The Rakhaing-6

Tha Hla
12/28/2008

The history of Rakhaing abounds ups and downs. The centuries-long sovereignty over portions
of Bengal heightened the Rakhaing power to a climax it had never before or ever since attained.
However, the ancient Rakhaing conquerors might not have foreseen that centuries later the flood
of Bengali Muslims would swamp the Rakhaing proper and endanger the very existence of their
own people and culture. If the eminent Rakhaing monarchs were to return to life today, they
would certainly be amazed by the changes which has taken place since the time of their reign.
They would hardly discern the land being the same kingdom they had bequeathed to their people.
They would particularly be astonished by the demographic transposition in that the Bengali
Muslims after having dislodged the Buddhist Rakhaings from the former colonies infiltrated into
and squatted on the Rakhaing soil itself. They would not believe their own eyes that in certain
remote corners of the land the local Buddhist monasteries and pagodas had been replaced by the
Muslim mosques let alone the latter stood side by side emulating the former elsewhere across the
land, which emitted piercingly amplified prayer calls of the muezzins five times a day, everyday
resounding throughout the neighbourhoods. Exasperated by the demographic transformation they
might lament that the historical legacy had collapsed; the countries-old taboo had been broken;
Islam had made its headway into the Rakhaing and far beyond. Their sweet memories of the
good old time would be eclipsed by the deepening anxiety for the misty future of the Buddhist
culture. Would the adherents of the faith be able to withstand the swiftly prolific Muslim
population and dynamic sweep of Islam?

The persistent Muslim penetration combined with the rigorous Islamic politicking would
exacerbate their anguish and put the ancient rulers into a state of pensiveness that it might not be
a question of if but a matter of when the land of pagodas as known to the West would be
absorbed into the Islamic fold.

The persistent Muslim penetration combined with the rigorous Islamic politicking would
exacerbate their anguish and put the ancient rulers into a state of pensiveness that it might not be
a question of if but a matter of when the land of pagodas as known to the West would be
absorbed into the Islamic fold. Reminiscing their role as the patrons of antiquities at Mrohaung
(Mrauk Oo) which stood test of time. Scanning the horizon above the high mountain ranges on
the east they might wonder what would happen to innumerable edifices at Pugan, which survived
destruction inflicted by the invading troops of Kublai Khan? Perhaps they might recall the city of
Nalanda where the Buddhist institutions were desecrated by Aurangzeb, a Muslim fanatic who
was one of the rulers of the Mogul empire in India. Bewildered and confused they might ponder
what would become of the great Maha Muni in Mandalay? At the same time they might
experience an eerie sensation at the thought of Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque at Delhi which was
grafted on to a tenth-century Chauhan temple, or the disputed mosque at Avodya which was
allegedly erected on top of a Hindu temple or as was to be the case with many other temples.
Vitualizing in their mind the silhouette of the magnificent golden Shwedagon spiring against the
red amber predawn sky, their memories might flash back to what had happened to Hagia Sophia,
the Byzantine church in Constantinople. Four slender minarets were added and the church was
converted into a Muslim mosque after the Turkish conquest of Byzantium in 1453, which
remained as the mosque of Hagia Sophia in the European side of Istanbul for centuries before it
was transformed into a museum in 1932. Their apprehension might presage what the future holds
for the Buddhist culture in Burma. Islam made itself visible through construction of mosques in
the conquered lands and the adopted countries. Who would have thought that the Sule pagoda, in
the heart of the nation’s capital city of Rangoon, which was built in the third century B.C. laying
the cornerstone of Buddhist culture in lower Burma, is now dwarfed and overshadowed by half a
dozen Muslim mosques1 within the sight of one another, located at the vintage points in the
proximity of the historic pagoda as close as a few feet from the pedestal. The mosques were
erected in the British colonial era. The country has regained its sovereignty but the luster of the
Sule pagoda will never be recovered. The colonial Burma was subject to the British imperialism
as well as the Islamic expansionism. Throughout the country the British had left permanent
reminders of their colonialism. A piece of history remains frozen in time.

