Genocide in Myanmar the Rohingya and Burmese-Buddhist Ethnonationalism

Genocide in Myanmar The Rohingya and Burmese-Buddhist Ethnonationalism AUTHOR: Matthew Sparling EDITED BY: Joshua De Pinto, Julian Matheson, and Marisa Coulton The history of Burma, now Myanmar, is Mann writes about “murderous ethnic cleansing” an intricate tale woven between an exclusionary as a broad term which encompasses concepts like identity founded on Burmese-Buddhist nationalism, genocide, essentially referring to the purposeful and the politics of imperialism and decolonization. erasure of an ethnic group through violent means.1 The result has been successive inter-state conficts Mann notes that murderous ethnic cleansing is throughout the late-twentieth century, culminating more likely to occur in newly democratic regimes in an ongoing violent episode beginning in 2012 than stable authoritarian regimes, as the demos and perpetrated primarily against Rohingya Muslims ethnos of multiethnic states become “entwined.”2 living in the south-west state of Rakhine. This essay Furthermore, democracies will become less intends to examine this confict, contextualize it democratic as ethnic cleansing escalates. Central within Burmese history, and ultimately determine to this, however, is ethnic group competition over a whether it should be classifed as an insurgency, piece of territory. In this case, it would be Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, or as a genocide. To do this, a and Buddhist groups - joined by the government brief history of the current confict will be discussed, and military - claiming Rakhine State. The last step including historical context explaining its roots. before “murderous ethnic cleansing,” he argues, Next, the concept of “insurgency” will be defned is for a dominant group to have confdence in its and discussed in light of the founding of the Arakan “overwhelming military power and ideological Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a new insurgent legitimacy.”3 Buddhist groups have largely reached group in Rakhine. “Ethnic cleansing” will then be this stage in Rakhine, and are further emboldened discussed and compared to the case of the Rohingya to carry out murderous ethnic cleansing as a result in light of sociologist Michael Mann’s defnition of of identity reproduction by creating an “other” in the the term. Lastly, genocide will be defned using Rohingya.4 In Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention Violence and the Making of a Muslim ‘other,’ and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (herein Francis Wade delineates this through “difference,” referred to as “the Convention”) and set against whereby those who belong and those who do the Rohingya in Myanmar to assess its validity not are distinguished, and the latter are made to as a label for the crisis. Ultimately, this essay will be “threatening.”5 Anthropologist Mikael Gravers argue that “insurgency” and “ethnic cleansing” are takes this further and uses Stanley Tambiah’s work inadequate labels in understanding the violence on ethnic confict, which understands violence as perpetrated against the Rohingya, and that the playing a key part of identity formation in ethno- confict beginning in 2012 should be classifed as a nationalist conficts. Violence “attains its own genocide according to the Convention. autonomy, becomes effcacious in the reproduction of ethnic identity and solidarity, and fnally violence Theoretical concepts must frst be becomes synonymous with a righteous cause,” established to properly analyze the plight of the and helps separate the in-group from the “other.”6 Rohingya. In The Dark Side of Democracy, Michael These concepts are critical to understanding the 49 relationship between Buddhists, Burmese and the nineteenth century during the First Anglo-Burmese Rohingya, and why violence is being perpetrated. War, and all of present-day Myanmar by the end of the nineteenth century as an extension of British Pervasive throughout Myanmar is the India. Due to this, many Indian Muslims were able concept of “taingyintha,” or “sons of the soil.” This to travel to Burma as part of the British “elite.” differentiates ethnicities which are viewed to be This juxtaposition of Indian Muslims beside British “native” to Myanmar, and therefore superior to colonists began the process of animosity between other ethnic identities. It also decides “belonging” Buddhists and Muslims.13 in Myanmar, as the country sees citizenship as dependent solely on ethnic or national identity. The geography of British rule in Burma The Rohingya are not among the ethnicities of was altered in 1937. Burma became a separate Myanmar who have been labelled taingyintha, administrative zone from India, and the borders although Buddhists are.7 The dominant Buddhist were redrawn to refect the Burmese kingdom sect in Myanmar is Theravada Buddhism. prior to the First Anglo-Burmese War. This had the Theravada Buddhism connects religion with the consequence of including the Rakhine region into state, and sees the state as the primary guarantor Burma which was ethnically distinct from traditional of the safety of Buddhism.8 