While the World's media focus attention on Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi meeting Bono of U2 a little known tragedy has engulfed Burma's Muslim minority Rohingya community who are being massacred by so called peace loving pacifist Buddhists.
The Rohingya Muslims who date back to before the Mughals lived in an Independent kingdom Arkan now Rakhine in Western Burma before as usual the British messed things up granting independence to a number of colonies leading to Rakhine's integration into the new state of Burma. The history is complex and what sparked this latest round of bloody killings is murky involving the rape of a Buddhist girl however, the BBC try and provide a historical background.
While there is no doubt the Rohingyas have been persecuted by Burma's military and Buddhist majority what is equally shocking is how the Muslim world have ignored the plight of our fellow Muslims. The shocking example here and here of authorities in Bangladesh pushing boats of Rohingya refugees away while they escape persecution is appalling and shameful. Even worse, when they have managed to escape persecution they are treated like second class citizens in Malaysia who refuse them access to schools and health care.
The United Nations have described the Rohingya as a persecuted religious and linguistic minority from Western Burma and highlight how over 90,000 have been displaced by the violence. Sadly what makes this tragedy even worse is how Muslims have turned a blind eye to the persecution and in the case of Bangladesh and Malaysia appear to have contributed to the suffering.
**Update** The fleeing Rohingya Refugess are coming under Helicopter fire from Bangladesh
How sad is that Ummah has abandoned these poor people.I wonder if any muslim charity organisation is involved in helping these people.Can LM alert these organisations to make them aware of the situation.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is going to be any political solution to this problem,in the near future.
This is so sad. But you cannot just blame Bangladesh for this the UN are refusing to help because there Muslims. Allah help these people.
ReplyDeleteMay Allah bless you for informing us of their plight! Please let us know of a reliable charity that is helping them so that at least we can aid them with sadaqa. Jazzak Allah khair. Plz email me on eng.osman@gmail.com regarding this.
ReplyDeleteWell thank you for shedding light on this matter.
ReplyDeleteHardy a surprise why the ummah hasn't paid attention -afterall the media seem to have only one story to highlight: The palestinians. Apparantly the rest of the misery suffered elsewhere in the world and costing as many and more deaths have no bearing.
Add to the list, Sudan (ethnic cleansing and mass rapes and massacres), Gujerat, Kashmir (The fued as old as that of Palestine).
But it would appear the brown lives are not worth the mention unless it involves words like Gaza, Palestine, Israel. That is evidently the only story being covered. To hell with others, eh.
The kingdom of arakan aka the kingdom of "mruak-u", was a majority buddhist kingdom ruled by a buddhist monarch,
ReplyDeleteIf londonmuslim did any fact checking before assuming that the the arakan kingdom was rohingya, he would alsao have found out that the main ethnic group in the arakan kingdom were the rakhine buddhists, to which the buddhist sultan belonged to
When burma conquered arakan it just absorbed the kingdom as another province, the rakhine buddhists are a separate ethnic group from the bamar buddhists (who make up the majority of burma and control the country)
If britain had not integrated rakhine into burma and let it be independent, the rakhine state would still be dominated by the Native rakhine buddhists, not rohingya (aka bengali illegal immigrants) who moved into rakhine during british rule