What the Rohingya crisis says about racism and politics in Asia

[Dubious]

A Rohingya migrant cries as he sits with others in a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman on May 14, 2015. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

It takes a lot to forsake your home, clamber on to a crammed, rickety boat, and venture out into the uncertainty and danger of the high seas. But this is precisely what tens of thousands of people from Burma's Rohingya ethnic minority have done in recent years, leaving before the monsoon season settles in and their fates become even darker.

Some drown in the Andaman Sea; others, abandoned by the human traffickers they are forced to trust, drift without water and food aboard what activists describe as "floating coffins." And unlike many migrants rescued by European governments in the Mediterranean, the Rohingya can't even trust in the goodwill of Southeast Asia's navies.

This article is down right biased as I know few articles where both Indonesia have helped SOME....but it is damn shameful the author found shaming the neighbours rather than the real people who caused this!

In the past week, thousands of Rohingya have become subjects of an unseemly game of regional "ping-pong," their boats pushed back by governments not keen on accommodating any more asylum seekers. On Friday, in a notable exception, one vessel with 800 passengers was allowed to make landfall in Indonesia.

"If I had known the boat journey would be so horrendous," said a 19-year-old Rohingya refugee, who had lost her brother at sea, "I would rather have just died in Burma."

The spur of the crisis is in the remote, western part of that country, also known as Myanmar, where the majority of the roughly 1.3 million Rohingya live. As WorldViews has discussed before, even though the Rohingya can trace their origins in what's now Burma over many centuries, the Muslim minority is refused citizenship status by the Burmese state, which classifies them as "Bengali" interlopers from across the border.

And here comes peaceful Buddhist racism

In 2009, during an earlier Rohingya boat people crisis, a leading Burmese diplomat scolded foreign journalists for feeling sympathy for the would-be refugees, saying they "are as ugly as ogres."

Mob violence and ethnic pogroms, which flared in 2012, led to tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to squalid displacement camps. Denied adequate recourse to state services in both Burma and Bangladesh, many Rohingya endure malnutrition, abuse at the hands of local authorities, and restrictions on everything from movement to access to education to their ability to get married.

Lets wait for a genocide to happen then teach it to our kids...

The United Nations recently described them as one of the world's "most persecuted minorities." A report this month from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum warned that rising Buddhist nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Burma made the Rohingya a "population at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide." It is estimated that a tenth of the community's population has attempted to leave their homeland in the past few years.

If you want to get a sense of how profound the denial of rights for Rohingya is, consider this: Burmese officials have already indicated that they won't attend a meeting on the refugee crisis, to be hosted by Thailand later this month, as long as the name "Rohingya" is even invoked at the session — something that would indicate de facto recognition of the minority. Even Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader of the Burmese opposition and a celebrated figure of global conscience, has remained shamefully silent on the plight of the Rohingya.

Just hand out that nobel prize like cookies...

Other regional governments, including Thailand and Malaysia, have said the burden of housing the Rohingya is not theirs to shoulder alone. "We cannot welcome them here," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar told CNN when asked about his country's policy of turning the illegal migrant boats away. "If we continue to welcome them, then hundreds of thousands will come from [Burma] and Bangladesh."

Part of the problem is the presence of economic migrants from Bangladesh among the Rohingya asylum seekers. They travel along well-established trafficking networks that convey would-be migrants through Thailand's jungles into Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country that until recently was a favored destination for Bangadeshi migrants and Rohingya refugees. It is believed that a recent Thai crackdown on the land routes, where countless duped Rohingya and Bangladeshis are thought to be held in slave-like conditions by traffickers, led to the influx of Rohinyga on the seas.

The crisis ideally ought to be resolved by ASEAN, Southeast Asia's leading geopolitical bloc. But it is a notoriously toothless institution. Unlike the European Union, ASEAN shies away from taking moral stands on issues of human rights and democracy. Current signs, and the absence of popular sympathy for the Rohingya, seem to suggest that not much will change.


'This is going to put on display ASEAN's impotence,'' Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, told the Associated Press. ''This is another reflection of ASEAN's ineffectual cohesion.''

The plight of the Rohingya, as Hong-Kong based journalist Heather Timmons observes, also ought to win the attention of Asia's two most important leaders — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met last week. But the duo's lofty rhetoric of shared dreams and regional progress notwithstanding, their countries are deeply invested in Burma, including in projects that have an adverse effect on the Rohingya in Rakhine state.


