The National
December 18, 2012
Too often the spotlight of international attention alights on a
particular situation only after years have passed. The barbarous
excesses of the Assads, both father and son, against their own people,
for instance, were well-known for decades. So too, with the Muslim
Rohingya of Rakhine state in western Myanmar, a community that has
suffered under various rulers, varying from the unsympathetic to the
brutal to the criminally apathetic - which is the most charitable
description of the current government's attitude towards violence
against the Rohingya.
This has been the state of affairs since the original kingdom of Arakan,
as the region was historically known, was annexed by the present-day
state of Myanmar in the late 18th century.
The world is now taking notice of their plight - 100,000 people
displaced, villages torched and scores dead since the rape of a Buddhist
woman in May sparked the latest rounds of violence. The attention is
because of the opening of Myanmar, both in its political and civil
society spheres.
The country was until recently seen entirely in black and white terms.
One of the many charges laid against the military regime that took power
in 1962 - which only relinquished control (in name only, some would
argue) when a former general, Thein Sein, became president in 2011 - was
its continuing persecution of Myanmar's many ethnic minorities,
particularly in the border regions. The list of atrocities the army
stands accused of runs from systematic rape to forcing locals to clear
fields of landmines by walking across them.
A Myanmar that has begun the process of democratisation and is loosening
the grip of one of the world's most notorious police states has been
embraced by western nations, but perhaps precipitously. With Aung San
Suu Kyi free, able to stand for election and at last accept her Nobel
Peace Prize in person, all would be well, seemed to be the view. One of
the most admired women on the planet would surely usher her country into
the community of nations as a peaceful, liberal, enlightened state,
living in harmony with its neighbours and internally with the mosaic of
ethnic groups.
But the clarity of "good" and "evil" has given way to the shades of grey
that colour most political landscapes. Ms Suu Kyi has been notably
unforthcoming about the aggression inflicted on the Rohingya, and the
injustice that a community dating back centuries has been denied
citizenship since 1974 by Myanmar. Officials routinely declare Rohingya
to be Bengali immigrants.
Ms Suu Kyi is a politician now and has to take note of the realities,
which include the prejudices of her fellow Burmese against the
non-Burmese who make up 30 per cent of the population. While she has
mouthed platitudes about "people getting along with each other", the
spokesman for her party, the National League for Democracy, was more
direct. "The Rohingya are not our citizens," said Nyan Win in June, a
position he has since maintained.
There is a lazy, sentimental western stereotype that Buddhists are
peaceful people with a somewhat otherworldly predilection for constant
meditation. But of course, they are quite capable of inflicting
violence, as both the Muslim minority in neighbouring Thailand's south
and Rohingya in Myanmar know all too well.
Myanmar is an example of a state whose boundaries are more fixed in
international law than they ever were historically. The Shan States in
the north-east, for instance, may have paid allegiance to the Burmese
throne, but their princes enjoyed considerable autonomy and, according
to the country's post-independence constitution, had the right to secede
from the Union of Myanmar after 10 years (General Ne Win's 1962 coup
put paid to that).
Geographically isolated by the mountain range that cuts it off from the
rest of Myanmar, Arakan had been home to a Muslim community since at
least the 16th century. While their numbers were undoubtedly swelled by
those who crossed over the relatively porous border with Bengal, their
language and identity were and are distinct.
The 1931 census recorded 130,000 Muslims in the area and there are now
about 800,000 Rohingyas in Rakhine State, as it was renamed in 1989.
They are not troublesome immigrants, but a persecuted ethnic group in a
country where the majority has never accorded equal status to the many
minorities.
Democracy in itself is not going to be enough. Indeed, it can perpetuate
majoritarian attitudes by sealing them with the approval of the ballot
box. If Ms Suu Kyi is to a fulfil her potential as a politician, both
she and her party must lead the way in changing not just the system of
government but the attitudes of Burmese towards non-Burmese, and of
Buddhists towards those of other religions.
For decades, the country's woes could be blamed entirely on the
generals. As they slip into the shadows, however, it is time for the new
Myanmar to prove it is worthy of the international community's
friendship. Recognising the Rohingya as citizens and extending to them
the protection of the state would be a good start.
Sholto Byrnes is editor of Think, the quarterly international
magazine of Qatar Foundation, and a contributing editor of the New
Statesman
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