The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Rakhine state remains a seedbed of religious and ethnic hatred Photo  Reuters The Economist November 02, 2013   A SUNNI mosque looks as if it has seen better days. One of the minarets seems close to collapse. But the cool white floor-tiles are spotless, and the carpeted prayer-rooms well-kept. An elderly imam, whose features betray his Arabic ancestry, prepares for noon prayers. No muezzin calls; but the faithful in the town of Thandwe trickle in, some in prayer caps, others bareheaded but with long white shirts over their blue-checked longyis. Thandwe is in the south of Rakhine state in western Myanmar, once the kingdom of Arakan. The mosque is near its sprawling market, where Muslims, Indians and members of the ethnic-Rakhine majority sit side-by-side, trading fish and fresh vegetables, clothing, hardware and gold. It all looks peaceful. But a pagoda by the market now houses riot police and soldiers. And Thandwe is under dusk-to-dawn curfew. In early...

Wirathu, Buddhism’s new face The Economist  ‎ July 27, 2013 Fears of a new religious strife   Fuelled by a dangerous brew of faith, ethnicity and politics, a tit-for-tat conflict is escalating between two of Asia’s biggest religions   THE total segregation of Buddhist Arakanese from Muslim Rohingyas is now a fact of life in the western Myanmar port-city of Sittwe. Until June last year both communities lived side by side in the capital of Rakhine state, but following several rounds of frenzied violence, the Buddhist majority emptied the city of its Muslim population. The Rohingya victims now scrape by in squalid refugee camps beyond the city boundaries. The best that most of them can hope for is to escape on an overloaded fishing boat to Malaysia. Many of them die trying.   The animosity between the Rohingya and the local Arakanese in this remote corner of Myanmar is a consequence of colonial and pre-colonial patterns of settlement. It is an...