Workers' Liberty
by martin on
Author: Hein Htet Kyaw
12 December, 2024
Pic: displaced Rohingya in 2017, from Wikimedia Commons
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group from the state of Arakan (Rakhine). A British scholar named Francis Buchanan-Hamilton said in his 1799 article "Burma Empire" that "the Mohammedans, who have long dwelt in Arakan," refer to themselves as "Rooinga, or natives of Arakan". "Inhabitant of Rohang" was the early Muslim name for Arakan.
Rohingya have been denied citizenship since the 1980s under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. In 2017, 740,000 out of 1.4 million living in Burma had to flee the country because of the genocide attempts by the Myanmar military junta. U Thein Sein, the former President of Myanmar and former Myanmar military leader, once stated that “there are no Rohingya among the races in Burma. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming during British rules”. Golden Hand, a mouthpiece for U Hla Swe, an ultranationalist former USDP (pro-military) MP who goes by the nickname “Bullet Hla Swe”, once publicly stated that “All intruders must be hanged”, referring to Rohingyas as illegal immigrants and spreading the conspiracy theory that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (a consortium of states with large Muslim populations) was working to destroy Myanmar and to establish a separate “Islamic state in Burma”.
The Myanmar military junta considered Rohingyas to be illegal post-colonial Bengali immigrants and radical Islamists. It committed war crimes against the Rohingya population and forced an exodus. Aung San Suu Kyi, once a Nobel Prize winner and a democracy icon, sided with the military on this and, for short-term compromised political gain, defended them at the UN International Court of Justice, ignoring the atrocities suffered by Rohingyas.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the political party called the United League of Arakan (ULA), which was established on April 10, 2009. The United League of Arakan is an ethno-nationalist separatist group which seek to form a sovereign ethno-state for Arakanese people with confederate style association to Burma. It is popular for its involvement in the “Three Brother Alliance” which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which led operation 1027 against the Myanmar military junta.
In an interview with The New Humanitarian, the ULA/AA claimed that AA is now the largest de facto state-armed organisation in Myanmar in terms of manpower. In the same interview, AA officially stated that "Rohingya" is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, their fatherland, by destroying the integrity of their ancestral history.
AA said in the same interview that "as Arakanese people are a part of the Bangladeshi nation, [so] Bengali is a part of the Arakan nation". According to AA, there is ample evidence of mass migration from Bengal to Arakan during British colonial rule. But, they say, if "a particular group of people tries to claim as ‘Rohingya’ rather than ‘Bengali’", then that "is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, ourfatherland, by destroying the integrity of our ancestral history".
AA conflated Rohingyas with hundreds of thousands of post-colonial Bengalis who migrated to Arakan, particularly during the "War of Liberation" in Bangladesh. The above-mentioned narrative of conflating Rohingya and Bengali is essentially the same as the Myanmar military junta.
Tun Mrat Naing, the commander in chief of ULA/AA, has been Rohingyas "Bengalis" for the past ten years, thus adopting the Myanmar military's position when it comes to the Rohingya issue.
So the United League of Arakan seems to agree with the Myanmar military junta when it comes to the indigenous status of Rohingya. They view Rohingya people as post-colonial Bengali settlers who are trying to separate off a part of Arakan's ancestral fatherland. That is essentially right-wing bigotry, xenophobic and ultranationalist in nature.
The narrative is false on two levels. Firstly, Bengali are not post-colonial settlers. Secondly, Bengali and Rohingya are distinct ethnic groups, with different traits.
Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King, became the king of the Launggyet Dynasty in 1404 but was driven out of Launggyet in 1406 by Crown Prince Minye Kyawswa of Ava. He sought refuge in the Bengal Sultanate and later entered the military service of Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah. In 1429, he reclaimed the Arakanese throne with the help of the sultan and ruled the kingdom. He founded a new capital, Mrauk-U, in 1430 at a more strategic location, and took the Arabic name of “Suleiman Shah” while maintaining his Buddhist faith.
