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The Systematic Rohingya Genocide and the Muslim Moral Imperative
Dr. Naved Bakali completed his Ph.D. in Educational Studies from McGill University, Canada and Hassam Munir is currently pursuing an MA in Mediterranean and Middle East History at the University of Toronto.
The Rohingya refugee crisis is one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our generation. Over 700,000 Rohingya have been expelled from their homes in Rakhine state, Myanmar, since August 2017. In the process of this mass exodus, thousands have been murdered in the most horrific and brutal ways. The victims have been men, women, and children who were targeted simply because they belonged to a Muslim minority ethnic group. The crisis has been described by UN officials as ethnic cleansing. However, a more apt term for what has happened to the Rohingya is genocide. In September 2018, Canada recognized the crimes committed against the Rohingya at the hands of the Myanmar military as constituting genocide and urged the UN Security Council to take action.
More recently, in November 2019, Gambia filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Myanmar of genocide. This article outlines some of the key issues and events that have laid the foundation for this horrific tragedy. Furthermore, this article will discuss the current situation of the Rohingya and the Muslim moral imperative to work for necessary change in response to this crisis. There are a number of instances in history where Muslim leadership has intervened to alleviate the suffering of Muslim communities in various parts of the Muslim world. From as early as the first century of the hijrah, during the Khulafāʾ Rāshidūn , to as recent as Ottoman rule in the mid-19th century, our history is replete with examples of Muslim leadership taking decisive action to preserve the sanctity of Muslim lives in the face of devastation. These examples demonstrate how Muslims have traditionally responded to crises afflicting Muslim communities and they form the basis of our discussion for a Muslim moral imperative towards positive and productive action.
The Rohingya genocide and the subsequent refugee crisis did not occur in a vacuum or without warning. Like all genocides, it was systematic, procedural, and many years in the making. As described in previous articles published by Yaqeen Institute, a number of the processes that brought about the Rohingya genocide can be described as Structural Islamophobia—a situation where Islamophobic actions and treatment become normalized in society through targeted legislation aimed at oppressing and marginalizing Muslims.
The tragic case of the Rohingya genocide demonstrates the most horrific consequences of unchallenged structural Islamophobia. Historians and scholars in the fields of ethnic conflict and violence have described genocide as a process that typically takes place in eight stages. These stages are classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination, and denial. Below we outline how these stages have culminated in the Rohingya genocide and subsequent refugee crisis.
