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RACISM TO ROHINGYA IN BURMA
AYE CHAN’S “ENCLAVE” WITH “INFLUX VIRUSES” REVISITED (CHAPTER 3)
by Dr. Abid Bahar, Canada
“ The Burmese military has clearly embarked on a policy of ridding the country of ethnic Rohingyas by any possible means. Official claims that the refugees are ”illegal immigrants” – Asia Watch
An enclave is part of a country geographically separated from the main part by the surrounding foreign territory. A great deal of works has been done by the military’s civilian collaborators on the province of Arakan (Rakhine province) claiming that there is the existence of an enclave in Burma. Most prominent of the authors is Aye Chan. Aye Chan, a native of Burma’s Arakan (Rakhine) province, says there is an enclave in Arakan. (1) His work even outlines the common issues of dispute surrounding the Rohingyas with the Rakhines. This doesn’t seem to be an ordinary enclave. This enclave is Aye Chan’s portrayal of Burma’s Rohingya people in the Mayu frontier of the Arakan state. Aye Chan identifies the Rohingyas as the non-natives of Burma who, he claims, illegally settled in this region of Burma’s North-Western province. This paper is a detailed review of the claims.
It is important to understand the issues raised by Aye Chan, for; Aye Chan’s article creates trepidation and suggests to the xenophobic Burmese the issues to consider dealing with the Rohingyas, along with a means to address them. Aye Chan’s article is popular among xenophobic Burmese people as an intellectual work of excellence. It was also published in several other Burmese journals and is popular among anti-Rohingya ultranationalists.
A review of the work shows, it is a typical reflection of the contemporary state of Burmese scholarship on ethnic minorities. In addition to its Rakhine version of the Rohingya history, genocide readers will find it bearing the warning signs of the Rohingya people’s on-going torment in Arakan. Aye Chan’s present work is important to consider for its unique version of inter-racial relations of some significance that defy academic understanding of Rohingya history and culture. As we will see below, he has given a scholastic face to his xenophobic work. As part of a growing contemporary Arakanse popular literature, his goal here seems less erudite and more to demonize the Rohingyas to create fear among the Burmese people.
Who are the Rohingyas? Rohingyas are an ethnic minority of Burma. Due to their racial differences with the Burmans, they were being officially declared by the military junta as the non-citizens of Burma, making them a stateless people. A closer look shows Rohingyas are a racially different non-Momgoloid Burmese people of multi-ethnic Arakan and Aye Chan’s work is part of a literature intended to validate Burmese military’s official claims that Rohingyas are “foreigners” in Burma.
In his article Aye Chan asks “Who are the Rohingyas?” and continues, “Burma gained independence from Great Britain in 1948 and this issue is a problem that Burma has had to grapple with since that time.” (p. 15)
Contrary to his assertion, it is not just the Rohingya issue that has been a subject of debate in Burma since 1948; it is about Burma’s ethnic minorities in general and about Burma’s official definition of who is the native of Burma and who is not has been the issue of debate. To resolve this and the other similar issues, U Nu, the then elected Prime Minister of Burma recognized Rohingyas as one of the Burmese nationalities. U Nu also named the Rohingya majority area in Burma’s North-West as the Mayu Frontier. It is the military junta of Ne Win that usurped power later that began persecuting them and questioning the status of the Rohingyas.
The author says, “The people who call themselves Rohingyas are the Muslims of Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, an isolated province in the western part of the country across Naaf River as boundary from Bangladesh. (p. 15)
It is true that Rohingyas are concentrated in the Mayu Frontier. However, they also live in other parts of Arakan. (2) There is even a Rohingya para (village) in Akyab. It seems that at the outset of his article, Aye Chan with a void premise is beginning to isolate Rohingyas into an enclave.
The author states, “Arakan had been an independent kingdom before it was conquered by the Burmese in 1784. Rohingya historians have written many treatises in which they claim for themselves an indigenous status that is traceable within Arakan State for more than a thousand years. Although it is not accepted as a fact in academia, a few volumes purporting to be history but mainly composed of fictitious stories, myths and legends have been published formerly in Burma and later in the United States, Japan and Bangladesh. These, in turn, have filtered into the international media through international organizations, including reports to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Ba Tha 1960: 33-36; Razzaq and Haque 1995: 15).” (p. 15)
Aye Chan identifies the above-mentioned sources as ”treatises,” ”fictitious books” without detailing the content of the sources either in this article or elsewhere. It appears that his personal opinion is being passed on as simply an expert opinion. He says, “The present paper was written for distribution and discussion at a seminar in Japan. During the seminar, there was a debate between the author and professor Kei Nemoto concerning the existence of the Rohingya people in Rakhine (Arakan). Nemoto, in a paper written in Japanese, agreed with the Rohingya historians that the Rohingyas have lived in Rakhine since the eigth century A. D. The author contests the validity of these claims.” (p. 15)
In the above, Aye Chan’s stand on contesting the validity of Rohingya’s origin in Arakan is clear. But the disconcerting thing is if his paper was written mainly to refute Kei Memoto’s arguments, as he claims, it becomes an academic responsibility for the latter to provide the bibliographical details of Kei Nemoto’s paper. Here we are left with Aye Chan as a feisty boxer without the details of the match!
