Myanmar’s perpetual ‘other’

25 March 2017

Author: Kyaw Zeyar Win, PRIY

For decades, Myanmar’s elites have identified the Muslim minority Rohingya community as a
source of existential security threat. This long lasting policy of treating the Rohingya as outsiders
(or ‘others’) has cultivated perceptions of the Rohingya people as ‘enemy others’. This is also the
reason why, regardless of leadership or regime change in Myanmar, the conflict appears
unending.

The Rohingya people have a long history of being ‘otherised’ in Myanmar through a wide
variety of policies that have sought to restrict their community and their freedoms. For instance,
in October 1982, former dictator Ne Win gave a speech outlining Myanmar’s new citizenship
law and stated that Muslim and Chinese people were not trustworthy and so did not deserve full
citizenship status or rights. This was justified on the grounds of national security. The Rohingya
had been denied these rights for decades.

Under military rule in the 1990s, the policies against the Rohingya people became more
systematic. Myanmar’s elites and politicians portrayed them as an existential threat to state
sovereignty, national security, social security and economic security. This moved the Rohingya
issue from the domain of normal politics onto the national security agenda. The government
enacted draconian policies against the Rohingya including a birth control order, movement
restrictions, and denial of healthcare services and access to higher education. These policies were
justified as protecting state security and served to reinforce a growing perception of the
Rohingya people as ‘enemy others’ within the wider population.

Since the 2012 anti-Muslim violence, this trend has intensified. Elites are more frequently
portraying the Rohingya community as a threat in the public domain without any opposition.
Now, these perceptions are deep-rooted in public debate and thinking, in the education sector, in
government newspapers and online. A number of journalists in major newspapers, academics,
community leaders and, more importantly, ordinary people have also bought into the security
threat line, vilifying the Rohingya people as less than human.

Framing the Rohingya problem as a security issue has become institutionalised, with the elite
and the public alike caught up in the mission of trying to eliminate the perceived threat of the
Rohingya community.

The change of leadership from ex-general Thein Sein to the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi has seen little change on the Rohingya. There has been no move towards re-framing the
Rohingya problem. Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) are
concerned with the same issues as their predecessors. This indicates that their conception of the
Rohingya problem is deeply security-dominated, despite their human rights and conciliatory
rhetoric.

There are three main reasons why re-conceptualising the security-dominated view of the
Rohingya community is particularly difficult.

First, the perception of ‘enemy other’ is essential for the perpetuation of ‘ontological insecurity’,
or security of the self. That is, the Myanmar conceptualisation of the Rohingya people as a
security threat is now embedded within the narrative of the country’s politics. So long as the
Buddhist majority’s negative perceptions of the Rohingya ‘other’ remain unchanged, changing
this conception of the community will remain an unreachable goal.

Second, as this conception of the Rohingya community has become institutionalised, the security
concern has spread across many sectors. The source of threat, the Rohingyas, cannot easily be
de-linked from other things such as religious and ethnic identities, territory, society and
economic sectors. This problem creates an ‘all or nothing’ environment. Unless the source of
threat is completely eliminated from all sectors, it is too costly or risky to stand against social
pressures.

Finally, the perception of the Rohingya community as a security threat is self-perpetuating.

Those who perpetuate the idea remain unchallenged or enjoy strong support from all levels of
society, and it is difficult to contest them or dislodge their social and political influence.

Targeting the Rohingya community as a security threat has become the ‘proper’ or ‘rational’
option for most of Myanmar’s political leaders and the public in general and there is a long road
ahead to change this.

Kyaw Zeyar Win is one of the founders and a researcher at the Peace Research Institute –
Yangon (PRIY), Myanmar.

This article is a condensed version of a paper he presented at the Australian National

University’s Myanmar Update 2017.