What was precognition is now comprehension. Never has there been a mind boggling question
which the Burmese Buddhists hardly can bear to answer. It is too painful and unsettling. Is Islam
a threat to Burma, leading to disappearance of the Buddhist culture? The answer lies in the
question of the Islamic doctrine and the historical contexts. Conceptually Islam ascribes the
utmost importance to conversion. There being no distinction between religion and politics in the
faith of Islam, the believers used religion to legitimate aggression and warfare and transformed
the lives of others. Persecution and ferocity earned some Muslim conquerors notoriety for anti-
infidel activities such as iconoclasm, notably in India. The Muslims are bound by a fundamental
tenet that they are to live in "Dar-ul-Islam," a land of peace ruled by Muslims; if they reside in a
non-Muslim country, "Dar-ul-Harb", a land of war, they are obliged to wage Jihad, Holy war
against the infidels as occasion calls for. A Muslim’s first duty is loyalty to Islam and to his race,
no matter who and what he is or whether he lives in Burma, Thailand, India, China, Europe or
the United States of America. The conscious of faith supersedes the national sentiment. To a
Muslim nothing assures him a place in paradise as most readily as to die fighting for his faith.
Antipathy between Islam and other religions ignited regional wars in different parts of the world
at different tines, and communal virulences in many countries as often as the domestic squabbles
in a family. Tension mounted and skirmishes erupted between the Muslims and other religion
communities in the Muslim domains as well as in the lands they settled. Historically Islamic
fundamentalism had been as issue of international concern in the past centuries. In their bid for
sweeping conquest the Muslims turned themselves to dreadful invaders. Their reputation
proceeded them for rapacity and ruthlessness. The Muslim radicalism constituted one of the
major issues in the twentieth century. The religious and racial persecution in the magnitude of
genocide took place for the first time in the modern history eighty years ago in the land of
Armenians who were annihilated by the Turkish Muslims just because they were Christians and
racially different. The ethnic cleansing claimed the lives of over one million Armenians who
went through the atrocities only to be paralleled by the Nazi holocaust during the Second World
War in which millions of Jews were exterminated. Burma had every reason to fear he bigoted
Muslims, particularly for what was going on in adjoining Bangladesh where genocidal killings
and Islamization of he tribal people have been rampant in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The
minorities were mostly Buddhists and of Mongoloid origin, whose lives had been peaceful and
undisturbed until the birth of the Muslim state. For a glimpse of the heinous crimes, excerpts are
reproduced hereunder from "Survival International Annual Review, No.43:-

"After massacres: In December 1980 the home Minister, Mustafizur Rahman, the same man
heading the parliamentary inquiry into the Kaokhali massacre, introduced the Disturbed Area
Bill. The bill, which became law in early 1981, gave police and the army unrestricted powers to
shoot anyone suspected of anyone or make an arrest without warrant in any defined politically
disturbed areas. The bill was greeted by massive opposition for it was a further step in the
militarization of Bangladesh generally. Upendra Lal Chakma stated: the government is looking
for a genocidal solution to the problems of ethnic minorities up there."

"The genocidal solution had been heralded on 26 May 1979 when Brigadier Hannan and
lieutenant-Colonel Salam, in an unguarded moment, declared at a public meeting in Panchari that
"we want the soil and not the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts".

"The Bangladesh military junta has made a secret plan to force the tribal people to become
Muslims. With this end in view, it has established an Islamic Preaching Center at Rangamati, the
capital of the CHT. Saudi Arabia is financing the construction of a big Mosque and also an
Islamic Cultural Centre at Rangamati. The Bangladesh Government has built hundreds of
Mosques throughout the CHT as part of its plan to Islamise the tribal homeland. Recently the
Martial Law Government secretly circulated a letter to all army officers now stationed in the
CHT, encouraging them to marry tribal girls with a view to assimilating the tribal people."

"The following article, written by a Chakma tribal who prefers to retain anonymity, effectively
summarises the extensive documentation that exists on what is one of the most serious
predicaments for tribal people anywhere in the world."

