By Dr. Habib Siddiqui
Khin Maung Saw’s article “Islamization of Burma through Chittagonian
Bengalis as Rohingya Refugees” is a revisionist attempt by a deranged
chauvinist Magh to rewrite the history of the Muslims of Arakan. Racism
and bigotry are written all over the article.
1. Introduction
In this post-9/11 era of hatemongering and Islamophobia, it is not
difficult to understand his evil mindset that steered him to concoct
such an absurd idea that the Rohingya Muslims are working towards
Islamization of Myanmar (Burma). Forget about the fact that Burma is a
military-ruled country with no democracy, how could a mere 2 to 3
million people impose the dictates of their faith on a nation of 50
million, especially when they are denied all basic rights – of movement,
assembly, marriage, education, jobs, etc.? One has to be either
mentally unstable or very high in mind-altering drugs to hallucinate
such a ludicrous idea!
As already recognized by scores of international organizations and
human rights groups, including the US government and the UN, the
legitimate rights of the Rohingyas of Arakan state of Burma towards
equal rights and citizenship in their ancestral home cannot be throttled
by hateful propaganda of anyone, and surely not by the paid agents of
the rogue regime that have not given up on their divide-and-conquer
policy to weaken genuine democratic aspirations of the people of Burma.
And what better tactic than to stoke the fear of Islamization of the
country by a persecuted minority that has already been brutalized and
marginalized! Denied every right, enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, these unfortunate Rohingya people, pushed to settle
for an uncertain life of either statelessness or refugees, inside or
outside Burma, must now defend their honor and dignity against hateful
and bigotry-ridden campaigns by their fellow countrymen – the racist
Rakhine/Maghs of Arakan!
Racism and bigotry cannot come any worse than what thus far has been
showcased by these evil children of Arakanese (and by default, Burmese)
racism! It is sad to see that Saw who has been living in Germany has not
learned anything from its past history of xenophobia. He had the choice
to either reject or espouse the failed model of Nazi fascism that has
had wrecked so much havoc and brought so much pain, shame and unbearable
misery to its people. Instead of siding with the persecuted Rohingyas,
he chose the hated monsters of the Nazi era as his model. One can only
feel repulsed by such an evil choice.
Thus, it is not surprising to discover the unmistakable similarities
of his fascist onslaught against the persecuted Rohingyas with those of
the Jews of Nazi-era Germany. Like his other pseudo-historian peers –
Aye Kyaw and Aye Chan (two unabashed fascists, by any account), his
pattern of onslaught against the Rohingya people is borrowed from the
hateful works of convicted war criminals like Julius Streicher of the
Nazi era. One only has to change the terms ‘Jew’ to Chittagonian
Bengali/Muslim or Rohingya, ‘Judenstaat’ to Islamization, and ‘Germany’
to Burma (Myanmar) to see the obvious similarity of their hate campaign.
These demented and paranoid Theravada Buddhists of Arakan, often
masquerading as intellectual voices of their community, are no democrats
and surely not liberals.
They are, in fact, closet fascists. If allowed to come to power or
sway policy decisions, they will, in all likelihood, borrow the pages
from the hated (German) SS manual and repeat the heinous crimes of their
fellow coreligionists in Cambodia. It is no accident that Saw’s mentor
Aye Kyaw wrote the infamous 1982 Burma Citizenship Law that provided the
blueprint for denying citizenship rights of the Rohingya people – the
other dominant ethnic group of Arakan. It was done with a calculated
precision to not only rob the properties of the Rohingya but also to
uproot them en masse from the soil of Arakan, their ancestral home. It’s
an utterly devious and devilish conspiracy.
Surely, these Buddhists of Arakan give a bad name to their religion
and the non-violent founder of their faith. Their malicious words and
acts of unfathomable bigotry, racism, aggression against and oppression
of the Rohingya people show that they are misfits to the civilized
world, especially in the 21st century when people have learned to live
amicably burying their age-old prejudice. Indubitably, multi-culture,
integration and pluralism — a reality in most parts of our world today —
are alien concepts to them, and as such, are an anathema to everything
that they stand for or crave for their fractured country along the
ethnic line.
Forgotten there is the time-honored realization that Burma is a
country that has many races, ethnicities and religions. It is a country
of many nations. It is not a country either of or for any particular
group – be they are the majority Bamar (Burman), the minority Shan,
Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Rohingya, Rakhine, Mon, Karen, Chinese, Indians,
or whatever. Racism runs deep and acts like the Krazy glue holding
members of each of these discernible groups together in their own
domain, while it acts like a double-edged knife cutting through the
fabric of the Burmese society, justifying hostility against disparate
groups that have nothing in common either in language or in religion.
The only way this country of many nations can survive and evolve into
a civilized state is not through the brutal and savage arms of
injustice, denial, xenophobia, abuse and oppression of the minorities
but a federal democratic framework that genuinely protects all ensuring
their human rights and equality without any discrimination. This means,
the Rohingyas of Arakan should have the same rights as enjoyed by a
Rakhine; the Karens have the same rights as enjoyed by a Bamar, and so
on and so forth for all the races, tribes, ethnicities, and groups.
As much as the spiteful non-Muslim promoters of ‘Islamization of
Europe’ and ‘Islamization of America’ have failed to bring about
mass-scale onslaught against minority Muslims living in the West, and,
instead, have unearthed their own unfathomable bigotry and racism, and
the often-ignored but dirty little secret about the criminality of the
homegrown terrorists and white hate-groups, the fascists of Arakan and
Burma are doomed to failure with their fear-tactic of using boogeyman of
‘Islamization of Burma.’ Their disinformation campaign has also
unearthed their true hideous selves.
[Dr Siddiqui’s book - The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in Burma – is available from Amazon.com]
To be continued
- Asian Tribune -
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