A Rose by Any Other Name

Episode #526: “I actually was anti-Muslim when I was in high school!” recalls Thet Swe Win, describing how he was influenced by nationalist propaganda in his youth. But his involvement in the 2007 Saffron Revolution began to change him. Marching with barefoot monks, he witnessed Muslims come from a mosque to give them water, medicine, and slippers. “We do not have to hate each other, but we have to unite and fight back the military,” he realized.

His mother, fearful for his safety because of his participation in the protests, sent him to Singapore. Immersed in a multiethnic workplace there, he gradually shed lingering prejudices, concluding that there are only good and bad people, not good or bad religions. Returning to Myanmar, he resumed activism after anti-Muslim violence erupted in Rakhine State in 2012 and spread to other towns, stoked by state television propaganda. In response, he and his peers launched the “Blue Sticker Campaign” to counter the extremist 969 movement and its hate speech. Still, he confesses that the anti-Rohingya propaganda he had absorbed throughout his life left him with lingering bias toward that community—until Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu drew him into her campaigns and encouraged him to learn their history, which ultimately reshaped his perspective.

Later on, Thet Swe Win founded Synergy, an organization dedicated to fostering social harmony. One of its well-known initiatives was the White Rose Campaign of 2019, where Buddhists offered roses to Muslims facing harassment. The gesture spread nationwide as a symbol of solidarity. His activism has drawn threats from MaBaTha, harassment by police, and raids on his office. Yet he remains firm in his resolve, and has refused to leave the region.

Thet Swe Win insists Myanmar’s future requires moral leadership, curiosity, and accountability. “The revolution without the political leadership or the moral leadership will be a chaos,” he warns. For him, real change “begins within, from within.”