Rohingya: A People in Trouble, Why You Should Care… And What You Can Do
Burma has been in the news recently because of violence directed against one particular group, the Rohingya, a Muslim minority. The world watched as Burma went from a brutal military dictatorship to something far more democratic under the auspices of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The United States welcomed Burma’s progress toward democracy, lifting many economic sanctions on the country.
But democracy hasn’t been a cure-all for the nation. Instead, violence and discrimination against certain ethnic groups has gotten worse. Andrea Gittleman, of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, has traveled several times to Burma to document the worrying conditions in which the Rohingya live. A new wave of violence is targeting the group, taking a dire situation and making it far worse. What follows is an interview with Gittleman, edited for clarity.
Q. Can you tell us, briefly, who are the Rohingya are?
A. The Rohingya are a minority in Burma in terms of ethnicity and also in terms of religion. So they’re a Muslim community in a majority Buddhist country. And for decades, they have experienced persecution and discrimination at the hands of the government because they are such a small minority group.
There is a severe “otherness,” this idea that they — because they’re Muslim and they have darker skin than a lot of other people in Burma.
Q. Are Rohingya from somewhere else originally?
A. That’s the narrative that you see today, that Rohingya are immigrants, they’re from Bangladesh, they’re not part of the national fabric, and that’s why they shouldn’t be citizens and that’s why they shouldn’t have the basic rights that other might enjoy.
Rohingya who I’ve spoken to, as part of the museum’s efforts, have talked about being in the country of Burma for years, for decades and for generations. Some Rohingya have actually showed us their identity cards, which, as I said, don’t bestow citizenship and actually identify them as Muslims and as “the other,” and they showed their parents’ and their grandparents’ identity cards. They had been in the country, and they were treated, even though they were non-citizens, as ordinary people in the country. So, what we’re seeing is a community that has roots in the country, but still has faced discrimination, and we’re seeing upticks of violence against them, because of that very “otherness.”
Q. Various minority groups in Burma have faced discrimination and even violence from the government. What’s different about the Rohingya’s situation?
A. The Rohingya community has faced special kinds of persecution.
There was a 1982 citizenship law that listed all the ethnicities that would be eligible for citizenship in the country, which is a very odd way of bestowing such a fundamental right in the first place.
And Rohingya, because they are not included in that list, are excluded from citizenship in the country and are therefore rendered stateless. And because they are stateless, that then leads to other kinds of abuses and human rights violations.
They face restrictions on movement, which keeps them from working, from accessing health care, from pursuing education. And all of that, Rohingya tell us, is because of that fundamental stripping of citizenship.
And today, there are significantly more acts of violence directed at the Rohingya.
Q. It’s not only these hard conditions and violent incidents that have the Simon-Skjodt Center concerned. Official rhetoric seems to be setting the stage for something even worse?
A. Well, there are examples that the museum has found quite alarming. A state-run newspaper has referred to Rohingya as “detestable human fleas,” which is the kind of dehumanization, animalization of a group of people that we’ve seen in other contexts lead to violence on a statewide scale.
In another troubling incident, the state-run media referred to Rohingya as “thorns that needed to be removed. That is genocidal rhetoric. The idea that a group of people, based on their identity, is something that’s threatening and that needs to be destroyed, is quite alarming, especially given the history of state-led violence against Rohingya in the country.
Q. As someone who investigates potential genocide, what do you look for? Do you see those signs in Burma?
A. We look for signs like the promulgation of hate speech that targets a minority group, especially coming from high-level speakers. That can be a strong early warning sign of increased violence, potentially mass atrocities, in the future.
Or looking at impunity for past acts of violence against the group. The Burmese military, for example, has controlled areas where Rohingya live for decades and has exacted severe punishments upon that civilian population, and they have not had to answer for it. That is a warning sign because it means that the military has been given a free pass to act violently, making it more likely they may do so in the future.
Looking at the stripping of citizenship, not only is it a warning sign because of the act of “othering,” but it purposely removes Rohingya from political participation, from being able to make decisions affecting their own lives.
Also we can look at the very fundamental denials of basic freedoms. Rohingya are restricted and can’t move freely in certain areas — that impacts every aspect of daily life. That impacts the ability to go to a doctor, to work, to make money, to support a family, to go to school.
A man told me a story about how his father had died and he couldn’t go to the funeral because he didn’t have the ability to travel what was not a long distance. Just because of his identity, he couldn’t go to the funeral of his father.
So, there are severe personal effects of these human-rights violations, and not only are they violations, those are early warning signs that violence may increase in the future. When you have a population that is so oppressed, and doesn’t have any other options, they will take drastic measures, like fleeing to the seas, like taking these extremely dangerous journeys just to find another place where they could call home.
We’re seeing that now.
So, we look at those kinds of violations, of tendencies, of trends that might indicate that violence might increase in the future.
Q. What can someone do to help after reading this, beyond feeling terrible?
A. There’s a range of actions that could improve the situation for the Rohingya. Those people who have the greatest power to act are those people within Burma. Burma’s elected leaders, those in charge of its military and other security forces, and the people of Burma themselves. They have the primary responsibility to make sure that this violence can end, and that people, all people within the country, can enjoy peace and security.
I think the international community has a role to play in expressing their own outrage at the violence and in helping people within Burma come to terms with what is happening.
Q. Is there anything else we should know?
A. I think that it’s important to know that recent bouts of violence were totally preventable. That violent attacks by security forces against civilians is never inevitable. It’s not normal. All of this was done on purpose and all of it could have been stopped by leadership that prioritized the prevention of atrocities. I think that’s a lesson we have from this current situation in Burma and from other situations over the world where civilians face violence at the hands of the state.
And I think we need to remember that this is a failure of Burma’s military and of Burma’s leaders, but also of all of us not working to prevent these kinds of crimes from happening.
Interview with Andrea Gittleman, program manager in the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, by Jason Fields, digital editor.
