Opinion by the Nation
Among underlying questions, one quietly asked: Why the
Buddhist vitriol against Islam?
Canada’s Parliament has voted to strip Myanmar’s Aung San
Suu Kyi – once a beacon of hope for democracy – of her honorary Canadian
citizenship due to her evident unwillingness to demonstrate moral authority and
stop the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in her country. Other
nations should follow suit, withdrawing whatever honours bestowed on her in the
past.
Clearly, enduring years of house arrest under the former
military regime did not qualify as her moment of truth. That moment came only
after she’d shed her shackles to win an election and become the country’s
leader. It came when her soldiers and police brutalised the Rohingya community.
She was in a position to at least oppose the action on moral grounds and beg
for a halt. Instead, she did nothing, and in fact vigorously defended the
perpetrators of what the United Nations now regards as an act of genocide.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for trying to
bring democracy to Army-controlled Myanmar. There have been calls for that to
be withdrawn as well. However, the humiliation that would accrue if all such
recognition were revoked does not seem to be adequate punishment for a person
who so resolutely turned her back on her sole guiding principle – that everyone
is equal and equally deserving of freedom and justice.
More damaging to her and to Myanmar by far would be a
unified stance among other member-countries of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations that the mass brutality inflicted on the Rohingya could not be
tolerated. It would be especially gratifying if Thailand acknowledged the
atrocities occurring right next door.
Suu Kyi is the de facto leader of her civilian
government, but is compelled to share power with the military, and the military
controls the key ministries. It has been argued that Suu Kyi is sacrificing the
Rohingya so that the generals will not block her efforts to improve the living
conditions of the general populace. Even if this were true, and even if there
were evidence that lives were improving, it would hardly justify slaughter,
rape and mass expulsion.
By choice or by force, Suu Kyi cannot even bring herself
to use the term “Rohingya”, instead insisting that the benighted community is
“Bengali”, a word with no actual demographic meaning. Thailand’s generals, keen
to keep shoring up relations with our long-ago enemy, are happy to oblige Suu
Kyi. Most recently, they ordered the police in Bangkok to shut down a public
discussion at the Foreign Correspondents Club about the UN report on the
Myanmar genocide.
Perhaps the saddest and ugliest aspect to all of this is
the underlying anti-Islam current. Buddhist preachers in Myanmar led the charge
against the Rohingya, whipping the faithful into a frenzy of hatred over the
“foreigners” (who’d lived in Burma for more than a century) and “terrorists”
(who had no affiliation with jihadist militants). In Thailand, the concern is
that support exists in some Buddhism pockets here for the nationalist zealots
across the border. The support has been discreet and contained, but it could
cause problems if it sparks against the separatist insurgency in the mainly
Muslim border provinces.
The question thus becomes whether our temples and monks
are setting good examples. If not, then what societal problems, such as justice
inequitably applied, drive people to throw away their moral compasses and their
compassion.