{"id":73414,"date":"2016-05-16T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73414"},"modified":"2016-05-10T17:05:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T16:05:00","slug":"why-burma-is-trying-to-stop-people-from-using-rohingya-the-name-of-its-persecuted-muslim-minority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/why-burma-is-trying-to-stop-people-from-using-rohingya-the-name-of-its-persecuted-muslim-minority\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Burma Is Trying to Stop People from Using [Rohingya] the Name of Its Persecuted Muslim Minority"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite international calls to help the country’s Rohingya people, indications are that Burma’s new government is trying to scrub the very term Rohingya from use.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A man shouts while A man shouts while demonstrating against the U.S. for its use of the term Rohingya to describe Burma’s stateless Muslim community during a protest in Rangoon, Burma, on April 28, 2016
Soe Zeya Tun\u2014Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

9 May 2016 – <\/em>Burma\u2019s newly installed government is trying to get foreign diplomats to refrain from using the name Rohingya<\/em>, in the latest blow to the country\u2019s heavily persecuted Muslim group. The move is an apparent bow to pressure from a small but influential ultra-nationalist<\/a> movement that refuses to recognize the rights of the Rohingya people to belong in Burma.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Burma\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aye Aye Soe, tells TIME that the government is \u201cnot objecting [to] the term [Rohingya] but requesting not to use it.\u201d The suggestion was made during private \u201ccourtesy calls\u201d between Aung San Suu Kyi \u2014 in her role as Minister of Foreign Affairs \u2014 and the U.S. Ambassador to Burma Scot Marciel, after the embassy had been targeted by Burmese over its use of the word. Protesters see the term \u2014 which means a person of Rohang, the old Muslim term for what is now Arakan state in western Burma \u2014 as conferring historical legitimacy on the Muslim presence in the country that is also known as Myanmar.<\/p>\n

Though the historical origins of the term Rohingya are muddy, many Rohingya families have lived in western Burma for generations and the majority choose this term to describe themselves. However, during the 2014 census, the Rohingya were forced to identify themselves as \u201cBengali\u201d \u2014 the official term for them \u2014 or they would not be registered. They are not recognized as one of the 135 official ethnic groups in the country, and nearly all of the 1.1 million Rohingya are denied citizenship and basic rights.<\/p>\n

The U.N. considers the Rohingya, who reside near Burma\u2019s border with Bangladesh, to be among the world\u2019s most persecuted minorities<\/a>, but in most of Burma they are viewed as dangerous interlopers. In western Arakan state, a spate of deadly riots beginning in 2012 between the local Buddhist population and the Muslim Rohingya claimed more than 100 lives and displaced some 140,000 people \u2014 mostly Rohingya. Many are still confined to squalid camps where they are denied freedom of movement, education and health care. Conditions are so dire that tens of thousands have fled by boat<\/a>, undertaking perilous voyages in the hands of traffickers in the hope of finding refuge in Muslim-majority Malaysia or other Southeast Asian countries.<\/p>\n

While the international community has repeatedly urged the government to end persecution and allow the group to call themselves Rohingya if they wish, last week\u2019s advisory signals that the county\u2019s new government, led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, is not inclined toward concessions and will continue to scrub the term from official usage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Buddhists believe the name Rohingya<\/em> is a political claim that they cannot agree to,\u201d according to Ronan Lee, a researcher and former Australian lawmaker who has conducted extensive studies in Arakan state.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A mother holds her child at a refugee camp in Bayeun, outside of Langsa, Indonesia, where they were given shelter, food and medical care by Indonesian and international NGOs.
James Nachtwey for TIME<\/p><\/div>\n

The fear among local Arakan communities appears to be that recognizing the rights of the Rohingya would open up Burma\u2019s porous border with Bangladesh, and lead to a Muslim incursion in a devoutly Buddhist nation. These fears have been fueled by a burgeoning movement led by hard-line Buddhists, with the support of influential monks, who in recent years have spread pervasive rumors<\/a> about the Muslim community. The movement even successfully lobbied for the passage of discriminatory laws<\/a> restricting religious conversion and birth rates, buoyed by a popular belief that Muslims were having too many children and could eventually overtake the Buddhist population.<\/p>\n

