ABSTRACT
The Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted for numerous years without justification. This dissertation takes a look at their origin story, their plight over the years, various allegations leveled against them, and the response from the international community. An analysis of the Identity and Citizenship Crisis has also been carried out based on the Ontological Security Theory and recommendations have been made to address the plight of the Rohingya Muslims. The study finds that the present-day persecution of the Rohingya is steeped in years of suffering, alienation, and exclusion of the Muslim minority group. It also finds that the advancement of a collective Burmese identity is carried out at the expense of the minority. The study recommends that the community members discover answers to their issues and ensure they are part of the systems of settlement to serve both the host and outcasts.
CHAPTER ONE RESEARCH DESIGN OF THE STUDY
- INTRODUCTION
Contemporary development crisis has sparked an increased interest in the topic of border demarcations due to ethnic amalgamation, cultural mixing, widening hybridization, dissolution of state boundaries, and an ever-increasing interaction amongst people (Conversi, 2006). The rise of radical conservative political parties and activities has been one of the key subjects and changes in the West of Europe and other parts of the world in the past couple of decades (Hainsworth, 2008). This has resulted in immense suffering and instability all over the world as right-wing extremists have resorted to bigotry, xenophobia, ethnic cleansing, sexism, and anti-Semitism to further their rightist agenda.
A person’s identity has always been a matter of concern throughout all spheres of life (Horowitz, 2012). Over the years, there have been numerous identity clashes that have resulted in much violence and bloodshed. Examples of some of these clashes include divides between the Palestinian and the Israeli; the Sunni and the Shiite; the Eritreans and the Ethiopians; the Indians and the Pakistanis, just to mention a few. However, the ethnic conflicts that swept across the developing world, especially Africa, parts of Asia, the Middle East, and former Eastern Europe at the Cold War’s demise have largely waned.
Contemporarily, identity politics and identity violence have regained global pre-eminence with the rise in right-wing populism in Europe and the United States of America. The rise to political power
of President Trump, anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic nationalism mark a rise in nationalism across the developed world resulting in Brexit, migration crisis, new arms race, trade wars, the allusion to the merits of national economics, religious militancy and conflicts (Todd, 2018 p.84)
All societies need some form of nationalism to jumpstart national integration and development. However, very often, the use of one group’s attribute or symbol of nationalism causes a schism in most heterogeneous post-colonial states. In the course of post-independent state-building, some groups, often minorities, lose their identities, and new generations of migrant descendants become stateless. Since such symbols remind other groups of their collective past acrimonious internecine history (Giddens, 1992).
These differences promote divisive boundaries that in turn promote divisive socio-cultural, linguistic, economic, gendered, and sometimes racial nationalism that borders on prejudice and ethnocentrism. The fight for self-worth and relevance in state-building often explains the prevalence of ethnic, ethnonational, and irredentist conflicts within post-colonial societies (Connor, 1994; Horowitz 2000).
Identities and nationalism in divided societies often produce exclusive inter-group relations, horizontal inequality, narratives, discourses, and ideologies; whereby, citizenship is often contested along with national identities and nativist identity appeals. The creation and nation-state building in post-colonial states often institutionalize ethnic prerogatives, rights, and privileges which creates different and unequal communities, as well as the citizenship crisis. This propensity de-individualizes citizenship and makes it a group factor. It results in the majority or strongest ethnolinguistic and cultural homogeneity with minority groups losing relevance and in extreme situations, minority ethnolinguistic and cultures are completely lost over time.
Political elites often demonize some ethnic groups and apply citizenship laws selectively. In the process of demonizing select ethnic groups, many groups are stripped of their citizenship; thereby, denying them their socio-economic, political, and social human rights. Governments have manipulated the nationality laws to deny people who are born in a country whose citizenship is based on the history of their ancestry. Public space becomes one of the claims of side-lining, segregation, and domination of some groups. The phenomenon of cross-border ethnic group relations and the continued relations among such groups across countries of abode also creates a crisis of identity, cooperation, and destabilizing conflicts.
Most countries do not have uniform criteria for determining citizenship among their multi-ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, often portraying some groups as foreigners and not genuine citizens. Citizen discussions are often centered on ethnic affiliations and groups and create scenarios where certain groups of people are marginalized because of their origin, religion, population, or time of arrival or inclusion in the creation of the modern state. Ninsin argues that most communal and civil wars around the globe are linked to the question of citizenship; whereby, though the constitution of a country defines ‘all’ as citizens in principle; however, in practice, some are denied the rights of citizenship (Ninsin,1989).