What the Rohingya crisis says about racism and politics in Asia - The Washington Post

 

[Khalid Newazi]

Burma knows that it can do anything to the Rohingya's because Hasina is a coward and will not do anything. Unfortunately not even so called "The defenders of Islam" (Saudi Arabia) will do anything either. These people are left on their own.

 

[Indus Falcon]

Burma knows that it can do anything to the Rohingya's because Hasina is a coward and will not do anything. Unfortunately not even so called "The defenders of Islam" (Saudi Arabia) will do anything either. These people are left on their own.

Can you tell me how many Rohingas have been given long stay visas in Saudi ?

 

[Beast]

A Rohingya migrant cries as he sits with others in a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman on May 14, 2015. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

It takes a lot to forsake your home, clamber on to a crammed, rickety boat, and venture out into the uncertainty and danger of the high seas. But this is precisely what tens of thousands of people from Burma's Rohingya ethnic minority have done in recent years, leaving before the monsoon season settles in and their fates become even darker.

Some drown in the Andaman Sea; others, abandoned by the human traffickers they are forced to trust, drift without water and food aboard what activists describe as "floating coffins." And unlike many migrants rescued by European governments in the Mediterranean, the Rohingya can't even trust in the goodwill of Southeast Asia's navies.

In the past week, thousands of Rohingya have become subjects of an unseemly game of regional "ping-pong," their boats pushed back by governments not keen on accommodating any more asylum seekers. On Friday, in a notable exception, one vessel with 800 passengers was allowed to make landfall in Indonesia.

"If I had known the boat journey would be so horrendous," said a 19-year-old Rohingya refugee, who had lost her brother at sea, "I would rather have just died in Burma."

The spur of the crisis is in the remote, western part of that country, also known as Myanmar, where the majority of the roughly 1.3 million Rohingya live. As WorldViews has discussed before, even though the Rohingya can trace their origins in what's now Burma over many centuries, the Muslim minority is refused citizenship status by the Burmese state, which classifies them as "Bengali" interlopers from across the border.

In 2009, during an earlier Rohingya boat people crisis, a leading Burmese diplomat scolded foreign journalists for feeling sympathy for the would-be refugees, saying they "are as ugly as ogres."

Mob violence and ethnic pogroms, which flared in 2012, led to tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to squalid displacement camps. Denied adequate recourse to state services in both Burma and Bangladesh, many Rohingya endure malnutrition, abuse at the hands of local authorities, and restrictions on everything from movement to access to education to their ability to get married.

The United Nations recently described them as one of the world's "most persecuted minorities." A report this month from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum warned that rising Buddhist nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Burma made the Rohingya a "population at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide." It is estimated that a tenth of the community's population has attempted to leave their homeland in the past few years.

If you want to get a sense of how profound the denial of rights for Rohingya is, consider this: Burmese officials have already indicated that they won't attend a meeting on the refugee crisis, to be hosted by Thailand later this month, as long as the name "Rohingya" is even invoked at the session — something that would indicate de facto recognition of the minority. Even Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader of the Burmese opposition and a celebrated figure of global conscience, has remained shamefully silent on the plight of the Rohingya.

Other regional governments, including Thailand and Malaysia, have said the burden of housing the Rohingya is not theirs to shoulder alone. "We cannot welcome them here," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar told CNN when asked about his country's policy of turning the illegal migrant boats away. "If we continue to welcome them, then hundreds of thousands will come from [Burma] and Bangladesh."

Part of the problem is the presence of economic migrants from Bangladesh among the Rohingya asylum seekers. They travel along well-established trafficking networks that convey would-be migrants through Thailand's jungles into Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country that until recently was a favored destination for Bangadeshi migrants and Rohingya refugees. It is believed that a recent Thai crackdown on the land routes, where countless duped Rohingya and Bangladeshis are thought to be held in slave-like conditions by traffickers, led to the influx of Rohinyga on the seas.

The crisis ideally ought to be resolved by ASEAN, Southeast Asia's leading geopolitical bloc. But it is a notoriously toothless institution. Unlike the European Union, ASEAN shies away from taking moral stands on issues of human rights and democracy. Current signs, and the absence of popular sympathy for the Rohingya, seem to suggest that not much will change.