Introduction : An extraordinary state of affairs is prevailing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
The Bangladesh Government has been carrying out a programme of systematic extermination of
the indigenous nationalities of he CHT because they are ethnically, religiously and culturally
different from the Muslim Bengalis. As a result, all human rights and civil liberties have been
violate; tens of thousands of innocent tribal men, women and children have been murdered; 12-
15 thousand tribal people have been detained without trial, tortured and some of them killed;
thousands of tribal women have been kidnapped, raped and many of them forcibly converted into
Islam; tens of thousands of tribal farmers have been herded into concentration camps and their
farm lands have been distributed among the outsider Muslim Bengali settlers; about 85 per cent
of the tribal houses have been burned; Buddhist temples have desecrated and destroyed;
Buddhist monks have been detained without trial, tortured and some of them slaughtered and
hundreds of thousands of outsider Muslim Bengalis have been rehabilitated by displacing the
tribal farmers. In 1947, the tribal population and Muslim Bengalis formed 98 per cent and less
than 2 per cent of the total population of the CHT respectively. By 1982, the Muslim Bengali
population accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total population in the CHT. All
development works have created job opportunities exclusively for the Muslim Bengalis, whereas
the tribal people are not even allowed to do business. During the British period the people of the
CHT enjoyed an important degree of autonomy, the rule of law and justice, police and official
protection, full employment and prosperity. However, under the Muslim Bengali rule, they have
been deprived of all human rights and forced to become landless, homeless, jobless refugees.
They are facing the prospect of total extinction."

While there exists discrepancy between the radical fundamentalists and the moderate Muslim
leaders who were critical of the religio-political movements carried out by the extremists who
manipulated and distorted true teaching of Islam, the recent developments in Bosnia and Kosovo
in former Yugoslavia, and Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia tended to illustrate the Islamic
revisionism and secessionism as much as the Muslim hotbeds in Asia, Africa and the West
tempted the non-Muslim nations to view Islam through the prism of religious fanaticism and
terrorism. With the fundamental concept of bringing the world under the umbrella of Islam, the
extent of the global movement is reflected in the spiritual allegiance of the populations,
irrespective of the race and ethnic divisions, which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. The
genesis and geographical expansion of Islam dates back to the seventh century fueled by passion
of faith as well as the economic and social interests. Through conquest and conversion the
Islamic community, a religious polity of global dimension, which originated at a place called
Medina in Saudi Arabia has grown to a mammoth brotherhood society that represents one fifth of
the world population extending from Arabia to North Africa, the heart of the old Soviet Union,
western China and east and southeast Asia. Included in the expansion were the former territories
of the Byzentine and the Sassanian civilizations. Besides being confederated into a 54- nation
Organization of Islamic Conference2 the Muslim world continued to grow in India, China,
Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Europe and the United States of America.

The Muslim invasions of India brought about vast and shattering historical changes over many
centuries, which at long last led to partition of the deeply troubled nation into two republics in
1947 ending the British rule; one republic for the Hindu majority and the other for the Muslim
minority, Pakistan which later fell apart on the ground of racial and cultural dichotomy. The
Bengali speaking East Wing broke away from the Urdu-speaking Punjabi West in 1971 and the
state of Bangladesh came into being. Islam is the dominant religion in Pakistan and Bangladesh
and the second largest in India. The Indian subcontinent where more than one fifth of the world
Muslims live was one the hub of Buddhism during the reign of Asoka, the greatest ruler of the
Mauryan dynasty whose rule extended from Afghanistan to Deccan. Asoka established
Buddhism throughout the empire in the third century B.C. and sent Buddhist missions to the
Mediterranean regions, Ceylon, Burma and other southeast Asian nations. The development of
the Art of Gandhara, the north Indian kingdom what is now northwest Pakistan and northeast
Afghanistan, illuminates the cultural influence of Buddhism which had been the dominant
religion there before Islam was established. Buddhism spread north of Hindu Kush Mountains
into Central Asia where it flourished, especially eastern Turkistan until the ninth century when
the Muslims conquered the region and replaced it with Islam. Excavation and ancient
monuments bear witness to the golden age of the Buddhist religion in the area located on the
legendary silk routes. Buddhism became a world religion during his time. However, following
the revival of Hinduism, Islamic expansion reached India wave after wave of invasions
beginning from the eighth century A.D. Islam won many Hindu convert; conversion by the
sword as well as by political influence. The vast majority of the ruling Muslim community in
India were Hindu converts with only 1 or 2 per cent of the Arabic, Persian, Afghan, Turkish and
Mogul invaders. A great number of conversion came from the Hindu ranks, with a few from
upper class whose preference was either out of conviction or in the hope of reward. Some were
forcibly converted in times of crisis and distress. In Eastern Bengal the accession was
wholesome. The entire region where a corrupt form of Buddhism had flourished, turned to Islam
in order to escape the Brahmin domination following the flight to Tibet of the Buddhist monks
when the Muslim invaders conquered the area in the twelfth century. Animists might well have
embraced Islam. Hindu outcasts changed to Muslims for the relative freedom of Islam. It was the
factor that pockets of Muslim minority scattered all over India among the Hindu majority, except
in Sind and Punjab.

