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Michael Rauch

Professor Bandara

RELS-2300-402-F17

10th December 2017

Rohingya in Myanmar

There is a current controversy that has been brought to like in the past few years over the

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the circumstanced involved. Myanmar has been accused of

genocide against the Rohingya Muslims and the Rohingya Muslims have been accused as causing

terrorism in Myanmar. I aim to take an objective look at what is going on there and how religion may

play a part in the conflict.

To have even a basic understanding to look objectively and the religious connotations to the

situation we have to understand a little bit about the history. According to Rohingya and other

historians, Muslims have lived in Myanmar since as early as late 1100 CE1. The Muslims lived in an

area that was known as Arakan but the area was conquered several times by Indian kingdoms, Burmese

empires, and the British in 1824. What was Arakan, now known as Rakhine, and where the Rohinya

people lived was the coastal region of Myanmar that borders the Bay of Bengal. When the British ruled

from 1824-1948 there was a large amount of migration from India and Bangledash and because the

British saw Myanmar as part of India it was not seen as an issue. The large migration was seen as

negative by the native population. The largely Buddhist native population correlated the migration with

the Rohingya and saw the Rohingya as Bengali, largely starting the major issues. When Myanmar had a

change in leadership in 1962 all citizens were required to have national registration card and due to the

fact that the majority, even though the Rohingya had been living in the area for several hundred years,

saw the Rohignya as foreign so they were unable to have normal citizenship cards. This greatly reduced

1 Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya?,, see category Where are the Rohingya from?
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the things that were available to the Rohignya people and in 1982 a similar law was passed that, in

short, didnt acknowledge the Rohignya as a type of ethnic group. Even if they get cards that identify

them as naturalized they still have limits to what they can do, such as the inability to run for office or

being a doctor. Since the late 1970s, nearly one million Rohingya have fled Myanmar due to

widespread persecution.2, much of this is due to a conflict that broke out in October of 2016 nine

border patrol officers were killed, suspectedly by an armed Rohingya group, and in retaliation the

government sent troops into the villages. The government and troops have been accused of human

rights violations, such as rape, arson, unnecessary killing, that have been denied by the government.

Both sides have had retaliation against each other described as,

Residents and activists have described scenes of troops firing

indiscriminately at unarmed Rohingya men, women and children. The

government, however, has said nearly 100 people were killed after armed

men from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched a raid on

police outposts..3

The functional and faith based reasons for the conflicts go hand in hand. Daw Aung San Suu

Kyi, a politician in Myanmar, told the BBC in an interview, Fear is not just on the side of the Muslims,

but on the side of the Buddhists as well. Theres a perception that Muslim power, global Muslim power,

is very great.4. With Muslim numbers growing significantly more than Buddhism, Buddhists in

Myanmar fear than they will no longer be the majority religion. Myanmar sees the coastal area,

Rakhine, that was inhabited by the Rohingya as the front line in times of invasion and immigration.

Many Buddhists see real or perceived Muslim teachings of inter-faith marriages, forced conversion,

and an emphasis on large families to be a threat to the Buddhist majority of Myanmar. Something that

2 Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya?, see category How many Rohingya have fled Myanmar and where have they gone?
3 Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya?, see category How and why are they being persecuted? And why aren't they recognised?
4 Schissler, Matt, et al.
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is prevalent in Myanmar and something that is also prevalent in the United States is the misinformation

or generalization of Muslims in regards to terrorism. People who listen to these generalizations see the

Rohingya Muslims as the same extremist groups and equate them to terrorists.

Rohingya are thought to be by some the most oppressed minority on the planet with hundreds of

thousands fleeing their country in fear of death and discrimination. Many of the conflicts encompass

functional, faith based, political, and economic reasons for them. Much of the conflict is due to a

Buddhist majority, scared of losing their freedom of religion and being a minority, and are taking

extremes to keep from that happening. The Rohingya are in the boat that the Buddhists are scared of

being in. In all the misinformation and completely biased information makes it not completely clear

what is really happening.

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Bibliography

Channel4News. Rohingya Muslims: what is happening in Myanmar? Youtube, YouTube, 3 Sept.

2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXPVg9a8RY.

Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya?Asia Pacific | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 30 Nov. 2017,

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/rohingya-muslims-170831065142812.html.

Schissler, Matt, et al. The Roots of Religious Conflict in Myanmar.The Diplomat, The Diplomat, 6

Aug. 2015, thediplomat.com/2015/08/the-roots-of-religious-conflict-in-myanmar/.