It’s said that Kingdom of Mrauk U was home to a multiethnic population with the city of Mrauk U being home to mosques, temples, shrines, seminaries and libraries. Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was asked to help to re-establish an Arakanese dynasty by Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King. Khayi, a son of Min Saw Mon, succeeded to the throne and took the title Ali Khan. Their newly founded kingdom was a vassal of Bengal.
According to the Arakanese chronicles, Khayi managed to unify the Arakanese region and to break the ties with the Bengal Sultanate, and even managed to occupy the Chittagong area, taking it from Sultan Rukunuddin Barbak Shah.
Bengalis were not settlers coming in after the colonial period. They were not even colonial-period settlers. Areas such as Chittagong and Mrauk-U were under both the Bengal Sultanate and Arakanese kingdoms at different times of the history. That explains both Arakanese indigenous history and Rohingya indigenous history.
Since the coup in 2021, both Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation have allied with the Myanmar military junta and fought against the Arakan Army, even though the military junta was the regime that committed genocide against the Rohingyas and was accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. To heighten sectarian tensions, the ultranationalist Buddhist military junta and Rohingya Islamic terrorists started setting fire to Buthidaung town's mostly Buddhist and Hindu neighbourhoods on April 11.
On the other side of the Mayu River, the Arakan Army was seizing total control while these attacks continued throughout April in Buthidaung town. It besieged and overran the last military installations of the junta one by one.
The Myanmar military junta and the NUG/CRPH government-in-exile in Myanmar both removed AA from the official state level terrorist organisations list following the coup d'état in 2021. Initially, a temporary ceasefire was agreed to by the junta and the Arakan Army.
Later, though, the Arakan Army began to enlarge its territory and participated in Operation 1027. Currently, the Arakan Army has taken control of several cities, airports, and other locations. During the last week of April, a few Rohingya villages including Raza Berha village and others in the region which Arakan Army controlled were burnt down.
On May 17, 2024, a familiar image unsettled the Rohingya neighbourhoods of Buthidaung, in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Before setting their homes on fire, armed gunmen from Arakan Army had arrived at their doors and given them the order to leave. They were warned that they would burn along with their house if they refused. Almost 400 houses in residential neighbourhoods for Rohingya people were set on fire when the Arakan Army took control of the two border guard police camps and the final four light army battalions in Buthidaung on May 18. On 17 May 2024, there was allegedly widespread burning because of Arakan Army advances on the northern Rakhine town of Buthidaung, forcing thousands of Rohingya civilians to flee their homes. Additionally, on August 5, a group of Rohingya villagers were slain while leaving the town of Maungdaw, which is close to the Bangladeshi border.
After being driven from their houses by Arakan Army soldiers into a riverbed, Rohingya from many communities were attacked by drones carrying explosives. Even though the survivors attributed the attacks to the Arakan Army, those attacks against Rohingya have been denied by the Arakan Army.
The hatred and segregation between the communities will increase significantly at the rate at which the Arakan Army is committing war crimes against the Rohingya people and the Rohingya Islamist groups are working with the Myanmar military junta to commit war crimes against the Buddhist Arakanese population and Hindu minority people in the Rohingya-dominated areas.
If the Arakan Army were to eventually free its Arakan homeland from the Myanmar military junta, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others might end up serving as the regime's proxies. In the worst situation, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others would reorganise under their original political Islamist tenets and begin calling for the establishment of an independent Rohingya state.
The leaders of both ethnic groups should take into consideration a single secular state approach to arrive at the best and most practical long-term answer. A multicultural country where the rights of the Arakanese and Rohingya are respected might represent a restoration to the Mrauk-U kingdom's former state.
The historical evidence of the Mrauk-U Kingdom, where the Muslim sultanate and Arakanese Buddhist respect both religions and cultural heritages, must not be overlooked, especially since the Arakan Army always takes pride in its palingenesis politics. That would only be feasible if there was a chance for a different political environment in which the Rohingya and Arakanese would support one another in opposing the belligerent ruling classes of their own ethnic groups.