In China the Muslim community which started from a few thousand merchants who settled in
some coastal cities in the eighth century grew their numbers through massive immigration via
land routes of Central Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Muslim ranks swelled
as they married Chinese women and bought out Chinese children whom they raised as Muslims.
Many Chinese converted to Muslims. Spreading all over the country the Muslims now constitute
the majority in the Autonomous Region of Ninghsia and sizable minority in Kensu, Shensi and
Yunnan. In the nineteenth century an Islamic revivalist movement swept across the land impelled
by the Islamic inspiration, more intensely in the northwestern and southwestern China. In 1950s
the Muslims again proclaimed their sentimental identification with the Arabic culture. Demand
for the Islamic identity continued which means that aspiration for secession still persisted. Islam
spread to much of southeast Asia which extended in a bend, from southern Thailand through
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. While Islam represents only 4 per
sent in Thailand, 5 per cent in the Philippines and ranks after Buddhism and Taoism in
Singapore, it is the state religion in Malaysia and Indonesia where Hinduism Buddhism had been
prevalent before Islam became the dominant religion in the sixteenth century. The Borobudur
shrine in Java stands testimony to the blossoming of Buddhism in the region. Much of the Hindu
culture still survives in the island of Bali. Islam reached the Asian archipelago in the beginning
of the twelfth century and Malacca on the southern coast of Malaysia became the first major
Muslim port in southeast Asia where the Muslim merchants traded and married the local women.
Attracted by the Islamic doctrine and Sufi mysticism, the rulers in the area converted to Islam
and their subjects followed suit. The same sequence was repeated in Sumatra. Java and Borneo in
Indonesia and the Sulu island in the Philippines. Together Indonesia and Malaysia form a
population of some 250 millions, the majority of them are Muslims.

In Europe the Muslims occupied Spain from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, and penetrated
into southern France only to be halted by the battle of Tours, one hundred miles southwest of
Paris. The Muslims even invaded the city of Rome and sacked St. Peter’s Church. Advancing to
the east they conquered and Islamized the territories which are now known as Turkmenistan,
Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhastan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the fifteenth century the
Ottoman Turks overran the Balkan peninsula which includes Bulgaria and Serbia, and the local
population were turned into Muslims who may be found today in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and
other territories. In the present time many western European nations are faced with the grim
reality of the problem of Muslim immigrants and the Islamic fundamentalist threat. The same
predicament has been in the center stage of the United States of America so far as the national
security is concerned, the world’s most powerful nation where freedom was compromised with
the threat of terrorism. The exquisitely embellished landmarks of the national pride and power
such as the White House, the Capitol Building and the like in the nation’s capital city of
Washington, D.C, have been barricaded and defaced by the concrete fortification in fear of the
terrorists who had tried with incredible ineptitude to blow up New York City. The inroad into the
American politics by several million Muslims both immigrants and African Muslims drew much
attention in the political and social arenas as a force to be heard and seen. The American Muslim
Alliance, among other Muslim organizations in the United States of America, through its seventy
regional chapters in twenty six states, has been actively involved in the local and congressional
elections across the nation, organizing and encouraging the growing Muslim community to
participate in the American politics. In 1998 twenty Muslim candidates entered the local
elections. A Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh sought election in the senatorial race in the
Queens district of New York, who had earlier been elected to the local Board of Education.

