The “Buddhist Bin Laden” Wrote a Facebook Poem Praising Trump’s Win

“People love him so much/Nationalism is the priority” isn’t exactly Neruda.

Buddhist monk Wirathu in Mandalay, Burma, in 2013Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


After Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, a number of prominent international figures have congratulated the Republican president-elect—perhaps none stranger than a vitriolic monk in Burma known as the “Buddhist bin Laden.”

The monk, named Wirathu, is famous in Burma for his passionate, anti-Muslim speeches that have fueled widespread anti-Muslim sentiment and violence in the majority Buddhist nation that’s nestled between China and India. Also known as the “Buddhist face of terror,” he has called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and spread rumors that Muslim men are trying to rape Buddhist women. “Muslims are only well behaved when they are weak,” he has said. “When they are strong they are like a wolf or a jackal, in large packs they hunt down other animals.”

This week, Wirathu took to Facebook to express his delight at the outcome of the US election, writing a four-line poem for the occasion: “Public security is the most important consideration/Donald Trump is the real leader/People love him so much/Nationalism is the priority.”

“Public security is the most important consideration/Donald Trump is the real leader/People love him so much/Nationalism is the priority.”

Trump, who has called for the United States to ban Muslims from entering the country, is popular among many anti-Muslim nationalists in Burma (which is also known as Myanmar). Some locals have drawn parallels between the real estate mogul and Wirathu (who denies allegations that he’s a terrorist and says he hasn’t advocated violence); the Myanmar Times, an English-language newspaper there, launched a series called “Who Said It: Trump or Wirathu?” that asked readers to guess which man had uttered certain statements.

On the heels of his win, Trump also received congratulations from the Arakan National Party, a political party in Burma that has campaigned passionately against Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority group who have been targeted by violent Buddhist mobs. The ANP says the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who need to be expelled from Burma, though many of their families have lived in the country for generations. “Being engulfed in Islamization and illegal immigration problems, we…look up to you as a new world leader who will change the rigged system being infested with jihadi infiltrators,” the ANP’s chairman wrote in a statement to Trump on Wednesday.

Still, not everyone in Burma is excited about a Trump presidency. Though a spokesman for the Burmese president said he thought relations between the two countries might improve under Trump, many other Burmese have expressed dismay at the business mogul’s rise to power. “I wanted Hillary Clinton to win in the election,” Win Htein, a spokesman for the country’s ruling party, the National League for Democracy, told the Myanmar Times. (Clinton helped forge closer US-Burma ties while serving as secretary of state.) “Trump would not even know where Myanmar is, if asked.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate