Millions of residents of western Myanmar have been stripped of citizenship and basic human rights. Will Suu Kyi help?
This article is the first in a series by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK,exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in thenew global paradigm of anti-terrorism - with profound and often violent consequences. Incorporating in-depth casestudies from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ambassador Ahmed will ultimately argue that the inability for Muslimand non-Muslim states alike to either incorporate minority groups into a liberal and tolerant society or resolve the"centre vs periphery" conflict is emblematic of a systemic failure of the modern state - a breakdown which, moreoften than not, leads to widespread violence and destruction. The violence generated from these conflicts will becomethe focus, in the remainder of the 21st century, of all those dealing with issues of national integration, law and order,human rights and justice.
Washington, DC - The image of a smiling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi receiving flowers from her supporters is a powerfulmessage of freedom and optimism in Myanmar, the symbol of democracy in a country which has known nothing butauthoritarian oppression for decades.
Yet few ask one of the most pressing questions facing Daw Suu Kyi. How will she deal with the Rohingya?
"The Rohingya," you will ask. "Who are they?"
The Rohingya, whom the BBC calls "one of the world's most persecuted minority groups", are the little-publicised andlargely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Their historic lineage in Rakhinedates back centuries, as fishermen and farmers. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematicallydriven out of their homeland by Myanmar's military junta and subjected to widespread violence and the total negationof their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.
The continued tragedy of the unrecognised Rohingya, both in Myanmar and as refugees abroad, casts a dark shadowover the bright hopes and prospects for democracy in a country plagued by violence and civil war. Suu Kyi is ideallyplaced to extend democratic reforms to all ethnic peoples, including the Rohingya, in a free Myanmar.
Though the Rohingya may be small in number at less than two million, the real lesson of the Arab Spring is that nonotion of democracy can succeed without the inclusion of all people within a country's borders. Every member ofsociety, regardless of race and religion, must be given their due rights as citizens.
These policies were enacted by Myanmar's government to force theRohingya outside of Myanmar as a result of their being Muslim andethnically non-Myanma. The government erroneously labelled them as "illegal Bengali immigrants" in their efforts toeradicate the Rohingya culture.
While many ethnic minorities in Myanmar have been the victims of thecentral government's oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart inthat their very existence is threatened. The Rohingya's plight abroad asrefugees in places such as Bangladesh and Thailand has seen glimmersof the media spotlight, but less attention has been brought to theunderlying cause of their flight: the violence and cultural oppression athome.
Kings to refugees
Yet, the long history of the Rohingya and the Rakhine state contradicts the government's claims. The medievalKingdom of Arakan, encompassing the Muslim Rohingya, was once an enlightened centre of culture, knowledge andtrade, displaying a harmonic blend of Buddhism and Islam in its administration and court life. The kingdom'scosmopolitan and international capital city, Mrauk U, was described in the 17th century as "a second Venice" by aPortuguese Jesuit priest and was often compared to Amsterdam and London by travellers and writers of the time.
It was the 1784 military conquest by Bodawpaya, the king of Burma (now Myanmar), that transformed this oncevibrant kingdom into an oppressed peripheral region. After this, many haunting tales began to circulate of Burmesesoldiers rounding up the Rohingya in bamboo enclosures to burn them alive, and marching thousands to the city ofAmarapura to work, effectivley as slave labour, on infrastructure projects.
With the rise to power of the military junta in 1962 underGeneral Ne Win, a policy of "Myanmarisation" wasimplemented as an ultra-nationalist ideology based on theracial purity of the Myanma ethnicity and its Buddhist faith.The Rohingya, as both Muslims and non-Myanma, werestripped of their legitimacy and officially declared foreigners intheir own native land. With the passage of the junta's 1982Citizenship Law, they effectively ceased to exist legally.
Stripped officially of their citizenship, the Rohingya found theirlives in limbo: prohibited from the right to own land or property,barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing theirdecaying places of worship, receiving an education in anylanguage or even marrying and having children without rarelygranted government permission. The Rohingya have also beensubjected to modern-day slavery, forced to work oninfrastructure projects, such as constructing "model villages"to house the Myanmar settlers intended to displace them, reminiscent of their treatment at the hands of the Burmesekings of history.
The denial of citizenship and rights was accompanied by a military strategy of physical and cultural war designed todrive the Rohingya out of Myanmar.
The initial push of the military's ethnic cleansing campaign came in 1978 under Operation Naga Min, or OperationKing Dragon. The purpose of this operation was to scrutinise each individual within the state as either a citizen oralleged "illegal immigrant". This resulted in widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, desecration of mosques, destruction ofvillages and confiscation of lands among the Rohingya people. In the wake of this violence, nearly a quarter of amillion Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many of whom were later repatriated to Myanmar where they facedfurther torture, rape, jail and death.
In 1991, a second push, known as Operation Pyi Thaya or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched withthe same purpose, resulting in further violence and another massive flow of 200,000 Rohingya refugees intoBangladesh.
Non-governmental organisations from Europe and North America estimate that 300,000 Rohingya refugees remain inBangladesh, with only 35,000 residing in registered refugee camps and receiving some sort of assistance from NGOs.
Acknowledging the Rohingya
Those remaining, more than 250,000, are in a desperate situation without food and medical assistance, largely left toslowly starve to death. The December 2011 refugee repatriation agreement reached between Myanmar PresidentThein Sein and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will exclude the Rohingya, due to their lack of Myanmarcitizenship, one of the conditions for repatriation for the expected 2,500 returning refugees.
The Rohingya predicament underlines a paradox for the world's great faiths, straddling the divide between Islamic Asiaand Buddhist Asia. Each emphasises compassion and kindness and yet, we see little evidence of this in theirdealings with the Rohingya people.
As part of this current study on the relationship between centre and periphery in the Muslim world, we recentlyinterviewed Dr Wakar Uddin, Chairman of The Burmese Rohingya Association of North America (BRANA). A gentleand learned man, he is an energetic ambassador for his Rohingya people with a firm grasp of regional history. All theRohingya want is the reinstatement of their citizenship in their own land, as revoked by the former dictator General NeWin, and the dignity, human rights and opportunities that come with it.
Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy have a unique opportunity to reach out to the Rohingya people andinclude them in the new democratic process. The NLD should work with the central government to expand the role ofall ethnic minorities as full Myanma citizens.
By acknowledging their rights, the government will bestow upon the Rohingya the dignity and the responsibilities ofcitizenship and present opportunities for mutual cultural understanding and the repatriation of the thousands ofrefugees existing in purgatory, separated from their homes and families. Great strides have recently been made bythe Myanmar government towards the creation of an open and democratic political system and an end to ethnicviolence, yet this is only the beginning.
With the recognition of the Rohingya as Myanma citizens, Suu Kyi will honour the memory of her father, Aung San,as he, before his untimely and tragic death, also reached out to ethnic minorities to participate in an independentMyanmar. Only then can a democratic and modern Myanmar be legitimate and successful in the eyes of its ownpeople.
But the first step is to acknowledge the Rohingya exist.
This article is based on research being conducted by Professor Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of IslamicStudies at American University, Washington, DC, and Harrison Akins, a Research Fellow attached to theChair, for the forthcoming study, Journey into Tribal Islam: America and the Conflict between Center andPeriphery in the Muslim World, to be published by Brookings Press, exploring the conflict between Muslimtribal groups and central governments across the Muslim world in the context of the US-led 'war on terror'.
Ambassador Ahmed is a former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and former administrator inWaziristan and Balochistan. He is the award-winning author of numerous books, including Discovering Islam,and Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam (Brookings Press, 2010).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorialpolicy.
Akbar Ahmed
Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington.
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