What Is In A Name?

From The Romani To The Rohingya,
Ethnic Cleansing By Renaming.
(Part of The Darkness Visible series
& Roma In Europe series)

(Roma Face The PNL Party / Rohingya Face 969)

A name is in many aspects the very nature of who we are or who we consider ourselves to be. A person born and raised in France would not suddenly consider himself to be Mexican one day simply because it sounded right. A child born and raised in Yemen would not suddenly decide that he is Korean because somebody suggested it. We are raised to be proud of who we are. The nationality we are given from birth is that which we desire to keep as we age. It is funny in sense, yet we do not easily part from this seemingly arbitrary title. It is simply just too important for us to do without.

Americans are raised with a slightly different sense of what it means to be this or that. We add African, Asian, Latin, Hispanic, Native, and many other nationalities in front of American when we want to be rather specific about our origin. And for most of us, this is a welcome part of declaring our heritage to the world around us. It not offers us a sense of being distinguished in a country that melts our diversity to form a new culture of its own. Yet despite this, we still do much the same as a Parisian might do when we tell others who we are and where we come from... we give them a name that describes it.

For the Roma people of Romania the decision to proclaim their heritage by calling themselves "Roma" is under threat. National Liberal Party (PNL) deputies Mircea Dolha and Grigore Crăciunescu proposed an amendment to the Romanian constitution that would make it illegal for Roma to call themselves Roma. The wording is ambiguous enough to avoid outright rejection by other parties within Romania's government yet according to NGOs and activists clearly targets Romani people. And for the most part the amendment would serve to further alienate Roma living within Romania.

This issue of state sponsored discrimination against an ethnic minority places Romania in the same group as the genocidal government of Myanmar. By attempting to deprive the Roma of their natural right to claim their ethnicity and cultural heritage the government of Romania attempts to push a policy of ethnic cleansing through renaming of an ethnic minority. The parallel between Romania and Myanmar is only further constructed through Romania's PNL party's policy that ethnic minorities may not call themselves "Romanian" unless they can prove their ethnicity to the government. This policy mirrors the policy of Myanmar in it's devout dedication to a policy of denial as it continues to deny the existence of an indigenous Rohingya population within Burma.

In the case of the Roma people in Romania the only major difference is the fact that the PNL has not given them a name with which to scapegoat the Romani people. Though ethnic slurs and the stereotypical gypsy image is paraded readily by PNL party members, the Roma are simply going to face total ethnic cleansing in Romania. The Rohingya people of Burma on the other hand are being given a name to replace their own; Bengali. This form of ethnic cleansing allows Myanmar the opportunity to justify deportations while also revising the history of Burma... erasing Rohingya from history.

For both the Rohingya and the Roma, these attempts to commit ethnic cleansing are only partially masked by political language and platitudes. If allowed to stand these attacks will devastate entire ethnic groups while setting back their attempts to coexist with their neighboring ethnic groups. In the long run these moves also undercut the history and heritage of these two ethnic minorities. By making it illegal to register under their own ethnic name the governments force these groups to accept and adopt the ethnic heritage of groups to which they do not belong.

In the eyes of the world a name is a funny little thing. It seems somewhat odd to many just how important these simplistic titles seem to us. Yet if we were to take just a moment, a brief moment of meditation, we would find in our empathy the disturbing notion of what it would mean to be without our own name. It is in that little title we carry with us that we link ourselves to others within our culture, our beliefs, our heritage. In the eyes of those who realize this a name is not just a silly word but a treasured part of who we are.




An opportunity to scream:

You can help the Rohingya people hold onto their name by signing yours here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Allow_the_Rohingya_to_Register_Their_Name/ via +Jamila Hanan 

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Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

Romania Insider
http://www.romania-insider.com/ngos-outraged-by-proposed-amendment-to-romanias-constitution-banning-roma-from-calling-themselves-romanians/101635/
-
http://www.romania-insider.com/amnesty-international-report-slams-romania-on-roma-rights-and-cia-prisons/99947/

SE Times
http://setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2013/06/10/reportage-01

Amnesty International Live Wire (blog)
http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/06/13/you-cant-give-up-you-have-to-fight-for-your-rights/

Burma News International
http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/news/kaladan/15481-rohingya-village-is-uprooted-by-forced-registration-program.html

Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/why-myanmars-rohingya-forced-bengali-144444651.html

Washing Away The Kalar

Buddhist Water Festival Could Spark Ethnic Violence
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

On April 13th the Buddhist Water Festival will begin in Myanmar. This holiday is symbolic and sacred to the Buddhist people of Burma. However in the Arakan this holiday could flow with blood rather than water.

Reports of racist Buddhist clergy participating in spreading the message of the Burmese hate group 969 have been popping up every since the riots and anti-Muslim attacks in March. The tweeters who have been reporting these warnings of potential attacks on the Rohingya all point toward the Water Festival as the key time for such pogroms. People like Jamila Hanan and Aung Aung (@JamilaHanan1 and @AungAungSittwe on twitter) have been sounding the alarm of yet another attempt by groups like 969 to complete their campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Arakan. It is also important to note that these same citizen reporters were the first to warn about the pogroms that took place in Meiktila and other areas were Muslim minorities were attacked in Burma last month.

In a recent report by Burma News International (http://www.bnionline.net) information about tensions leading up to the Water Festival have come out. In their account of the rising tensions in the Arakan region the Nasaka (Burmese Border Guards) have been extorting money from impoverished Rohingya communities to help fund the Water Festival in neighboring Buddhist villages. In the case they reported the Rohingya were forced to pay an exuberant amount of cash despite being hungry and without water. The money was then going to fund a Buddhist village that consisted of Rakhine from Sittwe and neighboring areas in addition to Rakhine who had migrated from Bangladesh once the Rohingya homes had been burnt.

