Muslims in Burma are facing barbaric onslaught. The images shared on social media look extremely horrific and shambolic. What triggered this persecution? The answer to this question lies in the statement by Ashin Wirathu (a man dubbed by ‘Time Magazine’ as the face of Buddhist terror) in November 2014 to AJ+ (a global news community):
“The world takes pity on Muslims as a minority. But, study them to understand how bad that small group is. How much trouble they have caused? Our religion is not the only thing under threat. The whole country is, just as they established Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 2010, they are stepping up efforts to establish an Islamic state in Burma”.
It is evident that the spread of Islam threatened the Buddhist community and convinced the authorities to use a convicted criminal like Ashin Wirathu to spearhead the campaign to subdue Islam in Myanmar. The riots erupted few years back, when a false rumor was spread that a Muslim man had raped a Buddhist woman. This resulted in chaos as Muslim owned businesses and homes were attacked and burned. Since then the animosity towards the Muslim community has continued leading to scores of brutal murderers. Scale of suffering has been immense. When Rohingyas in desperation attempted to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, in recent past, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasseena declared that Rohingyas won't be welcomed.
Sighting Bangladesh as an overpopulated country unable to bear burden of Rohingya, she categorically stated, “Why we should allow entering our country, we just pursue them, and we provided them everything they needed. They are Myanmar citizens so it is up to them (government), how they treat their citizens. I have no right to poke my nose in the internal affairs of any country.”
This time, despite Bangladeshi government orders to keep them at bay, border police are allowing the refugees in. Many Muslims have fled the affected areas, and it is not possible to turn away the ailing and weak women and children, according to the spokesperson of the UN refugee body (UNHCR). People continue to enter Bangladesh.
While, Myanmar’s de-facto leader Suu Kyi continues to stay numb on developing situation and is yet to declare it a persecution and genocide and has failed to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas. She has failed to make decisive inroads to stop the brutality. Despite being under pressure diplomatically, she remains unmoved. No one is made accountable and Buddhist Monks are yet to be tamed.
A new wave of colossal terror demonstrates the extremely wild nature of human suffering. This is something which is reminiscent of the barbarianism of Genghis Khan and his heirs. In today's civilised world, such massacre seems unbelievable.
With no meaningful condemnation from most of Muslim countries on international level the situation look even uglier. It appears as Muslim Ummah no more exists. Collective and collaborative effort is no longer shown. No one is there to show solidarity with the crushed Muslim community. Poverty ridden community is of no use to any country. Branded stateless and resource-less, none of the Muslim country has openly desired to open its doors for the refugees.
Behaviour of selfish and self-centered Muslim leaders and countries is appalling and shambolic. Tayyab Erdogan is the only leader who has pressed the Muslim leaders to take immediate action against the culprits. He remains a lone voice. A handful of Muslim countries have so far condemned the actions of Buddhist Monks and the Burma army. There have been some protests in Indonesia, Pakistan, Maldives, and Chechnya.
Imagine killing of this nature in any of the progressed countries. It would have brought the world to a standstill. Cobra meetings would have been called in England. Trump would have consulted his generals and Pentagon. Macron and Merkel would have addressed joint press conferences expressing grave consequences. Decisive actions would have been imminent. The manner of execution is heartbreaking and beyond comprehension. Slowly international media has started to post reaction but it is unbelievably too little, too.
Had this been the killings of Christians or the Jewish community, whole world would have shown solidarity. There would have been extreme uproar and storm to take action against the culprits. Special programmes would have been arranged to discuss the details. Such is the hypocrisy of the media that they cannot even give a front page headline to this massacre and ethnic cleansing at horrifically large scale.
India continues to supply diesel, Israelis continue to provide ammunition to Myanmar’s military Junta, and China (which was quick to respond on American Afghan strategy in favour of Pakistan) didn't utter a word against its barbaric neighbours. Why would China intervene? It has huge interests in the country. Strategically, this country is exceedingly significant for china. China has been a leading trade partner of Myanmar since the 1988 coup.
Myanmar is geologically very rich country, with mining as its large scale industry. It contains minerals which include base metal, industrial minerals, rare earth minerals, and gems. It has crude oil reserves of $3.2 billion barrels and gas reserves of 11.8 trillion cubic feet. China has been relentless in its efforts to exploit the resources across the world to overcome its growing energy and mineral needs.
In addition, it connects the South and Southeast Asia and mainland China. The United States also has huge presence in the area. It can block Straits of Malacca, restricting its supplies, mainly oil imports. Alternative route goes through Myanmar. China has the gas and oil pipelines from Burma’s West Coastline linking the Bay of Bengal up into South-West China. Resultantly, Chinese reliance on Straits of Malacca is largely reduced because of Myanmar.
Other trading partners Thailand and Singapore also remain unmoved. The United Nations has been too busy tackling the hostilities posed by North Korea, while those facing persecution at the hands of Buddhist Monks are being ignored.
Few nations stay in slumber as they have certain benefits attached with this hostile country. Others simply stay emotionless and numb because Muslims of Myanmar offer nothing. Alas! Stateless community has no takers.
I am a Rohingya Muslim
My soul is lashed
My body is thrashed
My blood is cheap
No resources I owned
I wish
I wouldn’t be blown
I too am the son of Adam
Yet I am flamed
UN is deaf
No one is impressed
Inhumanly, I am dealt
I fight alone
I am defeated on my own
In the land of beings
I am hunted like a prey
I try to flee
They kill me on the way
I am slaughtered to death
Yet, my soul remains intact
No one listens
And no one cares
In induced slumber they all lay
Keeping me at bay
Stateless I stay