By Wai Wai Nu
Friday, 20 May 2016
(MyanmarTimes)
I belong to an
ethnic group that, according to my government, does not exist. In the past few
weeks, ultra-nationalist protestors have proudly proclaimed, “There are no
Rohingya in our country.” And then the NLD government requested foreign
embassies to refrain from using the term “Rohingya”, reportedly stating that
“the controversial term does not support the national reconciliation process
and solving problems”. Their statement was disappointing because it was a
capitulation to the hardliners and because I, as a Rohingya, want nothing more
than national reconciliation. I want to live in a Myanmar where all of
Myanmar’s peoples can live together in equality and peace.
I was born in
Myanmar, my parents were born in Myanmar, and their parents were born in Myanmar.
My family members have served in the Myanmar government and fought for Myanmar
democracy. My father served as a teacher in government schools in Rakhine State
for 30 years and was elected as a member of parliament in the 1990 elections.
My mother, sister, father, brother and I were all imprisoned because of my
father’s work alongside Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD in the democratic
opposition. Even so, under the new NLD-led government, describing my ethnicity,
language and culture has become a “controversial” political act.
It has not always
been like this.
Growing up in
Rakhine State, I knew myself to be Rohingya, and was thought of as such by my
ethnically Rakhine neighbours. Depending on the context, we also referred to
ourselves, and were referred to, as simply “Muslims”. Sadly, we were also
frequently called “Kalar”, a derogatory name forced on us by our Rakhine and
Bamar neighbours.
To be Rohingya is,
in our language, to be the people of Rohang, the geographical region in modern
Rakhine State that we have inhabited dating back to at least the Mrauk-U
Kingdom in the 15th century. If you go to Mrauk-U today you will find
inscriptions in our language at ancient historic sites.
Before the 1980s,
the Myanmar government freely used the word Rohingya to describe us in many
contexts. My family’s “household list” maintained by the local government in
northern Rakhine State, where a majority of Rohingya live, listed our family’s
ethnicity as Rohingya. My elder brothers’ birth certificates state Rohingya as
their ethnicity.
The debate over the
word Rohingya is much more than an argument over terminology. The effort to
scrub the Rohingya name from Myanmar’s official lexicon has been part of a
broad campaign by the previous military government and hardline Buddhist
ultra-nationalists to label us as “foreigners” and “invaders” and deny our
right to inhabit Myanmar. These groups have labelled us as “Bengali”, to
suggest that we are from Bangladesh, despite the fact that we have resided in
Myanmar for generations.
In part, we feel
strongly about our identity as Rohingya because we have seen a direct
correlation between the denial of our identity as a “national race” in Myanmar
and the deterioration of our rights. Under the 1982 Citizenship Law, only
certain “national races” identified by the government automatically qualify for
citizenship.
When the government
created its list of national races, Rohingya and several other Muslim groups
were omitted. In the 1990s, the government targeted our community with discriminatory
policies, including restrictions on movement, marriage and childbirth. Under
the previous military government, we were subject to many of the same abuses
that other ethnic nationalities of Myanmar suffered, such as forced labour,
arbitrary detention and sexual assault.
Since 2011, when the
first nominally civilian government took power, conditions for Rohingya have
deteriorated even more rapidly. Mass violence in Rakhine State in 2012 resulted
in hundreds of our community being killed and hundreds of thousands internally
displaced, while thousands more have risked their lives to flee the country by
sea. We were omitted from the first census held in 30 years. The vast majority
of our community was denied the right to vote for the first time in the
historic November 2015 elections that brought the NLD to power. Our candidates
were singled out for disqualification. We have been segregated from our
Buddhist neighbours and restricted in our movement. We have been denied access
to hospitals, schools and jobs. As the situation for us has gotten worse, the
call for us to deny our identity has gotten stronger.
Meanwhile, we watch
as our brothers and sisters who have also suffered under the military
dictatorship – democratic activists, ethnic nationalities and other
marginalised groups – approach the new “democratic era” with great hope. We too
have had hope, but wonder why we have been left behind. If the NLD is really
concerned with “national reconciliation” as they suggest, they should seek to
include all Myanmar’s peoples in the process. The first step is to allow us to
join our brothers and sisters as equals, as human beings with the right to
decide the name we think best reflects our culture and our history.
Wai Wai
Nu is a human rights and peace activist from the Rohingya community and a
former political prisoner.