'This is going to put on display ASEAN's impotence,'' Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, told the Associated Press. ''This is another reflection of ASEAN's ineffectual cohesion.''

The plight of the Rohingya, as Hong-Kong based journalist Heather Timmons observes, also ought to win the attention of Asia's two most important leaders — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met last week. But the duo's lofty rhetoric of shared dreams and regional progress notwithstanding, their countries are deeply invested in Burma, including in projects that have an adverse effect on the Rohingya in Rakhine state.


What the Rohingya crisis says about racism and politics in Asia - The Washington Post

Nonsense. Now the European are shutting their sea and border from the libyan and Africans , leaving them to rot at sea.

 

[Indus Falcon]

Burma knows that it can do anything to the Rohingya's because Hasina is a coward and will not do anything. Unfortunately not even so called "The defenders of Islam" (Saudi Arabia) will do anything either. These people are left on their own.

Four million Burmese entitled to get iqama (long term visas)
Four million Burmese entitled to get iqama | Arab News

 

[ito]

Rohingya should be resettled outside Burma, and Bangladesh should take the majority of the responsibility.

 

[Mirzah]

Rohingya should be resettled outside Burma, and Bangladesh should take the majority of the responsibility.

of-course, and all malaun hindus trapped in Bangladesh will be resettled in india to make space for Rohingyas

 

[Gazprom]

of-course, and all malaun hindus trapped in Bangladesh will be resettled in india to make space for Rohingyas

Then it will be easier for reconversions of Bangla illegal muslims to hinduism.

 

[SrNair]

A Rohingya migrant cries as he sits with others in a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman on May 14, 2015. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

It takes a lot to forsake your home, clamber on to a crammed, rickety boat, and venture out into the uncertainty and danger of the high seas. But this is precisely what tens of thousands of people from Burma's Rohingya ethnic minority have done in recent years, leaving before the monsoon season settles in and their fates become even darker.

Some drown in the Andaman Sea; others, abandoned by the human traffickers they are forced to trust, drift without water and food aboard what activists describe as "floating coffins." And unlike many migrants rescued by European governments in the Mediterranean, the Rohingya can't even trust in the goodwill of Southeast Asia's navies.

In the past week, thousands of Rohingya have become subjects of an unseemly game of regional "ping-pong," their boats pushed back by governments not keen on accommodating any more asylum seekers. On Friday, in a notable exception, one vessel with 800 passengers was allowed to make landfall in Indonesia.

"If I had known the boat journey would be so horrendous," said a 19-year-old Rohingya refugee, who had lost her brother at sea, "I would rather have just died in Burma."

The spur of the crisis is in the remote, western part of that country, also known as Myanmar, where the majority of the roughly 1.3 million Rohingya live. As WorldViews has discussed before, even though the Rohingya can trace their origins in what's now Burma over many centuries, the Muslim minority is refused citizenship status by the Burmese state, which classifies them as "Bengali" interlopers from across the border.

In 2009, during an earlier Rohingya boat people crisis, a leading Burmese diplomat scolded foreign journalists for feeling sympathy for the would-be refugees, saying they "are as ugly as ogres."

Mob violence and ethnic pogroms, which flared in 2012, led to tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to squalid displacement camps. Denied adequate recourse to state services in both Burma and Bangladesh, many Rohingya endure malnutrition, abuse at the hands of local authorities, and restrictions on everything from movement to access to education to their ability to get married.

The United Nations recently described them as one of the world's "most persecuted minorities." A report this month from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum warned that rising Buddhist nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Burma made the Rohingya a "population at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide." It is estimated that a tenth of the community's population has attempted to leave their homeland in the past few years.

If you want to get a sense of how profound the denial of rights for Rohingya is, consider this: Burmese officials have already indicated that they won't attend a meeting on the refugee crisis, to be hosted by Thailand later this month, as long as the name "Rohingya" is even invoked at the session — something that would indicate de facto recognition of the minority. Even Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader of the Burmese opposition and a celebrated figure of global conscience, has remained shamefully silent on the plight of the Rohingya.

Other regional governments, including Thailand and Malaysia, have said the burden of housing the Rohingya is not theirs to shoulder alone. "We cannot welcome them here," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar told CNN when asked about his country's policy of turning the illegal migrant boats away. "If we continue to welcome them, then hundreds of thousands will come from [Burma] and Bangladesh."

