Kimberly Inga

RELS 2300

May 4, 2018

There are more than 7.3 billion people around the world. In this world there are different

classes of people involved in different religions. There is bound to be problems between each

other especially in poor countries. One particular group of people are the Rohingyas. They are

“Muslims who have lived in the area now known as Myanmar since as early as the 12th century,

according to many historians and Rohingya groups.”1 However, there have been conflicts

regarding there status as citizens and therefore they have now been known as the most

persecuted people in the world.

In a functionalist viewpoint of the Buddhist in the country is to follow society's moral of

governing. But the reason the Rohingyas are being persecuted has a lot to do with the

government's statement on who they are. The Rohingyas are not being treated like citizens

because the government stated that they are Bengali which many deny. They were issued a white

card that said they are bengali and they were abolished in 2015 after attacks appeared in 2012.2

Since these attacks they were sent to camps that look like prisons without education or good

medical treatment and without rights. However, in these camps many have suffered greatly from

rape, humiliation, torture and killed by government officials. Such influence engraves into the

hearts of the people in a negative way only so that the functional views of the government is seen

as the law to kick people out of their homes and into camps to be expected as right. Buddhist

believe and “consider the Rohingya Bengali, rejecting the term Rohingya as a recent invention

1
Al Jazeera. “Who Are the Rohingya?” Israeli–Palestinian Conflict Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 18
Apr. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/rohingya-muslims-
170831065142812.html. Access 4 May 2018.
2
Ibid. p.1
created for political reasons.”3 No one is there to stand up for them and their identity is crushed

by officials of the government.

More than 1,000 of Rohingyas have been killed and the government only claims 400. In

these camps “Refugees have spoken of massacres in villages, where they say soldiers raided and

burned their homes.”4 It is seen by the UN officials of human rights as a form of ethnic

cleansing. Now how the government responds as an excuse to the wrongdoings is that “The

government claims the Rohingya have burned their own homes and killed Buddhists and Hindus,

a claim repeated by some residents.”5 The government also say they are targeting terrorists such

as “the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), the group that claimed responsibility for the

August attacks.”6 The false claims have been ruining the help and support for the Rohingyas with

their neighbors.

Not all Rohingyas are Muslim or Hindu but are discriminated by other religious groups

by denying their identity. Doing so is probably to keep the country in their eyes, “organized”

with its functionalist views. Since there have been many killings in Myanmar of the Rohingya

people, “more than 87,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh from October 2016 to July 2017,

according to the International Organization for Migration.”7 But there is too many people going

to bangladesh so sometime in “November 2017, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a deal for the

return of 650,000 Rohingya refugees, who fled in the recent violence.”8 However, many

3
Ibid p. 3
4
Ratcliffe, Rebecca. “Who Are the Rohingya and What Is Happening in Myanmar?” The Guardian,
Guardian News and Media, 6 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/sep/06/who-
are-the-rohingya-and-what-is-happening-in-myanmar. Access 4 May 2018.
5
Ibid. p. 3
6
Ibid p. 3
7
Ibid p. 2
8
Ibid p. 4
Rohingyas do not want to go back without knowing they will have citizenship ID and their

freedom.