The Muslim domination of India might have been brought to an end by the conquest of the
British; However, whose occupation of Burma had an adverse effect because it contributed the
cause of Islamization. The colonial-born generation of Muslims in Burma began with flow of the
Indian immigrants during the British rule. India being the keystone of the British empire, the
citizens of the Indian subcontinent were exported to East Africa, Caribbean, Fiji, Malay and
Burma as part of massive transmigration that accompanied the British colonial expansion. Aimed
at shattering the burning spirit if the nationalist Burmese the British incorporated Burma into the
Indian empire as a province and flooded it with spades of the Indian immigrants, the vast
numbers of them were the Hindus mostly the Tamils of south India, and the rest being the
Muslims. They were mainly engaged in trade and commerce with the exception of a few in the
civil service. They clustered in the urban trade centers where capital and goods accumulated. At
the outbreak of the Second World War 500,0003 Indians fled Burma making their long journey
back to India. Most of them perished who fell victim to disease, famine and the Burmese who
preyed on them. After the war some returned to Burma only to leave the country for good in the
aftermath of indigenization and whereby foreign investments and access were confiscated. The
Hindus immigrants were as proud of their nationality as they were happy to be back home in
India. Unlike the Hindus, the Muslims had their own agenda to accomplish. They were not just
the ordinary economic pollutants but the social polemicists as well, who were deeply involved in
the Burmese politics and exerted Islamic influence in the Burmese Buddhist society. Moreover,
opening of the Suez Canal facilitated the rice export and the British expanded their commercial
interest by promoting rice cultivation in the Irrawaddy delta as well as in the alluvial plains of
the Rakhaing land. Thousands of migrate Bengalis were engaged in the British rice industry in
Rakhaing. They were largely seasonal workers who joined their families in Bengal after the
harvest, while some households moved in and settled in the peripheral areas of the rice industry.
The Muslim settlers among the predominant Buddhist Rakhaings have ever since been
outlandish, the language and culture of their mother land intact. Separated by linguistic and
cultural differences, an unbridgeable chasm existed between the native Buddhist Rakhaings and
the alien Bengali Muslims. The ethnic cronyism and Islamic politics made the relations all the
more difficult to improve. They never integrated into the mainstream Rakhaing society. On the
other hand, the descendants of the mogul refugees were entirely different from the Bengali
immigrants. Though Muslims by faith, they adopted the local customs and picked up the native
tongue since the time their rebellious ancestors were suppressed and deported to Ramree island
by Sanda Wizaya at the outset of the eighteenth century. Many of the older generation received
education in the Buddhist monasteries and some excelled in the Burmese language and literature.
Rather than joining the Muslim separatist movement they proudly distanced themselves from the
Bengali Muslims who were foreigners to them as much as the Pathans of Pakistan were aliens to
the Bengalis of the Dravidian strain.

The Muslims in India and for that matter in Malaysia, Indonesia and China being the indigenous
converts they were essentially the natives of the respective land. In Burma the Muslim
community which comprises 4 per cent of the total population was not the local converts
recruited through persuasion but was made up of the immigrants and their offsprings. Therefore,
the Muslims in Burma remained an alien entity in the exclusively nationalist Buddhist society
who vigorously preserved the pristine faith of Buddhism which starkly contrasts to Islam
wherein every issue in life is judged from the sectarian point of view; consequently the two
communities became separate and conflicting social groups. A Muslim might be in good standing
but socially he was regarded not being one of the same mould with the Buddhist on the basis of
ethnic affinities and cultural backgrounds; hence less being commingled and few interracial
marriages between the two communities. United on the strength of the religious faith, the
Muslims in Burma though small in numbers perpetuated their power in the communal politics
and their assertion was fostered by various concessions that the A.F.P.F.L government was forced
to make including legalization of the illegal Muslim immigrants in the Rakhaing land. The
trouble was the manner in which the unscrupulous Burmese politicians fanned the flame of
animosity. Out of rancour, the legacy of generations, they turned against the Rakhaings in every
way and by any means while placated the Bengali Muslims by favour and rewards which
whetted the political appetites of the Muslims for more power. Added to the political advantages
the Muslims were given access to the national radio networks, a privilege not accorded to the
indigenous Buddhist Rakhaings at the time. The above measures together with the continued
influx of the illegal Muslims well served the political expediency of the shortsighted Burmese
politicians in their effort to counterpoise the intensely nationalistic Rakhaings who regarded the
impetuous ossification as a betrayal which still rankled in their mind long after the politicians
were gone. The esteem had turned to disdain because of the politicians. The perverted politicians
were too naïve to realize that national security would eventually by threatened by the growing
population of Muslims whose sole interest being to conquer the land. The Muslims lived off the
Burmese hospitality but they did not unite with the Burmese. Their political loyalty was too often
on sale to the highest bidder. What drove the point home was the shifting alliance of the Muslim
parliament members, who switched sides back and forth bargaining for the most available
numbers of cabinet posts, between the two factions of the ruling party, each trying to
outmaneuver the other in the self-destructive inner party struggle. Since the party adherents
including the native minorities were divided and with the opposition party allied to one faction
the gang of six Muslims became crucial to both sides for successful outcome in the no-
confidence motion against the government of U Nu, which finally brought down the whole house
of cards, paving the way for the military dictatorship to replace the constitution regime.

