Looming scenario in Rohingya crisis

…also published in Daily Trust

The systematic persecution of Rohingya Muslim minority by successive Buddhist governments of Myanmar (formerly Burma) over the decades isn’t likely to stop anytime soon, in view of the apparent reluctance of the international community to end it.

Though acts of persecution against them have been widespread since the end of the British rule in that country in 1948, the perpetration began to assume a systematic manner culminating in the formulation of laws and issuance of decrees to that effect, e.g. the 1982 law that effectively denies them the right to the country’s citizenship. Their right to free movement in the country is also restricted as they are also excluded from state-funded schools and government jobs.

In the meantime also, from time to time, a government’s crackdown and a public lynching campaign targeted against them are launched simultaneously resulting in a massacre that spares nobody including children, women and the elderly. Their already poverty-ravaged settlements are also torched. 

By the way, though the current round of recurrent lynching campaign against them is indeed atrocious, yet it isn’t necessarily the worst ever, contrary to some assumptions. However, being the most widely covered round by the general public thanks to the availability of social media platforms, it attracts more public attention and, of course, instigates more outrage particularly among Muslims around the world. This is despite the apparent lack of appropriate interest in the crisis that the major global mainstream media networks, with the exception of Aljazeera, betray. 

Anyway, even according to the United Nations, Rohingya Muslim minority are “one of the most persecuted communities in the world”, also even the UN Special Investigator on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee “believes the country wants to expel its entire Rohingya population”. After all, since 1970 in particular, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee the country. According to an approximate survey by aid agencies quoted by Aljazeera English satellite channel, Bangladesh hosts 500,000 Rohingya refugees, Pakistan hosts 350,000, India hosts 14,000, Malaysia hosts 150,000, Thailand hosts 5,000, United Arab Emirates hosts 10,000, Saudi Arabia hosts 200,000 while 140,000 others are displaced within the country (Myanmar).  All these despite the restrictions these countries and other countries still put against the continuous influx of more fleeing Rohingya Muslims.

Though these and other similar acts by some Muslim countries that could be described as humanitarian kindness towards the fleeing Rohingya Muslims are laudable, yet they never reflect real commitment to end the suffering of the Rohingyas in Myanmar. It’s a pity that there is no appropriate commitment by Muslim countries to push for adequate global commitment to ending the persecution of the Rohingyas. It’s a shame that Muslim countries fail to resolutely demand the emancipation of the Rohingyas, which is certainly achievable if only they would leverage their individual and collective diplomatic influence and economic weight towards this end, and also if only they would prove their preparedness to go to any extent necessary to achieve it diplomatically or impose it forcefully, as the situation may require. 

Now, against the backdrop of these despair-inducing circumstances, and considering the fact that the Rohingyas, having been engaged in armed self-defence struggles in the past, are now forming similar armed self-defence groups to rightfully exercise their right to self-defence, a quite interesting scenario looms in the crisis.

In view of this, and also in light of some similar experiences of other persecuted Muslim communities in other parts of the world, I believe the looming scenario in Rohingya Muslim minority crisis is beginning to form developing from one stage to another to eventually gather momentum as itemized below:

i.    Rohingya’s rightful armed self-defence struggle, which the Myanmar government has already regarded as terrorism, remains grossly lacking in necessary support e.g. funding, military hardware and professional organization necessary for effective armed self-defence warfare, because no Muslim country or organization is courageous enough to provide adequate support in this regard for fear of being considered a sponsor of terrorism.

ii.       In an attempt to attract more support from the West and other influential non-Muslim countries in the region and beyond, the Myanmar intelligence agency infiltrates the Rohingya self-defence fighters using moles recruited from among their own kinsmen and elsewhere to masquerade as Jihadists under various groups bearing some misleading Islamic-sounding names e.g. ISIS, Alqa’eda etc. and masterminding unjustified attacks in the name of the Rohingyas against soft targets within Myanmar and some other countries in the region and beyond perhaps including the West itself. Likewise, other governments’ intelligence agencies and vested interests in the region and elsewhere equally follow suit to achieve the same goal.

iii.       Meanwhile, due to sheer gullibility, lack of proper organization and out of sheer desperation, some otherwise rightful Rohingya self-defence fighters do indeed get involved in such unjustified attacks, which the major global media networks exaggerate to remove legitimacy from the Rohingya’s self-defence struggle in the eyes of the world and pave the way for regarding it as a terrorism.

iv.      Under the influence of relentless and systematic global media manipulation, the world dismisses the plight of the Rohingyas and instead sees its self-defence fighters as terrorists.

v.           Consequently, the main subject of discussions in various regional and global diplomatic platforms including the UN, becomes the issue of “Rohingya terrorists”, which, of course, paves the way for overt military intervention from, say, the United States and other countries to crush the  Rohingyas under  the pretext of global war on terror. 

      

This is the currently forming scenario in Rohingya crisis. After all, similar strategies have worked perfectly well for other repressive regimes that are hell-bent on serving certain agendas e.g. the Syrian and Iraqi regimes in the Middle East.

On a positive note, nonetheless, all hope is not lost, for it’s obvious that injustice in general and persecution against the vulnerable in particular, never last. The end of persecution against Rohingya Muslim minority will certainly come, and their persecutors will certainly suffer appropriate retribution.