The monks of Ma Ba Tha regard the international media with deep suspicion. The leader of the organisation, Ashin Wirathu, covered his head and raised an umbrella to block our camera when we approached him in Mandalay. Hostility towards journalists is a universal trait of hardline nationalist movements. In the Ma Ba Tha view of the world, there is only one truth: the Buddhist as victim of rampaging Islam. Six months after they were banned by Aung San Suu Kyi's government the monks are still actively promoting their chauvinist agenda. I was granted an interview with eight leading clergy at the Kim Win Min Gyi monastery in Mandalay.