The anatomy of the Islamic strategy was through a combination of military and political
measures. Despite the relentless efforts in the previous centuries the Muslims failed to achieve
their objective but the ambitions did not die. As noted earlier the scheme of the Bengali Muslims
in the Rakhaing land was to exploit monopoly and establish their claim to the territory. With this
end in view all methods of craft were employed but none of them has yet met with success. As
wily as they were, what crossed in their mind was another effete verisimilitude. Intent on
concealing their true identity and thus forging an ethnic minority the Muslims in Rakhaing, who
after having shed the emblem of the Burmese Muslims chose to claim themselves the Rakhaing
Muslims. Nonetheless, the signature of Rakhaing being Mongoloid by ethnicity and Buddhist by
faith, the credibility of their claim was bitterly challenged by the Rakhaings. Unable to surmount
the gruff diatribe the Bengali Muslims decided not to cling to their claim. Desperately needed to
rebuild the image they vainly tried to fake a thin camouflage by assuming a new name
"Rohingya" which they hoped might change the general perception about their origin and hostile
activities, since the Mujahids were closely identified with the Mujahadins who were associated
with terrorism. The term Rohingya being sternly controverted, what would it be next? Perhaps
"Rohingya" an Afghan clan who moved to India en masse and settled in Uttar Pradesh after they
had been uprooted from the homeland by the Persians in the eighteenth century. Whichever
brand the change might bring it is the same old wine in the new bottle, the same old militant
Bengali secessionists in one more disguise, who were lying low, yet keeping ready to spring to
action once time is ripe. While sizing up the situation they ostensibly moved the bases to the
Thai-Burma border area. The new location was worth all the efforts in purporting
noninvolvement of Bangladesh in the separatist movement as well as to join forces with the
Muslim secessionists of Thailand. No matter whatever measure was taken to extricate
Bangladesh from the intrigue it is the open secret that the Muslim secessionist movement was
conceived in and generated by the Muslim nation next door which continued to incite its fellow
Bengali Muslims inside Burma to conduct campaigns of terror and intimidation. It exploited the
ethnic divisions within Burma with the object of bringing them to the point of popular uprising,
seeking a pretext for outside intervention.

No sooner than independence was won Burma experienced multi-colour insurgency and
subversions; however nothing was so distinguished than the Muslim separatist movement in that
it was organized, financed and directed by foreign nations using religion power to rally support
of the Islamic world and...

In international transactions all relations contain characteristics of conflict but the record of the
neighbouring Muslim nation was in remarkable contrast to the generally accepted principle
embodied in the Charter of the United Nations which prohibits member states from interfering in
each other’s domestic problems. No sooner than independence was won Burma experienced
multi-colour insurgency and subversions; however nothing was so distinguished than the Muslim
separatist movement in that it was organized, financed and directed by foreign nations using
religion power to rally support of the Islamic world and the international public at large by
means of squandering lobbyists, public relations firms and an avalanche of propaganda of which
sought through vitriolic language and gross exaggeration to crate impression that the Muslims
were the subject of systematic persecution in Burma. The Muslims agitators who continued to
provoke and manufacture incidents accomplished their objective by fomenting panic among the
local Muslims; hence exodus into Bangladesh which led the world to believe that the minority
Muslims were being pushed out from the land. What was seen was not all that appeared to be. A
lie repeated over and over again became indistinguishable from the truth.4 The unsettled
situation in Burma was dramatized by two domestic events in 1978 and 1992 involving the
Bengali Muslim refugees. Burma was under the international pressure to take in more refugees
than the number of Muslims who crossed the border into Bangladesh which found convenient to
label any unwanted persons as the refugee from Burma while there remained 400,000 Bihari
Muslims stranded in Bangladesh, whose repatriation Pakistan refused to accept. The basic issue
of illegal immigration was diverted to the instigated refugee crisis and the secessionist movement
was juggled into religious persecution. It seems too querulous and anomalous on the part of the
critics to perverse the real aspect of religious freedom in Burma, particularly the peevish
Muslims who contemn and trammel the non-believers much less to allow other religions
establish or being practised on their soil while they themselves reached the deep pockets to
insensately impose Islam on the non-Muslim nations and the peaceful peoples. It raises serious
questions as to the essence of morality.

