After Myanmar’s 2-1 victory over Singapore on Thursday evening fans were naturally excited about the news, so they took to the Facebook page of Singapore’s Football Federation to gloat.
Then it started to get ugly, as some comments directed at Muslims, Singaporeans and the players flooded the thread side by side with innocent bragging about the victory.
Many of the comments appear to have been deleted, but the website All Singapore Stuff took screenshots of some of them.
“So I have a question. ISIS is play for Singapore?” one said, referring to the fundamentalist Islamic State.
There was also this: “we never eat our pet dog and the ones killing myanmar people are those muslims. u watch most one sided medias.”
And more directly: “stfu Muslims.”
Singapore has a sizeable Muslim population (around 15 percent), and the country has historically gone to great lengths to try and diffuse religious tensions. There are also migrants from Myanmar working in the country.
Anti-Muslim sentiment here has reached new heights in recent weeks as Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine State flee the country and international criticism of how they are treated at home grows louder.
The commenters on the thread fought back at times.
“The Real ISIS is Myanmar,” said one.
And also: “Myanmar trolls ain’t welcome here do you guys have your own site?”
While Myanmar has struggled to control hate speech on Facebook, most of the fans didn’t resort to derogatory or insulting comments, and some even tried to step in to cool things down.
“Myanmar can you be a nice comment? I’m myanmar but i doesn’t like ur comment at all. That’s so rude …Whoever lose or win must respect each other.”
Also, let’s nor forget the Myanmar fans who’ve developed reputations for helping pick up trash after the games, a practice that continued after the match with Singapore.
Photo: Facebook/MOI Webportal Myanmar
