By: Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
December 7, 2017
To insist on the Rohingya status as a victimized religious minority while ignoring other factors cements their position as outsiders, fueling exclusionary forms of both politics and religion.
International human rights advocates who want to help the Rohingya and other persecuted groups are not furthering their causes by seeing religious violence behind every corner. In the case of the Rohingya, advocates should stop fostering the narrative of religious intolerance and instead insist that the Burmese government treat the Rohingya as human beings, and as legitimate citizens of Myanmar, worthy of dignity and respect.
For decades, the Rohingya have been denied citizenship by the Burmese state, which falsely classifies them as Bengali immigrants and subjects them to discrimination and scorn. Now the military is undertaking what UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein calls “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The United Nations has described the situation as catastrophic.
International human rights advocates who want to help the Rohingya and other persecuted groups are not furthering their causes by seeing religious violence behind every corner. In the case of the Rohingya, advocates should stop fostering the narrative of religious intolerance and instead insist that the Burmese government treat the Rohingya as human beings, and as legitimate citizens of Myanmar, worthy of dignity and respect.
For decades, the Rohingya have been denied citizenship by the Burmese state, which falsely classifies them as Bengali immigrants and subjects them to discrimination and scorn. Now the military is undertaking what UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein calls “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The United Nations has described the situation as catastrophic.