The issue is so sensitive that there was uproar in late April, when the U.S. embassy in Rangoon issued a statement after at least 22 people, including nine children, died in a boat accident<\/a>, and expressed condolences to the victims\u2019 families, \u201cwho local reports state were from the Rohingya community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of hard-line nationalists, including Buddhist monks, responded with a protest at the embassy, calling on diplomats to stop using what they called a \u201cfake term.\u201d Marciel in turn told reporters that referring to the Rohingya by their preferred name was \u201cnot a political decision; it\u2019s just a normal practice,\u201d reiterating that \u201ccommunities anywhere have the ability to decide what they should be called.\u201d<\/p>\n

His response didn\u2019t satisfy the protesters, members of a nationalist group called the Myanmar National Network. The group says they will continue to protest until the Burmese government publicly condemns the use of the word by foreign officials.<\/p>\n

\"Relatives<\/a>

Relatives weep at the funeral of a woman who died at 35 of a stomach disease; she left five children behind.
James Nachtwey for TIME<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe right to self-identification should not be controversial,\u201d says Wai Wai Nu, a renowned Rohingya activist and former political prisoner, who is known as one of the few activists in Burma to speak up on behalf of the beleaguered minority. But the issue has become so volatile that some international actors believe it would best be put aside for pragmatic reasons.<\/p>\n

Lee says that while the international community\u2019s use of the term Rohingya<\/em> has helped bring the issue to the world\u2019s attention, within Burma it could be creating a \u201cpolitical roadblock that stands in the way of Arakan state\u2019s Muslims gaining the human rights and citizenship they are entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Burmese government also sees other issues as more pressing. Last year, Suu Kyi\u2019s National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept the polls<\/a> in a landslide win and assumed power<\/a> in April, taking over from a military-backed government after decades of authoritarian rule. But the new democratic government has inherited a host of problems<\/a> including civil war, grinding poverty, rampant corruption and a dysfunctional bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a new government [we have] thousands of problems to deal with,\u201d Win Htein, a member of the ruling party\u2019s central committee, tells TIME, frustrated by the Rohingya controversy. \u201cThe Rohingya and [Arakan] state is just one of the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The international community maintains that the plight of the Rohingya is urgent; the U.N. special rapporteur on Burma, Yanghee Lee, has called on the new government to improve the Rohingyas\u2019 living situation within the first 100 days of its term. So far the government has given no public indication that it is addressing the issue, and Win Htein says that \u201cAung San Suu Kyi is the only one\u201d authorized to speak on it.<\/p>\n

To the great disappointment of human-rights advocates, she hasn\u2019t. David Mathieson, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Burma, says that Suu Kyi\u2019s silence on the issue could \u201csully her and her government\u2019s reputation,\u201d urging her to rescind her ministry\u2019s request to diplomats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be hard for Suu Kyi to address the Rohingya issue if she refuses to refer to them by their name and continues to kowtow to extremists,\u201d Mathieson says, \u201cwhich is what her qualified public statements amount to.\u201d<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Read More:<\/em><\/p>\n

Burma\u2019s Hard-Line Buddhists Are Waging a Campaign of Hate That Nobody Can Stop<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Who Is Htin Kyaw, Burma\u2019s New President?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Rohingya Survivors Speak of Their Ordeals as 139 Suspected Graves Are Found in Malaysia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Burma\u2019s Nowhere People<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 time.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 May 2016 – The government is \u201cnot objecting [to] the term [Rohingya] but requesting not to use it.\u201d The suggestion was made during private \u201ccourtesy calls\u201d between Aung San Suu Kyi \u2014 in her role as Minister of Foreign Affairs \u2014 and the U.S. Ambassador to Burma Scot Marciel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}