Burma Needs to Promote Rakhine Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim Solidarity

This type of interfaith cooperation and harmony used to be the norm between various ethnic and religious groups in Rakhine state long before successive military dictatorships and extremists groups such as the Ma Ba Tha started to propagate narratives of exclusion and hate in order to divide communities. Prof. Michael Charney alluded to this point when speaking at a recent conference on the genocide against the Rohingya, noting that Rakhine state used to be marked by its: inclusiveness, tolerance, heterodoxy and diversity and was greatly influenced by ‘Persian, Islamic, Christian and Buddhist cultures.’

Rakhine state’s history of communal amity was deeply ruptured by the 2012 pogroms that targeted the persecuted Rohingya. Many Rohingya villages in Rakhine state came under attack from Rakhine Buddhist extremists, forcing Rohingya Muslim villagers out of their homes and into a life in squalid camps.

Indeed, since then other Rohingya villages have faced the perilous uncertainty of wondering “when the next attack will occur” and whether they face a fate similar to their brethren, one where they are consigned to living in a state of limbo in dismal “Internally Displaced Peoples” (IDP) camps. There have been several documented incidents in which extremists were poised to attack Rohingya villages but through the efforts of human rights activists, the Burmese government was moved to prevent a repeat of the 2012 atrocities which put Burma’s persecution of the Rohingya on display for the world to see. (Courtesy of chicagomonitor.com)