to be securing resources for itself to feed both their insatiable corruption, and military offensives against resistant, ethnic regions.
Related to this, the earthquake poses a unique but dire challenge for international donors hoping to help the Muslim community. Htuu Lou Rae emphasizes that aid must bypass official, military channels for obvious reasons, but also even the National Unity Government (NUG), which he finds ineffective and increasingly unpopular. Instead, he advocates for directing funds through international agencies like USAID, or humanitarian civil-society organizations, especially those led by Muslims. This will ensure a more equitable distribution of aid and guard against discrimination.
Adding to the complexity is the hostile environment faced even by courageous, civic-minded volunteers because of the regime’s paranoia—not just Muslim volunteers, though it may be worst for them, but all volunteers not affiliated with the junta. In particular, it is especially dangerous for young men between 18 and 35, some of whom have been arrested, conscripted, or disappeared. He tells of one rescue team in Sagaing, armed with the homeowner’s permission and the necessary equipment, who were interrupted by the junta-aligned Pyusawhti vigilantes. “They started harassing the team, asking questions, called the police … The team had to leave. Whoever was trapped [there] may now be dead.”
However, Rae remains hopeful, even amid all these bleak realities. He believes that a coordinated, international, non-military relief mechanism to fill the vacuum left by Myanmar’s failed state is possible. To this end, he envisions a new coordination body—independent of the junta and more effective than the NUG—that could oversee assessments, logistics, and distribution. In the meantime, he urges donors and governments to act decisively in avoiding military channels for their aid. He has also observed that a public backlash to anti-Muslim comments is growing more robust, and more Burmese are uniting across lines of faith and ethnicity to offer solidarity. He sees this dynamic as “a renewed sense of cosmopolitan Burmese national identity [emerging out of] these ruins and despair.”
Through solidarity, smart coordination, and a refusal to look away, Htuu Lou Rae insists that the suffering can still be alleviated, and progress can be made. “Doesn’t that make more sense and isn’t [it] also going to, at the same time, help the country recover from this multi-layered humanitarian crisis?”