Why does the world remain tight-lipped in face of Myanmar's ethnic cleansing?
Social theorists and postcolonial critics may call them “the Other:” the objectified creatures against which the so-called normal empowered self constructs their identity. Such is the story of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, one of the world’s most discriminated, persecuted and “vulnerable” minorities.
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"Rohingya are said to be the most vulnerable community in the world and they are being systematically victimized by the state and military in a silent genocide. It is unimaginable that people are being made homeless in the neighborhood where they have been living for generations.”
These are the words of Shahid Khan, Global Minorities Alliance's Vice-Chairperson, uttered in January 2014.
However, there has been no change for the better in Rohingyas’ sociopolitical, cultural and economic status in the Burmese community. Things have gone from bad to worse and the international community still wallows in inaction.
European Rohingya Council Chairman Khairul Amin says the Myanmar government should be held accountable for inciting sectarian strife between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine in an attempt to force the Muslim community to leave the area, stressing that there is no essential enmity between the two religious groups.
"If we search for the root cause of our problem, is it down to economics or is it because of an inherited hatred that exists among the Rakhine Buddhists?" he posed the question while talking to Turkish Anadolu Agency on Sunday, adding, "No; it's down to the Burmese [Myanmar] governments, who have manipulated the Rakhine people into hating us to divide us and rule us."
Siegfried O. Wolf, a senior researcher at the South Asia Institute, also believes that Myanmar’s government refuses to acknowledge Rohingyas as Burmese citizens and labels them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh in an attempt to relieve itself from the legal and moral obligations of a legitimate government to provide the Muslim community with the basic requirements of life.
"The Rohingya are thus considered an additional economic burden on the state, as they compete for the few available jobs and opportunities to do business. The jobs and businesses in the state are mostly occupied by the Burmese elite. As a result, we can say that Buddhist resentment against the Rohingya is not only religious; it is also political and economically driven,” he noted.
It is no exaggeration to say that Rohingyas are forgotten people. Their unending sufferings have more frequently that not been ignored by the world’s media and thus their plights remain unheard of. Upon hearing the term genocide, we tend to remember the ghastly mass killings in Rwanda, Bosnia and Armenia. But no one would recognize as genocide the systematic persecution of hundreds of thousands of the Rohingya Muslims by the Burmese government just because the international community has chosen to remain tight-lipped regarding the state-sponsored violence in the Southeast Asian country.
"It is no different from what happened in Sarajevo or Rwanda... There are restrictions on marriage, on having children, education... We cannot marry without permits, practice Islam, speak our own language, or move freely. In 1950, our population was 2.2 million. With the biological clock, we should have multiplied by numbers, but today we are less than one million people," said Ambia Perveen, the council's secretary for advocacy, adding, "These are the signs of genocide."
According to Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), “everyone has the right to a nationality” and that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.” But what makes Rohingyas ineligible to become a member of this seemingly all-inclusive “everyone” group? No one knows the answer; or maybe no one seems to care to give one?
Press TV’s documentary tries to depict the unbearable atmosphere of terror which has prevailed over the lives of the Muslim community in Rakhine, showing how racism, extremism and fanaticism have justified the atrocious deeds perpetrated by some Buddhist hardliners against the Rohingya minority.
Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, currently living in the western Burmese state of Rakhine, have been subject to systematic repression by extremist Buddhists since the country’s independence in 1948. This is while the government of Myanmar has fallen short of protecting the rights of the marginalized group.
Rohingya Muslims have been recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted communities.
Under Myanmar’s written and tacit laws, the disenfranchised, oppressed group is practically not allowed to climb the social ladder and work its way into the realm of the powerful. But social mobility is not the question for the time being as they are not fighting for equality, liberty or the right to vote but for their lives.
