12 December, 2024
Author: Hein Htet Kyaw
Pic: displaced Rohingya in 2017, from Wikimedia Commons
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group from the state of Arakan (Rakhine). A British scholar named Francis Buchanan-Hamilton said in his 1799 article "Burma Empire" that "the Mohammedans, who have long dwelt in Arakan," refer to themselves as "Rooinga, or natives of Arakan". "Inhabitant of Rohang" was the early Muslim name for Arakan.
Rohingya have been denied citizenship since the 1980s under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. In 2017, 740,000 out of 1.4 million living in Burma had to flee the country because of the genocide attempts by the Myanmar military junta. U Thein Sein, the former President of Myanmar and former Myanmar military leader, once stated that “there are no Rohingya among the races in Burma. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming during British rules”. Golden Hand, a mouthpiece for U Hla Swe, an ultranationalist former USDP (pro-military) MP who goes by the nickname “Bullet Hla Swe”, once publicly stated that “All intruders must be hanged”, referring to Rohingyas as illegal immigrants and spreading the conspiracy theory that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (a consortium of states with large Muslim populations) was working to destroy Myanmar and to establish a separate “Islamic state in Burma”.
The Myanmar military junta considered Rohingyas to be illegal post-colonial Bengali immigrants and radical Islamists. It committed war crimes against the Rohingya population and forced an exodus. Aung San Suu Kyi, once a Nobel Prize winner and a democracy icon, sided with the military on this and, for short-term compromised political gain, defended them at the UN International Court of Justice, ignoring the atrocities suffered by Rohingyas.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the political party called the United League of Arakan (ULA), which was established on April 10, 2009. The United League of Arakan is an ethno-nationalist separatist group which seek to form a sovereign ethno-state for Arakanese people with confederate style association to Burma. It is popular for its involvement in the “Three Brother Alliance” which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which led operation 1027 against the Myanmar military junta.
In an interview with The New Humanitarian, the ULA/AA claimed that AA is now the largest de facto state-armed organisation in Myanmar in terms of manpower. In the same interview, AA officially stated that "Rohingya" is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, their fatherland, by destroying the integrity of their ancestral history.
AA said in the same interview that "as Arakanese people are a part of the Bangladeshi nation, [so] Bengali is a part of the Arakan nation". According to AA, there is ample evidence of mass migration from Bengal to Arakan during British colonial rule. But, they say, if "a particular group of people tries to claim as ‘Rohingya’ rather than ‘Bengali’", then that "is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, ourfatherland, by destroying the integrity of our ancestral history".
AA conflated Rohingyas with hundreds of thousands of post-colonial Bengalis who migrated to Arakan, particularly during the "War of Liberation" in Bangladesh. The above-mentioned narrative of conflating Rohingya and Bengali is essentially the same as the Myanmar military junta.
Tun Mrat Naing, the commander in chief of ULA/AA, has been Rohingyas "Bengalis" for the past ten years, thus adopting the Myanmar military's position when it comes to the Rohingya issue.
So the United League of Arakan seems to agree with the Myanmar military junta when it comes to the indigenous status of Rohingya. They view Rohingya people as post-colonial Bengali settlers who are trying to separate off a part of Arakan's ancestral fatherland. That is essentially right-wing bigotry, xenophobic and ultranationalist in nature.
The narrative is false on two levels. Firstly, Bengali are not post-colonial settlers. Secondly, Bengali and Rohingya are distinct ethnic groups, with different traits.
Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King, became the king of the Launggyet Dynasty in 1404 but was driven out of Launggyet in 1406 by Crown Prince Minye Kyawswa of Ava. He sought refuge in the Bengal Sultanate and later entered the military service of Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah. In 1429, he reclaimed the Arakanese throne with the help of the sultan and ruled the kingdom. He founded a new capital, Mrauk-U, in 1430 at a more strategic location, and took the Arabic name of “Suleiman Shah” while maintaining his Buddhist faith.