Once again the racial element of the tensions in the Arakan cannot be overlooked. It is clear through reports like the one from Burma News International that government affiliates are using racial code to enforce biased laws. And yet despite clear cases of ethnic cleansing, pogroms, and racial discrimination within Burma the West remains eerily silent on the issue. Great world leaders, or so they claim, have failed to put pressure on Thein Sein and his military puppets as they continue to grind the Rohingya community into dust.

It should be clear that when a government openly refers to a community as "Kalar" (or any other racially charged term) that the said government does not intend to defend the basic human rights of that targeted community. It should also be clear that when an exploited community has been targeted by government funded mobs and military alike that if violence restarts the world should expect no different outcome than the last.

This is genocide.

If the world will not listen, if it will not stand up and fight for the down trodden... if nothing is to be done to stop it... Burma will wash away it's "kalar" communities. And like a river of blood, the stain this chapter in our history will not simply disappear. The stain this has left, the blot it will leave, will forever be upon our hands as well as upon those of the murderers'.







Source documents

Burmese News International
http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/news/kaladan/15094-nasaka-forces-rohingya-to-pay-for-maungdaw-buddhist-water-festival.html

Open Your Eyes

It's Time To Wake Up...
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Soldier On Patrol In Rohingya Part of Sittwe, June 2012)

For the past six months the world has been basically shut out of the Rohingya ghettos and IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps. The government of Myanmar has made it hard if not impossible at times to reach the Rohingya minority as the Buddhists extremist attempt to complete their intended genocide. But there are brave individuals still attempting to get the word out of the "open air prison" that Burma has made for the Rohingya. 

Assed Baig is one of those people. His voice is lending an outlet to the Rohingya who have been made voiceless by their own government. His articles give a written word to a people who are being forgotten. And his broadcast out of Burma are being leaked through the iron grip of the Myanmar government. 

These are few of his reports... this is the news from the front line. 

(Rohingya IDP Camp Outside Sittwe, 2012)

Please note that it is hard to get information out of Burma. When the government notices that Assed is trying to get information about the Rohingya out they take actions to hinder or stop his progress. The work is hard, the government is hostile, and the local Rakhine are possibly violent to an individual they view as "Kalar" (unclean or dark skinned). Yet Assed is still over in Sittwe doing the work that the European and American media refuse to do. 

The facts from the front still support the information we have received from people like Aung Aung in Sittwe. From the outside looking in it is still incredibly dangerous to be doing the things that Assed and Aung Aung are doing daily. But their work is vital. The world must bear witness. We can not look away and pray for the best of luck. 

It is time for the West, and perhaps long overdue, to begin to scream for the oppressed. It is time that good, honest, decent people stand up and step into the gap between the Rohingya and death itself. We can not in good conscience set on the sidelines and wait till this is all blow past and the blood finally stops trickling out of the Arakan. If you can not donate your time or money, for the love of G-d, scream for the those who are dieing. 

By sharing videos like these and articles like this one you can help raise awareness of the Rohingya Genocide. It does not take any measurable effort with all the social networking we do these days. And would your time really be better spent on Pintrest for the next five minutes than it would be by spending a few minutes tweeting or sharing these images on Facebook? 

Its time to wake up to the suffering of others, to feel their pain and make it your own. It is time to join the fight to stop this senseless slaughter of the Rohingya people. It is time to scream America.

Will We Ever Break The Silence?

Zipped Lips, Bloodshot Eyes
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

Every since the end of the October massacres the few strong voices on Twitter and the blog-a-sphere have warned us of the coming "third massacre". Hate groups such as 969 in Myanmar have been feeding the fires that fuel the hate for Muslims across Burma. This was the same sort of fuel that had sparked the flames of the first two Rohingya pogroms. The religious fervor that they feed upon has not been subdued or left to die as the Buddhist monks help prop it up. And it was this basis that had led many of the Rohingya activist around the world to fear the next wave of massacres.

Jamila Hanan on Twitter (@JamilaHanan) spends countless hours warning her 8 thousand plus followers of the both present and coming massacres. Yet the vast majority of them remain silent or stuck in the world of retweets as the genocide goes unabated. Their voices remain silent as the screams of the Rohingya people echo out of the abyss Myanmar has created.

Apathy kills.

Aung Aung out of Sittwe, Burma (@AungAungsittwe on Twitter) is one of the few voices coming out of Myanmar can only get 2.5 thousand followers? Is the voice of the suffering not important enough to warrant some attention? Or is Justin Bieber's 36 million plus followers just too fixated upon an idol to be bothered with the agony of their fellow man?

We may not all be able to travel to Burma to help the few NGOs still delivering aid to the Rohingya do their jobs. We may not all be able to gather the attention of millions of online followers. But we all can take a few moments out of our busy days to be human... to pay some attention to the plight of the most overlooked people on the planet. Our few voices raised together can help those in the most need. And yet our lips remain zipped.

I for one have been watching the horrible news scroll pass on a daily basis. The lack of help from others has left me jaded to the point of wondering what it would be like if genocide started here in the US tomorrow. Perhaps if the Myanmar monks used the phrase "nigger" instead of "kahlar" to describe the Rohingya than perhaps the West would pay attention. Perhaps if the Rohingya were not Muslim but rather Christians than US citizens might find them more ready for their help. Or perhaps if the Rohingya were not wrongfully accused of being "illegal immigrants" than perhaps conservatives could find it in them to scream for the Rohingya.

Or perhaps this post is just a result of my bloodshot eyes and jaded mind. Whatever the case, the plight of the Rohingya people leaves me to ask just how much better a world it would be if there were more people willing to scream?