Third World Quarterly 961 superiority can empower and support the sovereign in the decision of the extirpation. Religion is a key pillar of national identity. National identity, for its part, is the ultimate form of political identity, insofar as the state plays an active role in its conception, materialisation and expression. The process of construction of national identity (what is the nation, and what is not) is intertwined with the nationalist ideology which mediates to the nation the ideas that underpin such a process, choices of inclusion and exclusion, and the accompanying symbolism that paves the way for the formation of the identity of the imagined community that is (to be) the nation. Nearly all cases of recognised genocides – including the case of the Rohingya – demonstrate a synergistic correlation with religion (Temoney 2023, 207). Religion is a key identity marker which perpetrators have used to justify the targeting of a community for extermination, such as the Jews in the Holocaust, Muslims in Bosnia, and the Rohingya in Myanmar. Perpetrators use religious language to justify their exclusivist ideology and motivate their community members to carry out violence. Moreover, members of the clergy have condoned violence either implicitly (by being silent), or explicitly (by actively supporting state propaganda and policy by invoking religious narratives and symbolism that lends credibility to genocide violence). Some members of clergy have even committed directly acts of violence (Temoney 2017, 2–3). As Temoney observes, ‘due to the presumed aura of moral superiority, sacredness, and righteousness [that] the use of religious discourse conveys …’ construing a conflict in religious terms ‘adds a dimension of gravity and urgency that resonates with the masses’ and increases the prospect that ‘both religiously observant and unobservant’ support the view that ‘the extirpation of an enemy group is an absolute imperative’ (Temoney 2017, 3). The exclusion of the Rohingya in Myanmar is intrinsic to the nation-state building project grounded on a conception of nationalism that privileges Buddhist religion and Buddhist culture to which the majority of the population adhere (Lee 2021). The development of Burman nationalism – and the state-sponsored policy of ‘Burmanisation’ that elevates Buddhism to effectively the state’s official religion – are crucial in understanding the exclusion of the Rohingya (Alam 2018, 181, 189; Cho and Gilbert 2021, 220–225). Indeed, the majority Buddhist population does not differentiate between ‘Burmese’ and ‘Buddhist’ (Staples 2012, 139; Walton 2015). Given that the primary marker of the Burmese nation is religion, and that religious allegiance is concomitant with national allegiance, the state is conceived to belong to the Buddhist nation. In a Buddhist-majority society, lacking Buddhism, the Rohingya have become the sovereign exception, the (non)people to be excluded from the nation and the polity. Rohingya’s persistent persecution has been contingent on their identity, primarily their religious, differentiation. It is not suggested here that religion causes violence, but rather that fear of the Other – and justification of antagonism – is framed in religious terms. There is a persistent narrative in Myanmar that construes Muslims as a grave threat on the basis of their religious beliefs and way of life – a fearsome Other – who can ‘supplant’ or ‘swallow’ the Buddhist nation (Schissler, Walton, and Thi 2017, 381–382; UNHRC 2018, para. 25). This view is widespread amongst Burmese despite the fact that, according to official figures of the last census, the Muslim minority in Myanmar – including the Rohingya – constitutes only 4.3% of the country’s total population, whereas the Buddhist majority accounts for 89.8%.10 The chauvinism against the Rohingya is fuelled by fear that their recognition could lead to land ownership and economic benefits at the expense of Buddhist communities in a poor agrarian setting (Farrelly 2014, 252; Simpson and Farrelly 2021, 252).