Poised between the ambitions of China, the world’s most populous nation and Bangladesh, the
world’s most densely populated country per square mile, Burma has relatively few effective
means of preventing infiltration from outside since its lengthy frontiers pass through high
mountain ranges, thick forests and shallow rivers. To safeguard the sovereignty and protect the
interest of the nation is the paramount duty of any government, the democratic or otherwise.
Neither the national security nor the illegal immigrant issue is to be kept in bay. However, in
Burma because of the military regime whatever events or however routine the administrative
measures might have been, they were painted in much different pictures with the sinister intent to
conjure up in the minds of the general public, especially in the West vision of the military
dictatorship who in no time dealt with any threat to their authority. The Burmese people who did
not recognize the legitimacy of the military rule, nevertheless accepted the general principle of
primary loyalty to their own nation. They felt strongly that, with good reasons, the international
community took no notice of the legitimate rights of the indigenous Buddhist majority of the
host country while they sympathized with the alien Muslim immigrants. Are the Muslim victims,
who sought to create a situation to enable them to take over the country they had emigrated? Are
the Burmese aggressors, who struggled to defend their own nation? The Muslim agitation and
subversions were constant irritants for the Burmese people who have unfairly been relegated to
the role of Muslim haters, notwithstanding the fact that Burma, in good neighbourliness and on
humanitarianism, extended hospitality to the Bengali refugees and safe transit to the West
Pakistani military brass led by General Khan, nicknamed Tiger Khan during the 1971 civil war in
then East Pakistan.

The irony is that the Muslim activists who hijacked democracy were now crying for democracy
to advance their political legitimacy in order to achieve their objective. Some political analysts
concluded democracy and Islam were incompatible. The Secretary General of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization equated Islam and Communism while former Vice President Dan Quayle in
his address to the 1990 graduating class of Annapolis linked Nazism, Communism and radical
Islamic fundamentalism. The radical Muslims could hardly contain their aspiration. Their quest
for global dominance is never ending. They eyed the world with growing ardour. Islam knows no
boundary. Geographical isolation is no longer a hindrance. No Muslim armies would come
marching on the camel backs like in the medieval age nor blatant military intervention world be a
choice; instead subversion and interference would continue to be the case. The Muslims are
social parasitic elements like lichens in the sense that they grew on the doomed host and claimed
it for themselves; and also are carcinomatous in that just like the malignant tumors they
ensconced and spread inside the lymphatic segments of the non-Muslim society leading to its
ultimate fatality. The situation in Burma might be different from the condition in the West, but no
country is immune from the Islamic virus; every country in susceptible, big or small, developed
or underdeveloped, wealthy or needy. There is no telling which country will be the next victim.
The Muslims are communal hunters who gang up on others in pack. With the increasing trend in
the export of Islamic fundamentalism, the global spread of Islamic threat is in the offing. In the
face of the growing Muslim population the fear of demographic threat sounds the tocsin of alarm
in the mind of the citizenry of the non-Muslim world.

Reference

(1) Sunni mosque in Sule Pagoda road; Surathi mosque in Shwebontha Street; Sunni mosque in
Maungtawlay Street; Sunni mosque in Shwebontha Street; Shia mosque in the 30th Street; and
Khoja mosque in Shwebontha Street.

(2) Members of Organization of the Islamic Conference, established in 1971:

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina, Fasco,
Cameroon, Chad, The Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kazakastan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lybia, Malaysia, Mauritania,
Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, PLO, Qatar, Saudi Arbia, Senegal, Sierra Leone,
Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates
and Yeman.
Observers: Uzbekistan and Turkish Federated State of Cyprus

(3) D.G.E. Hall, Burma, page 182

4. The culture of not being truthful was referred to the area Muslims in the book "The Raiders of
Arakan", by C.E. Lucas Phillips; which appears at page 9:" Masters of intrigue and deception,
the Chittagonians made extremely good Intelligence agents behind the enemy lines but, when it
come to a clash of interests among themselves, they quarrelled violently and were awful liars.