Introduction Sarah Gibbens. “Myanmar’s Rohingya Are in Crisis-What You Need to Know”. National Geographic. Published on 29 September, 2017.
The article chosen is “Myanmar’s Rohingya Are in Crisis-What You Need to Know”, written by Gibbens (2017). The article discusses on the Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis that arise when they have been through the ethnics cleansing in their own homeland. Rohingya people also being called as the most persecuted minority in the world that fled across border to find shelter and continue living.
The attacks on them have been systematic and widespread that also called as “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” (Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, 2012). Ethnic cleansing is one of the main evils of modern times (Michael Mann, 2004). In the books of Dark Side of Democracy written by Michael Mann (2004), murderous cleansing is modern – it is “the dark side of democracy” results; where the demos (democracy) is confused with the ethnos (the ethnic group) thus arises two rival ethnonational movements and each ethnic claims “its own” state over the same territory. Democracy means rule by the people. But in modern times, democracy by the people mean two things which is “demos” that addressed for the ordinary people (mass of the population) and “nation” or “ethnos” an ethnic group – a people that shares a common culture and sense of heritage, distinct from other peoples. If the people rule its own nation-state, and if the people is defined in ethnic terms, then its ethnic unity may outweigh the kind of citizen diversity that is central to democracy. So democracy is rule by the ordinary people, the masses or ethnic majority. As Wimmer (2002) argue some other features of modernity play more subsidiary roles in the upsurge of cleansing, modernity is structured by ethnic and nationalist principles because the institutions of citizenship, democracy, and welfare are tied to ethnic and national forms of exclusion.
Article summary As being mentioned in the article, about 500 000 of Rohingya’s people fled to Bangladesh since August 2017. They have to run away from being killed, gang raped, burned alive, shot, their homes being burned and many cruel things that have been happened and might become worst if they choose to stay there. Apart from being treated as worthless people by the Myanmar majority, they also isolated from the world at the very beginning when Myanmar got nationality. Their leader, Ang San Suu Kyi also not condemns her military and has questioned the very need to do so.
Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority from Myanmar that live in Rakhine’s state. The population of this ethnic is about 1.1 million from 52 million total people of Myanmar. Myanmar’s government label the Rohingya as ‘stateless’ and also claims that they were brought to Rakhine state from Bangladesh when Myanmar was a British colony. Apart from that, they also said that Rohingya people living in their country illegally. Contrast with what Rohingya people said, that they have been in the region for over a century and being mistreated by the Buddhist majority for decades. They also prevented to access any employment, education, health services and freedom to move within the country. Besides, they were being labelled as friendless ethnic people because they not just were being isolated from the Myanmar majority but also isolated from people around the world.
Why the Rohingya been discriminated against for so long? To tell the truth, there is no exact information on that question because the mistreatment has deep historical roots and involves many political controversies, religion controversy and several others. Some say that anti-Muslim among the Buddhist was heavily reinforced by the alternative facts of outbreeding of Muslim in Myanmar with the aim of making Myanmar as Islamic states. Effect from the facts, the Buddhist feel like threatened and triggered the “ethnic cleansing”. The discrimination on Rohingya also triggered by the Citizenship Law of 1982 where they not recognize Rohingya as one of Myanmar’s natural and legitimate ethnic. Thus Rohingya incorrectly classified as foreigner in their own homeland (Burma Task Force, 2017). This law have increase the rising tide of Islamophobia in Myanmar and increase hatred for Muslim. The people also labelled as Bengali which mean they are not from the Myanmar, as non-Buddhist, as Muslim and as foreigner in the country.
Critical evaluation The article provides some information on crisis in Myanmar’s for their mistreatment of Rohingya people with related with democratic and ethnic majority. The author of this article is trusted especially when it is published in well-known channel. This article may not helpful in giving out the solutions for the crisis. But might help people understanding and get exposed to the trusted information got directly from the reporters that have been to the refugee camp and that have been living in Myanmar to solely watch the situation there.
The solution for the crisis happened in Myanmar is not easy because it’s related with their country law and leader. Other people can’t help to change their system if there is no interference from world power such as United Nation (UN). Instead we can help with provide a lot of humanitarian help to provide a refugee camp, food, drink, healthcare, medication and many more. If possible, we also can give them vaccine to prevent spread of disease among them and especially among the people in the country they fled. Besides, if the condition among Rohingya people being stabilized, we also can help them to control their population by exposed them with control breeding. Apart from that, we also could provide them with psychiatrists to help those traumatized and phobia.
From the Borgen Project, they also provide some ways to help by calling congress, donation and spread the word. United Nation may have the ability to voice their concern to stop the persecution of Rohingya and the donation from around the world very helpful to feed them and healing. The last is effortless way by spreading the word of Rohinga crisis by sharing news on social media, stay up to date and getting involved with volunteer to help those in needed.
Moreover, people around the world could help this people by build some facilities such as hospital, school, water tank, and maybe small land for them farming their own foods in the place they landed if they permitted to do so. Such as in Bangladesh a country that is itself desperately poor with abundance of people and not enough drink and food source, this migration of people from Rohingya has increase the load in Bangladesh. So the Rohingya should create their own source to continue living without affecting the people in Bangladesh. They also should take this second change of living with getting education so they could explore the world, improve living standard and being civilized.
In conclusion, Sarah Gibbens (2017) have done a good job in writing the article to exposed the world with the crisis occurred in Myanmar. Despite the ethnic cleansing crisis is a new way to modern killing, the Rohingya people does not deserved to be mistreated and discriminated same as been happened to people from Syria, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo and several place in the world. The human rights do not belong to ethnic and religion itself but as whole people around the world.
References Sarah Gibbens (2017, September 29). Myanmar’s Rohingya Are in Crisis-What You Need to Know. National Geographic. Retrieved from https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/09/rohingya-refugee-crisis-myanmar-burma spd/ Lex Rieffel (2017, September 13). No simple solution to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/09/13/no-simple-solution-to-the-rohingya-crisis-in-myanmar/ Hannah Seitz (2017, September 20). How to Help Rohingya Refugees. The Borgan Project. The Blog. Retrieved from https://borgenproject.org/help-rohingya-refugees/ Michael Mann (2004, November). Dark Side of Democracy. Cambridge University Press, New York. Retrieved from http://www.untag-smd.ac.id/files/Perpustakaan_Digital_1/DEMOCRACY%20The%20Dark%20Side%20of%20Democracy%20Explaining%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.pdf