COUNTRY PROFILE Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is a parliamentary republic with high military influence located in southeast Asia. The current president is Htin Kyaw for the National League for Democracy, a social-democratic and liberal party (“Myanmar Country Profile”). Despite the leading party being the NDL, only 75% of the House of Nationalists in Myanmar are democratically elected. Instead, the constitution forces 25% to be military appointed representatives, allowing the military to retain a level of control over the nation (Tarabay). Currently, Myanmar is undergoing much political and religious tension.
The Muslim’s crisis in Burma Historical background on Burma Burma s a sovereign state in Southeast Asia, and officially known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. It was colonized by the British empire till 1948 when it gained its independence. Burma’s population is around 51 million with 4% of it Muslims, which means that Muslims in Burma are 1.33 million. Sunni Muslims is Burma are called the Rohingya, they are and Indo- Aryan people from Rakhine state and lives in the northern part of Burma, “the etymological root of the word is disputed, the most widely accepted origin is that Rohang is a derivation of the word Arakan in the Rohingya dialect and the ga or gya means from”. The Rohingya are considered to be the third of the Rakhine
Analysis If we see in the history background, Rohingya was existed before the state of Myanmar. As ethnicity, Muslim Rohingya has been living there since the seventh century with name of kingdom is Arakanese. Around three and a half centuries under the Muslim Rohingya rules to Burma Empire invaded and annexed by the British. After that, Rohingya became the part of British India which that they are not independence yet. Until the Burma’s independence, there are already around a hundred ethnic groups in Burma, and since that happened the Rohingya already did not recognize as ethnic groups in Burma anymore.
Shockingly, even the much-feted civilian government of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi continues to deny the Rohingya citizenship and refuses to recognize their language and nativity. Myanmar treats the Rohingya as unwanted foreigners to be expelled or exterminated, while Suu Kyi—in the past celebrated as the Asian Nelson Mandela—maintains an eerie silence that has sparked calls to strip her of the peace prize. Myanmar claims the Rohingya are in fact ethnic Bengalis who were ferried to the country as cheap labor during the British Empire, and hence must go back. Bangladesh categorically rejects this claim. At its root, the crisis may be about simple economics, of scarcity and choice.
According to Al Jazeera, The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar government do not recognise the 1.1 million Rohingya (mostly Muslims) as an ethnic group. The Myanmar government considers them "terrorist" organisation. Since as early as the 12th century, they have lived in the majority Buddhist Myanmar according to many historians and Rohingya groups (Al Jazeera, et al. "Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya? ", 2017).
Rohingya are muslims who descend from Arab traders, however, the Myanmar government believes them to be Bengali migrants and fail to acknowledge the group as an ethnic group(BBC). Due to this, the government has been announcing policies that will actually suppress the Rohingya even further. Even to the extend of stripping them of their voting rights. Due to the differences and discrimination faced by the Rohingya, they decide to board ships to flee, as they feel the difference in culture in Myanmar. Applying our understanding of sociocultural anthropology, we can now relate to this issue better.
This chapter will therefore analyze Myanmar's political, economic, and socio-cultural intolerance for the Rohingya that have made them stateless and forced them to flee from Myanmar for security in their neighboring states such as Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. Section 3, "Protecting the Rohingya," challenges the international community to pursue all means available to end the abuse of the Rohingya. The final chapter 5, “Peacebuilding for Ending the Plight of the Rohingya,"
Case Study: The Rohingyas Myanmar is home to many ethnic groups, of which the Burmans are the majority. Civil conflicts began when key non-Burman ethnic groups began demanding for equality with the Burmans. Tension was exacerbated with policies that were concentrated on the majority and the government’s attempts to make Buddhism the state religion (Rebel groups in Myanmar, n.d.). The Rohingyas are one of the minorities in Myanmar. As a Muslim ethnic minority of one million people, they have been facing systematic religious and ethnic discrimination due to the lack of status recognition by both Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Bamar is the largest group, and the country’s official language is Myanmar. Administratively, the country is divided into seven states, seven regions, and one union territory. The states are largely inhabited by national ethnic communities whereas the regions are largely populated by Bamar. The Map of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar is shown in Figure
I agree that the discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya has to stop immediately. This is the root cause of the Rohingya refugee crisis, and this problem has to be tackled quickly in order to prevent the loss of lives of more innocent Rohingya. The Rohingya are currently being persecuted in their countries because of their ethnicity, which is evident from how Myanmar denies them citizenship, freedom to travel, or any access to education due to the circumstances of their birth (Judy Molland, 2015). Only a handful of the Rohingya who can prove that their families have lived in Myanmar for at least 60 years are granted second class citizenship. As for the rest of the Rohingya in Myanmar, they are currently being persecuted against,