A Myanmar Resident’s Thoughts on the Rohingya Crisis
By AJ STRANG ‘22
The Rohingya Crisis has sparked public uproar throughout the Western World, prompting international sanctions and condemnations for the leaders of the Myanmar government. According to National Geographic, the Rohingya are a minority Muslim population in Rakhine State, near the western border with Bangladesh. However, the majority Buddhist population of Myanmar, as reported by BBC, has refused to acknowledge their existence as a distinct people for decades, excluding them from the 2014 national census, denying their attempts for both citizenship and independence, and occasionally implementing violent military control over their communities. After Rohingya insurgent groups launched multiple deadly attacks on Myanmar security officers in 2016 and 2017, the Myanmar military responded with “clearance operations” in August 2017 says CNN. Deemed not only racist but genocidal by the United Nations, the military government, according to BBC, killed thousands and forced out hundreds of thousands of refugees according to humanitarian organizations.
However, when I attended school in Myanmar, the school attempted to portray the Western World’s outrage over religious and ethnic extermination as mere ideological differences. Even though I went to an international school with a majority non-Asian student and faculty population, I recall playing a game of Agree/Disagree in Social Studies class over whether the forced migration was either racist or simply Myanmar’s right to implement its sovereignty over its territory. Practically anywhere else, there would be crystal clear condemnation, but our teacher encouraged debates over societal principles to sympathize with the government’s decisions.
Mostly though, the adults avoided discussing the topic for fear of backlash. We read To Kill a Mockingbird in English and discussed the injustice of America’s historical oppression of the black minority, ignoring the ongoing bloodshed within our current borders. We watched V for Vendetta in all its antitotalitarian vigor while the government manned a military post 200 feet from the school’s entrance. And as my textbook reminded me of the historical pacifism of Buddhism, bigoted Buddhist monks spewed their genocidal prayers on the local news. Although given the presence of a militaristic government, I cannot say I blame my school’s hopes for ignorance. Regularly seeing army outposts and vans of soldiers on your trip to the dentist can be slightly unsettling. I definitely grew more grateful for my diplomatic immunity. The dream of an unbiased education in a totalitarian society is infeasible.
Yet at Milton, we shouldn’t face such a struggle to differentiate right from wrong. With free, unlimited access to information, a fundamental truth stares right at us: The Chinese government shares an obscene number of flaws with Myanmar. Both claim to exist as representative democracies when everyone knows totalitarian regimes rule. Both ruthlessly oppress religious minorities; according to official Chinese documents published by The New York Times, China runs reeducation centers, racially imprisoning hundreds of thousands Uighur Muslims. And both claim their right of sovereignty to forcibly control territory, Rakhine State for Myanmar, and Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet for China.
As a half-Chinese resident of Myanmar, I conclude the Chinese government is a slightly less extreme version of Myanmar’s. Yet although we universally condemn the Myanmar government, we simultaneously choose to ignore China’s similar crimes. I appreciated Asian Society’s open town hall on the Hong Kong Protests. Unlike my previous school, educational institutions must remain safe havens for intellectual freedom and debate. Indeed, such contentious discussion breeds further comprehension. Now obviously I’m not claiming every Chinese person is evil, just like my Myanmar classmates weren’t, nor that we should berate Chinese students or faculties for their government’s atrocities. Classification by race or culture equalizes us with these morally repugnant governments. But if we are to condemn one government for its crimes, we must denounce the other. Feel free to agree or disagree.