Rohingyas are one of such persecuted ethnic and religious minorities found in Myanmar (formerly Burma). The Rohingya are violated by the Myanmar military and some of these violations include forced labour, sexual assault, restriction of access to basic amenities and services like education, civil service jobs, marriage, political, economic, and social exclusion.
The Rohingya comprise of a Muslim Indo-Aryan ethnic group who are domiciled in the Rakhine region of Myanmar. The 1982 Citizen Law described them as non-nationals or foreigners. They
are estimated to be at least 1.4 million in the Rahkine State before the 2015-17 Rohingya Crisis (Chessman, 2017). In 2013, they were labelled by the UN as the most maltreated, marginalised groups in the world. They are left without citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar Constitution. Although Rohingyas track their heritage in the area back to the 8th Century, the Constitution omits them from the eight “national indigenous races” (Human Rights Watch, 2000).
After Myanmar (Burma) won its independence from the United Kingdom in 1948, the Rohingya’s assertion of their cultural distinctiveness was accepted by the elected regime of Premier U Nu (1948-1958). However, the formal standpoint of the GoM since 1962 is that the Rohingya are not a native group; but unlawful settlers from next-door Bangladesh.
Notwithstanding the previous acceptance of the name “Rohingya”, the current approved position of the GoM is that the Rohingya are not a national “indigenous race”, but are illegal migrants from Bangladesh. GoM has discontinued its recognition of the name “Rohingya” and chooses to refer to this population as “Bengalis” (Corr, 2016). Buddhist separatist associations facilitated the exacerbation of hostilities through animosity discourses against Muslim factions, describing them as “crude and savage” and “a most dangerous and fearful poison” (Fisher, 2017).
Aggravation of animosity and religious xenophobia by radical separatist Buddhists against Rohingyas and “the summary execution, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, arson, torture, and ill-treatment, and forced labour against the community” (Fisher, 2017) by Myanmar security forces led to Rohingya liberation groups, especially the ‘Arakan Rohingya National Organization’, calling for the entitlement to “self-determination within Myanmar” (Fisher, 2017).
The Rohingya have suffered military suppressions in 1978, 1991–1992, 2012, and 2015. In 2017- 2019, most of the Rohingya populace of Myanmar were expelled under inhumane situations from the country to next-door Bangladesh.
Ever since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have taken flight towards areas like South- Eastern Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia (UNHCR, 2017). An excess of 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are restricted to camps for IDPs (Dapice, 2014). Before a Rohingya rebel assault that killed 12 Myanmar security forces on 25 August 2017, the military of Myanmar had initiated “clearance operations” against the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State that leftover 3,000 dead and many more battered, brutalized or raped as well as several villages burned (OHCHR, 2017). The Rohingya Crisis has variously been defined as ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide with the international community’s efforts to address their persecution failing to bring the Rohingyas justice. This study seeks to analyze how the concepts of identity and citizenship evolved in creating the Rohingya crisis since its genesis in 1978.
As stated above, although the Rohingya trace their heritage in Myanmar to the 8th Century, the Myanmar 1982 Constitution does not acknowledge the Rohingyas as “national indigenous races.” The Rohingyas are, therefore, stateless in a country they claim as their own. Archbishop Desmond Tutu likened their legal status to apartheid that denies them the liberty to move around, public schooling, and civil service jobs, among other rights. Myanmar’s maltreatment of the Rohingya has been qualified as ethnic purging, crimes against humanity and an unfolding genocide (Noor, Islam & Forid, 2011)
Scholars have submitted that cultural differences or identity differences make conflict more likely. However, there is little concurrence among scholars on how identity differences evolve among groups, and which peculiarities are the most relevant, and when conflict is more likely. Scholars vary on what identities are in all probability to evolve and become salient in identity violence. According to Huntington, “In this new world order … the most persuasive, important, and dangerous conflicts will … be between people belonging to different cultural entities;” which suggests that it is the huge and overwhelming ethnic dissimilarities that will split assemblages and result in violence. However, Bateson contends that “The number of potential differences … is infinite but very few become effective differences … that make a difference;” signifying that it is often the minor variances among many parallels or mutual ties that are expected to exacerbate and ameliorate threats (Bateson, 1979).