While it should Burma. Ibrahim takes note of this, writing that “the not necessarily be associated with “extreme new administrative unit thus integrated Arakan nationalism and intolerance,” it is vulnerable to (Rakhine) into what was to become, a mere ten ideologies which profess the creation of a ‘pure’ years later, the newly independent country of polity. This has happened in Myanmar, as Political Burma. This purely administrative decision is what Theorist Matthew Walton notes, and Buddhism led to the situation we are in today.”14 and nationalism have become intertwined. Part of this is due to the othering process previously During the Second World War, the Rohingya discussed, as many “extremists” believe that the and Buddhists living in Rakhine fought one another; goal of Muslims is to ultimately replace Buddhism in the former for the British and the latter for the Myanmar with Islam.9 Part of the process to combat Japanese. As a result, the Rohingya were largely this has been the deconstruction of Rohingya pushed to the North of the Rakhine region toward identity by the Myanmar government. For example, now-Bangladesh, and the Rakhine Buddhists were they refuse to refer to the Rohingya by this name, largely pushed South. This is an extension of the instead preferring “Bengali,” suggesting that the Muslim-Buddhist divide driven along colonial lines in term “Rohingya” is a very recent construction.10 Burma. Similar to the nineteenth century, Rohingya A multiethnic state is being transformed into a were given administrative posts in Rakhine as monoethnic state dominated by a combined a result of their work with the British Empire and Burmese-Buddhist identity which excludes non- were seen as “new colonisers” and “lackeys” of the conforming ethnic groups like the Rohingya.11 British.15 This not only “sowing the seeds of deep resentment among Rakhine Buddhists,” but also The exclusionary identity currently endemic established the notion that Rohingya are militants to Myanmar has roots in the 11th century, through working against the Burmese-Buddhist way of life.16 a combined identity which was dually Bagan (Burmese) and Buddhist under King Anawrahta’s Independence was offcially granted in expansionist kingdom.12 Muslims have occupied 1948, and the ‘Burmanisation’ of the country this region since at least the eleventh century began in the 1950s. All government business and as well, and former Burmese rulers invaded the education would be conducted in Burmese, and Rakhine area only in the eighteenth century. history was taught from the perspective of Burman However, the British annexed Rakhine in the early nationalism. These were the frst attempts by the 50 Burman state to assimilate its citizens into Burman 2012. According to census information analyzed culture.17 The Tatmadaw (military) launched a by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, successful coup in 1962. The military government approximately 1.09 million Rohingya lived in presented the internal problems in Myanmar in Rakhine prior to the mass exodus beginning in existential terms, further manipulating the “lines of 2012. Journalist Tun Khin puts this number at difference,” especially in Rakhine.18 On the civilian around 1.3 million.25 This puts the Rohingya at side, the majority of Burmese saw the British failure approximately 25 per cent of the total population to create a Buddhist-Burmese as something which of Rakhine, while approximately 90 per cent of could be corrected now, founded on Theravada Myanmar is Buddhist.26 The 2012 violence was Buddhist principles of the state and Burmese catalyzed by a series of events beginning with language and culture.19 The pervading belief was the rape of a Buddhist girl by three Muslim men. A that “[Burma] could only survive as a nation if few weeks later, three hundred Rakhine Buddhists foreign infuences were purged,” exemplifed in the retaliated by attacking a bus of Muslims unaffliated maxim, “One voice, one blood, one nation.”20 The with these men, killing ten. Rohingyas responded frst major rounds of violence occurred in 1972 and by burning down a Rakhine village, seen as a 1991, and both were very similar. In both cases, the precursor to “impending conquest” by Rakhine military went into the “border regions” of Myanmar Buddhists.27 Believing in their mission to purify to “scrutinize” inhabitants. The military perpetrated Myanmar, Buddhists began where the military mass violence against the Rohingya, each time left off and preached the need for ethno-religious displacing over two hundred thousand Rohingya purity, which would be achieved through violence. to Bangladesh, and in 1972, killing ten thousand.21 This “purifcation” process would be repeated in the Violence against the Rohingya, therefore, should years following the 2012 confict.28 be understood as a continuity which has always aimed to eradicate them from Myanmar. The violence of 2012 had lasting effects. Firstly, 120,000 Rohingya became internally The Citizenship Act of 1982 began the displaced persons (IDP) forced into refugee dismantling of Rohingya legal identity.

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