It is imperative to combat those who assert that their own group is the one native to the Arakan region, and accuse the other group of being post-colonial settlers. These people pose a threat to multicultural society and are fundamentally fascistic.
In conclusion, it's critical that everyone support the fight for universal human rights and civil rights by standing with unarmed civilians on both sides of the conflict. It's also crucial to remember that nobody in any area associated with Bharat is a post-colonial settler. Numerous large migrations have occurred in this area, scattering people from different ethnic backgrounds throughout.
The Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet, regardless of whether they are native to the area or not. Every person has an obligation to ensure that the governing classes and governments understand that.
The Myanmar military junta considered Rohingyas to be illegal post-colonial Bengali immigrants and radical Islamists. It committed war crimes against the Rohingya population and forced an exodus. Aung San Suu Kyi, once a Nobel Prize winner and a democracy icon, sided with the military on this and, for short-term compromised political gain, defended them at the UN International Court of Justice, ignoring the atrocities suffered by Rohingyas.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the political party called the United League of Arakan (ULA), which was established on April 10, 2009. The United League of Arakan is an ethno-nationalist separatist group which seek to form a sovereign ethno-state for Arakanese people with confederate style association to Burma. It is popular for its involvement in the “Three Brother Alliance” which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which led operation 1027 against the Myanmar military junta.
In an interview with The New Humanitarian, the ULA/AA claimed that AA is now the largest de facto state-armed organisation in Myanmar in terms of manpower. In the same interview, AA officially stated that "Rohingya" is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, their fatherland, by destroying the integrity of their ancestral history.
AA said in the same interview that "as Arakanese people are a part of the Bangladeshi nation, [so] Bengali is a part of the Arakan nation". According to AA, there is ample evidence of mass migration from Bengal to Arakan during British colonial rule. But, they say, if "a particular group of people tries to claim as ‘Rohingya’ rather than ‘Bengali’", then that "is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, ourfatherland, by destroying the integrity of our ancestral history".
AA conflated Rohingyas with hundreds of thousands of post-colonial Bengalis who migrated to Arakan, particularly during the "War of Liberation" in Bangladesh. The above-mentioned narrative of conflating Rohingya and Bengali is essentially the same as the Myanmar military junta.
Tun Mrat Naing, the commander in chief of ULA/AA, has been Rohingyas "Bengalis" for the past ten years, thus adopting the Myanmar military's position when it comes to the Rohingya issue.
So the United League of Arakan seems to agree with the Myanmar military junta when it comes to the indigenous status of Rohingya. They view Rohingya people as post-colonial Bengali settlers who are trying to separate off a part of Arakan's ancestral fatherland. That is essentially right-wing bigotry, xenophobic and ultranationalist in nature.
The narrative is false on two levels. Firstly, Bengali are not post-colonial settlers. Secondly, Bengali and Rohingya are distinct ethnic groups, with different traits.
Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King, became the king of the Launggyet Dynasty in 1404 but was driven out of Launggyet in 1406 by Crown Prince Minye Kyawswa of Ava. He sought refuge in the Bengal Sultanate and later entered the military service of Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah. In 1429, he reclaimed the Arakanese throne with the help of the sultan and ruled the kingdom. He founded a new capital, Mrauk-U, in 1430 at a more strategic location, and took the Arabic name of “Suleiman Shah” while maintaining his Buddhist faith.
It’s said that Kingdom of Mrauk U was home to a multiethnic population with the city of Mrauk U being home to mosques, temples, shrines, seminaries and libraries. Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was asked to help to re-establish an Arakanese dynasty by Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King. Khayi, a son of Min Saw Mon, succeeded to the throne and took the title Ali Khan. Their newly founded kingdom was a vassal of Bengal.
According to the Arakanese chronicles, Khayi managed to unify the Arakanese region and to break the ties with the Bengal Sultanate, and even managed to occupy the Chittagong area, taking it from Sultan Rukunuddin Barbak Shah.