Part of the problem is the presence of economic migrants from Bangladesh among the Rohingya asylum seekers. They travel along well-established trafficking networks that convey would-be migrants through Thailand's jungles into Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country that until recently was a favored destination for Bangadeshi migrants and Rohingya refugees. It is believed that a recent Thai crackdown on the land routes, where countless duped Rohingya and Bangladeshis are thought to be held in slave-like conditions by traffickers, led to the influx of Rohinyga on the seas.

The crisis ideally ought to be resolved by ASEAN, Southeast Asia's leading geopolitical bloc. But it is a notoriously toothless institution. Unlike the European Union, ASEAN shies away from taking moral stands on issues of human rights and democracy. Current signs, and the absence of popular sympathy for the Rohingya, seem to suggest that not much will change.


'This is going to put on display ASEAN's impotence,'' Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, told the Associated Press. ''This is another reflection of ASEAN's ineffectual cohesion.''

The plight of the Rohingya, as Hong-Kong based journalist Heather Timmons observes, also ought to win the attention of Asia's two most important leaders — Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met last week. But the duo's lofty rhetoric of shared dreams and regional progress notwithstanding, their countries are deeply invested in Burma, including in projects that have an adverse effect on the Rohingya in Rakhine state.


What the Rohingya crisis says about racism and politics in Asia - The Washington Post

Of Course Buddhist leaders in Burma is showing a cruel mentality towards their own citizens Rohingyas .It is totally condemnable.
But before blaming Burmese OP should also remember the racist side of 1971 war.
We knew how the West Pak treated their citizens in East Pak/Bangladesh/Bengalis.
So noone is perfect.

What is the OP's opinion about the pathetic behaviour of SE Asian nations that is playing ping pong with Rohingyas life ?


In fact they are also the same Muslim brother nation.
Fact is everyone is selfish .No matter what.Now news are coming that Europeans will also closed down their waterways.

This is not a time for blame game .Helping their life should be the priority.

 

[Gazprom]

Of Course Buddhist leaders in Burma is showing a cruel mentality towards their own citizens Rohingyas .It is totally condemnable.
But before blaming Burmese OP should also remember the racist side of 1971 war.
We knew how the West Pak treated their citizens in East Pak/Bangladesh/Bengalis.
So noone is perfect.

What is the OP's opinion about the pathetic behaviour of SE Asian nations that is playing ping pong with Rohingyas life ?


In fact they are also the same Muslim brother nation.
Fact is everyone is selfish .No matter what.Now news are coming that Europeans will also closed down their waterways.

This is not a time for blame game .Helping their life should be the priority.

Rohingyas started the violence by raping a buddhist woman and killing a buddhist monk without provocation. Islam has too much blood in its hands . It should repent and renounce violence and jihad or else the fate of rohingya will be fate of many muslim populations across the planet.

 

[ito]

of-course, and all malaun hindus trapped in Bangladesh will be resettled in india to make space for Rohingyas

You are welcome to do that.

 

[M.SAAD]

Where is Saudia Arabia to help them??

 

[MandarK]

What Buddhists In Myanmar are doing to Rohingyas is somewhat similar to what Muslims in Kashmir have done to kashmiri Pandits ( except that pandits never were the troublemakers in the region).
They forced pandits out of the Muslim majority areas and now are not ready to let them come back.
So, before one starts to cry about how worse the situation ..and how poor Rohingyas are left in the sea dying & stateless....one should try to sympathise & support kashmiri pandits first.
P.S. I have high respect for Rohingyas. If they can bring a situation where followers of Buddhism start persecuting them...they must be really good at something to which buddhists ideologically never subscribed to.


(Just got from FB)

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Where is Saudia Arabia to help them??

KSA is busy stirring up trouble in Yemen. But are the Rohingyas able to drive Camels?
Then the Saudies will will give them jobs as camel-drivers.

 

[Khalid Newazi]

Can you tell me how many Rohingas have been given long stay visas in Saudi ?

I was talking about helping Rohingyas reclaim their land aka Rakhine. The Saudis are quite free to give some cash when it comes to funding insurgents in Muslim Middle Eastern countries but nothing when it comes to helping Muslims in other parts of the World.