The Rohingya people have a long history of being ‘otherised’ in Myanmar through a wide variety of policies that have sought to restrict their community and their freedoms. For instance, in October 1982, former dictator Ne Win gave a speech outlining Myanmar’s new citizenship law and stated that Muslim and Chinese people were not trustworthy and so did not deserve full citizenship status or rights. This was justified on the grounds of national security. The Rohingya had been denied these rights for decades.
Under military rule in the 1990s, the policies against the Rohingya people became more systematic. Myanmar’s elites and politicians portrayed them as an existential threat to state sovereignty, national security, social security and economic security. This moved the Rohingya issue from the domain of normal politics onto the national security agenda. The government enacted draconian policies against the Rohingya including a birth control order, movement restrictions, and denial of healthcare services and access to higher education. These policies were justified as protecting state security and served to reinforce a growing perception of the Rohingya people as ‘enemy others’ within the wider population.
Since the 2012 anti-Muslim violence, this trend has intensified. Elites are more frequently portraying the Rohingya community as a threat in the public domain without any opposition. Now, these perceptions are deep-rooted in public debate and thinking, in the education sector, in government newspapers and online. A number of journalists in major newspapers, academics, community leaders and, more importantly, ordinary people have also bought into the security threat line, vilifying the Rohingya people as less than human.
Framing the Rohingya problem as a security issue has become institutionalised, with the elite and the public alike caught up in the mission of trying to eliminate the perceived threat of the Rohingya community.
The change of leadership from ex-general Thein Sein to the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has seen little change on the Rohingya. There has been no move towards re-framing the Rohingya problem. Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) are concerned with the same issues as their predecessors. This indicates that their conception of the Rohingya problem is deeply security-dominated, despite their human rights and conciliatory rhetoric.
There are three main reasons why re-conceptualising the security-dominated view of the Rohingya community is particularly difficult.
First, the perception of ‘enemy other’ is essential for the perpetuation of ‘ontological insecurity’, or security of the self. That is, the Myanmar conceptualisation of the Rohingya people as a security threat is now embedded within the narrative of the country’s politics. So long as the Buddhist majority’s negative perceptions of the Rohingya ‘other’ remain unchanged, changing this conception of the community will remain an unreachable goal.
Second, as this conception of the Rohingya community has become institutionalised, the security concern has spread across many sectors. The source of threat, the Rohingyas, cannot easily be de-linked from other things such as religious and ethnic identities, territory, society and economic sectors. This problem creates an ‘all or nothing’ environment. Unless the source of threat is completely eliminated from all sectors, it is too costly or risky to stand against social pressures.
Finally, the perception of the Rohingya community as a security threat is self-perpetuating. Those who perpetuate the idea remain unchallenged or enjoy strong support from all levels of society, and it is difficult to contest them or dislodge their social and political influence.
Targeting the Rohingya community as a security threat has become the ‘proper’ or ‘rational’ option for most of Myanmar’s political leaders and the public in general and there is a long road ahead to change this.
Kyaw Zeyar Win is one of the founders and a researcher at the Peace Research Institute – Yangon (PRIY), Myanmar.
This article is a condensed version of a paper he presented at the Australian National University’s Myanmar Update 2017.
Thanks for an insightful analysis. This helps to explain why Aung San Suu Kyi, who was persecuted herself for her beliefs, has not taken action to protect the Rhoynga.
If securitization has become so endemic to the culture, there is little hope that this can change. It is reminiscent of how the Nazis portrayed the Jews in the years leading up to the Holocaust. Is Myanmar heading for the same ‘ultimate solution?’
According to my observation, I would say ‘YES, Myanmar is also still moving towards an essentially Nazi solution. When I went to the Rakhine State last year, I noticed that the situation mostly resembled what Jewish people faced during the Nazi regime. They are also forced to live in the squalid detention camps. But, today’s situation is obviously different from that of WWII. I mean, during WWII, large numbers of Jews were massacred within short period of time, but today, Rohingyas have been facing gradual small scale atrocities and systematic expulsion from their native lands over four decades, rather than mass massacres in a short time as happened to hundreds of thousands of Jews in Germeny and Europe. The worst thing, from my point of view, is that majority of the Buddhist population is unwilling to challenge this and tacitly agrees with the government’s draconian policies imposing on the targeted community, resulting in legitimating of those extra-ordinary measures. This condition creates a new character in Myanmar’s politics – like who is a betrayer or who is a loyalist to the country – and therefore there is little incentive for the power elites to de-securitise the problem even if they are willingness to do.
On 8 October 1982, former dictator Ne Win . . . stated that *Indian (not Muslim) and Chinese people were not trustworthy and so did not deserve full citizenship status or rights.*
The racist statement was expressed by an army general whose forefathers were Chinese.
Apparently, hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Not surprisingly, the pre-independence Burmese nationalists were great admirers of Hitler and Mussolini. Little wonder why Fascism was alive and well today in Burma.
Thanks you Rich Macadam! You’re probably right. Ne Win’s speech didn’t use the ‘Muslim’, he just stated ‘Kalars’ which is nearly the same as ‘Indian liked people’ at that time. But, later after implementing their de-nationalisation policy to those mentioned population, it is clear that his securitising speech mainly implied to the Muslims rather than any other Indian descendants like Hindus, Sikhs etc. Nowadays, ‘Kalar’ is a very derogatory term refers only to Muslim in Burmese language.
I’m not surprised at the lingering of Fascism in Burmese society. One of the examples I would like to tell you – the pro-military and nationalists usually claim that if Aung San Suu Kyi came into the power, Myanmar will become an Islamic country. At that time, the pro-NLD and so-called democratic forces always counter that the military dictators used to receive bribes from Muslim immigrants and granted them as full citizenship, which is the real cause to become an Islamic country. In this example, I want to point out that both sides, pro-military as well as pro-democracy, seek to take political advantage from the negative thinking and propaganda rather than challenging them. More disgusting manner is that they are blissfully happy to transmit this kind of Nazi-like-virus which could have dire consequences, rather than prevent it from taking root in society.
There is Hebrew proverb which says, “That city whose physician has gout is in bad health.” Likewise, Myanmar’s future would be in catastrophe if democratic forces are in political jeopardy.