Bengalis were not settlers coming in after the colonial period. They were not even colonial-period settlers. Areas such as Chittagong and Mrauk-U were under both the Bengal Sultanate and Arakanese kingdoms at different times of the history. That explains both Arakanese indigenous history and Rohingya indigenous history.
Since the coup in 2021, both Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation have allied with the Myanmar military junta and fought against the Arakan Army, even though the military junta was the regime that committed genocide against the Rohingyas and was accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. To heighten sectarian tensions, the ultranationalist Buddhist military junta and Rohingya Islamic terrorists started setting fire to Buthidaung town's mostly Buddhist and Hindu neighbourhoods on April 11.
On the other side of the Mayu River, the Arakan Army was seizing total control while these attacks continued throughout April in Buthidaung town. It besieged and overran the last military installations of the junta one by one.
The Myanmar military junta and the NUG/CRPH government-in-exile in Myanmar both removed AA from the official state level terrorist organisations list following the coup d'état in 2021. Initially, a temporary ceasefire was agreed to by the junta and the Arakan Army.
Later, though, the Arakan Army began to enlarge its territory and participated in Operation 1027. Currently, the Arakan Army has taken control of several cities, airports, and other locations. During the last week of April, a few Rohingya villages including Raza Berha village and others in the region which Arakan Army controlled were burnt down.
On May 17, 2024, a familiar image unsettled the Rohingya neighbourhoods of Buthidaung, in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Before setting their homes on fire, armed gunmen from Arakan Army had arrived at their doors and given them the order to leave. They were warned that they would burn along with their house if they refused. Almost 400 houses in residential neighbourhoods for Rohingya people were set on fire when the Arakan Army took control of the two border guard police camps and the final four light army battalions in Buthidaung on May 18. On 17 May 2024, there was allegedly widespread burning because of Arakan Army advances on the northern Rakhine town of Buthidaung, forcing thousands of Rohingya civilians to flee their homes. Additionally, on August 5, a group of Rohingya villagers were slain while leaving the town of Maungdaw, which is close to the Bangladeshi border.
After being driven from their houses by Arakan Army soldiers into a riverbed, Rohingya from many communities were attacked by drones carrying explosives. Even though the survivors attributed the attacks to the Arakan Army, those attacks against Rohingya have been denied by the Arakan Army.
The hatred and segregation between the communities will increase significantly at the rate at which the Arakan Army is committing war crimes against the Rohingya people and the Rohingya Islamist groups are working with the Myanmar military junta to commit war crimes against the Buddhist Arakanese population and Hindu minority people in the Rohingya-dominated areas.
If the Arakan Army were to eventually free its Arakan homeland from the Myanmar military junta, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others might end up serving as the regime's proxies. In the worst situation, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others would reorganise under their original political Islamist tenets and begin calling for the establishment of an independent Rohingya state.
The leaders of both ethnic groups should take into consideration a single secular state approach to arrive at the best and most practical long-term answer. A multicultural country where the rights of the Arakanese and Rohingya are respected might represent a restoration to the Mrauk-U kingdom's former state.
The historical evidence of the Mrauk-U Kingdom, where the Muslim sultanate and Arakanese Buddhist respect both religions and cultural heritages, must not be overlooked, especially since the Arakan Army always takes pride in its palingenesis politics. That would only be feasible if there was a chance for a different political environment in which the Rohingya and Arakanese would support one another in opposing the belligerent ruling classes of their own ethnic groups.
It is imperative to combat those who assert that their own group is the one native to the Arakan region, and accuse the other group of being post-colonial settlers. These people pose a threat to multicultural society and are fundamentally fascistic.
In conclusion, it's critical that everyone support the fight for universal human rights and civil rights by standing with unarmed civilians on both sides of the conflict. It's also crucial to remember that nobody in any area associated with Bharat is a post-colonial settler. Numerous large migrations have occurred in this area, scattering people from different ethnic backgrounds throughout.
The Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet, regardless of whether they are native to the area or not. Every person has an obligation to ensure that the governing classes and governments understand that.
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