Muslim Ethnic Cleansing in Burma

To understand the current crisis in Myanmar you have to understand the groups that are involved. The Rohingya are a group of Muslims living in the nation of Myanmar (Burma), most living there currently and being attacked are refugees. Then we have the Myanmar army who have invested a lot of time, effort and money to oppress the Rohingya. The current crisis is happening in Burma, which is for the most part Buddhist.

On the 25th of August, a Rohingya insurgent group attacked over 24 security sites and killed 12 people in the process. Sadly, this is the first time the crisis in Burma is making a big impact in the media. In response to this the Myanmar army have retaliated by resorting to expressing more anger and hatred towards the Muslims living there by placing land mines across the border and continuing to burn down civilian’s homes. Granted, there are some Muslims who are terrorising Burma and the world however, using ethnic cleansing is definitely not the right way to go about it.

Many world-renowned peace activists and leaders have had much to say on the matter. The two who struck me most were the Dalai Lama and Donald Trump; this is due to their uncharacteristic non-urgent approach to offer verbal judgement. The Dalai Lama had very few words to say on the matter, which is surprising as he is supposed to be a spiritual and religious leader to the people in Myanmar. He said ‘Those people who are sort of harassing Muslims, they should remember Buddha… So very sad’. Sarah Huckabee who is the spokesman for the White House spoke on Monday and appeared to blame the violence on both the Rohingya Muslims who are living in fear and Burma’s cruel and threatening army.

As a group who have researched this we believe that there is no easy solution, which is often common in political matters. However, if everyone takes a role and does their part treating humans as humans there will be far less radicalistic movements in all areas.

The media representation is often in black and white, which makes it very difficult to understand clearly what is happening, even in our research group we found it almost impossible to find out what triggered the chain of events.

Due to fear, Britain has funded Burma with weapons. The Rohingya are targeting and killing security. The Myanmar are killing innocent people and destroying lives.

We have all done things to make us partly guilty but how are we to know the full reason and nature of our own actions when the media cover up what they think we need to know? Myanmar’s army have burnt down entire villages in fear that 1 or 2 Rohingyas are terrorists. This ethnic cleansing has meant that over 400,000 Muslims have been forced to flee to Bangladesh. It’s all too similar to what happened in Calais not so long ago.

World leaders will hold a conference to discuss what is to be done and where each country stands on the matter. This crisis has been going on for at least a year, and when it got to the point that Muslims are killing so people can understand the gravitas only then they hold a conference. This begs the questions of why it had to get to this point? Is it ok to kill for your right to live safely and without fear of being killed?

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