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Education in Emergencies: A Short Account of Rohingya Culture
By Nurul Mostafa Kamal Zafari
Tyranny has no words, it has sounds of pain and suffering, it has roaring of cruel hyenas, it has echoes of screaming of witches, and finally, it deserves no words to be described. It can be the absolute abstract of this paper as this paper will provide a vivid description a nation’s culture and how this culture is denied and categorically dis-acknowledged by a brutal regime of Myanmar. Rohingyas have their centuries old culture and traditions mixed with Hindu, Muslim and Buddhists people; in terms of language, they have received linguistic elements from Arabic, Persian, Sangskrit, Pali, Bangla, Burmese, Rakhine, and English; in terms of culture, they received elements from Hindu, Muslims, Arabs, Afghans, Indians, Rhkhines, Burmese, Buddhists, Chittagonians, and so on; so they are emotionally and culturally a very rich nation. This paper will flash a beacon on the culture of this ill-fated nation.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a concept on Rohingya culture they practice from the time immemorial. The paper will help the policy makers to have a concept why programming for cultural education and cultural revitalization is so important and how it helps gain the real time benefit to keep traumatized and torture-stricken Rohingya refugees alive with their distinct cultural identity and peaceful in the camp setting.
The objectives of this paper are – 1. To explore Rohingya culture and traditions what they are parctising from time immemorial. 2. To emphasize cultural education for enhanced community safety from radicalization through cultural revitalization. 3. To invite people concerned to take part in programming for preservation and practice of Rohingya culture, customs and traditions.
The paper can provide only a short account of Rohingya culture and traditions for further reinvestigation of their enriched culture and traditions. The Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic minority group in Rakhine, are considered among the most persecuted, vulnerable, and oppressed minorities in the world. Recently, the persecution on the Rohingya Muslims has increased due to Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar. The Rohingya continue to suffer from several forms of restrictions and human rights violations in Myanmar due to them being denied Myanmar citizenship. They are victims of various forms of oppression, such as arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, destruction of mosques, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions, restrictions
on movements, forced eviction and house destruction, forced laborers on roads and at military camps, stopping from birth registration, enrollment in school and university, imposing fabricated history with retaliatory method of education, barrier in fencing the house, imposing Burmese names and financial restrictions on marriage. Since the 1970s, a number of crackdowns on the Rohingya in Rakhine have forced them to flee to neighboring countries. More than one million Rohingyas have migrated to refugee camps in the Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar (Mohajon, 2018). Now I will try to meet some questions – why education is so important for refugees, why cultural education, how displacement hampers national culture, some specific cultural aspects of stateless Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh and programming needs for preserving the lost and ruining culture of them.
Why education is so important for Rohingya refugees?
If we start with UNHCR High Commissioner’s saying, “Making sure that refugees have access to education is at the heart of UNHCR’s mandate to protect the world’s rapidly increasing refugee population, and central to its mission of finding long-term solutions to refugee crises” (Grandi, 2016), then we could understand that the importance of education cannot be overstated, and most people would agree that education is a fundamental right and a key factor in human development (Umenyi, 2017). Also education is not only a basic human right; it is a tool for recovery (UNICEF, 2016) as we know well that the stateless Rohingya refugees suffered century long systematic deprivation from the government and they need education for their future survival as a nation. The global quest to ensure quality education for all by 2030 is included in the Sustainable Development Goals. However, meeting this ambitious target for the over 65 million people (or more) who have been forced to leave their homes by conflict, famine, fear of persecution or a multitude of other reasons remains an enormous challenge (Umenyi, 2017). Around the world, 4 million refugee children are out of school and missing out on their right to an education due to displacement, poverty and exclusion (Save the Children, nd). Many of those children have never been to school in their home countries (Euronews, 2017), basically in Myanmar it was unthinkable for sound education as they were deprived in many ways by the Myanmar government to keep them illiterate and to leave them in the darkest side of civilization in a very planned method. In the chart below we see the real picture of our continuous failure in ensuring the basic rights of education for refugee children worldwide. However, the benefits of education are bountiful. Most children fleeing from war are at a vulnerable and critical age of development.
Cultural education promotes historical awareness, contributes to the formation of an individual identity and encourages a creative, inquisitive attitude that benefits children and young people throughout their lives. Cultural education gives enjoyment and contributes to one’s overall sense of well-being. Cultural education consists of the capacity for reflection. Children and also youngsters in cultural education learn to reflect upon their own culture, culture of others and culture in general (Heudsen, 2016). And cultural education is so important for stateless Rhingya refugees as they experienced uncountable types of harassments and tortures; and their deprivation started with a false belief of Myanmar government which results their life in the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
A nation builds on its distinct nature of traditions, beliefs, history, myths, language, culture, customs, traditions and everyday practices. When a government opposes everything they, Rohingyas, believe, do, work, passionate for, create, practice or cherish; it is our collective duty to work for this nation to heal them the oppressions and severe oppositions they faced and to help them believe that they are not alone. A hand on a shoulder who lost everything is a hand of God.