It’s said that Kingdom of Mrauk U was home to a multiethnic population with the city of Mrauk U being home to mosques, temples, shrines, seminaries and libraries. Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was asked to help to re-establish an Arakanese dynasty by Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King. Khayi, a son of Min Saw Mon, succeeded to the throne and took the title Ali Khan. Their newly founded kingdom was a vassal of Bengal.
According to the Arakanese chronicles, Khayi managed to unify the Arakanese region and to break the ties with the Bengal Sultanate, and even managed to occupy the Chittagong area, taking it from Sultan Rukunuddin Barbak Shah.
Bengalis were not settlers coming in after the colonial period. They were not even colonial-period settlers. Areas such as Chittagong and Mrauk-U were under both the Bengal Sultanate and Arakanese kingdoms at different times of the history. That explains both Arakanese indigenous history and Rohingya indigenous history.
Since the coup in 2021, both Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation have allied with the Myanmar military junta and fought against the Arakan Army, even though the military junta was the regime that committed genocide against the Rohingyas and was accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. To heighten sectarian tensions, the ultranationalist Buddhist military junta and Rohingya Islamic terrorists started setting fire to Buthidaung town's mostly Buddhist and Hindu neighbourhoods on April 11.
On the other side of the Mayu River, the Arakan Army was seizing total control while these attacks continued throughout April in Buthidaung town. It besieged and overran the last military installations of the junta one by one.
The Myanmar military junta and the NUG/CRPH government-in-exile in Myanmar both removed AA from the official state level terrorist organisations list following the coup d'état in 2021. Initially, a temporary ceasefire was agreed to by the junta and the Arakan Army.
Later, though, the Arakan Army began to enlarge its territory and participated in Operation 1027. Currently, the Arakan Army has taken control of several cities, airports, and other locations. During the last week of April, a few Rohingya villages including Raza Berha village and others in the region which Arakan Army controlled were burnt down.
On May 17, 2024, a familiar image unsettled the Rohingya neighbourhoods of Buthidaung, in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Before setting their homes on fire, armed gunmen from Arakan Army had arrived at their doors and given them the order to leave. They were warned that they would burn along with their house if they refused. Almost 400 houses in residential neighbourhoods for Rohingya people were set on fire when the Arakan Army took control of the two border guard police camps and the final four light army battalions in Buthidaung on May 18. On 17 May 2024, there was allegedly widespread burning because of Arakan Army advances on the northern Rakhine town of Buthidaung, forcing thousands of Rohingya civilians to flee their homes. Additionally, on August 5, a group of Rohingya villagers were slain while leaving the town of Maungdaw, which is close to the Bangladeshi border.
After being driven from their houses by Arakan Army soldiers into a riverbed, Rohingya from many communities were attacked by drones carrying explosives. Even though the survivors attributed the attacks to the Arakan Army, those attacks against Rohingya have been denied by the Arakan Army.
The hatred and segregation between the communities will increase significantly at the rate at which the Arakan Army is committing war crimes against the Rohingya people and the Rohingya Islamist groups are working with the Myanmar military junta to commit war crimes against the Buddhist Arakanese population and Hindu minority people in the Rohingya-dominated areas.
If the Arakan Army were to eventually free its Arakan homeland from the Myanmar military junta, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others might end up serving as the regime's proxies. In the worst situation, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others would reorganise under their original political Islamist tenets and begin calling for the establishment of an independent Rohingya state.
The leaders of both ethnic groups should take into consideration a single secular state approach to arrive at the best and most practical long-term answer. A multicultural country where the rights of the Arakanese and Rohingya are respected might represent a restoration to the Mrauk-U kingdom's former state.
The historical evidence of the Mrauk-U Kingdom, where the Muslim sultanate and Arakanese Buddhist respect both religions and cultural heritages, must not be overlooked, especially since the Arakan Army always takes pride in its palingenesis politics. That would only be feasible if there was a chance for a different political environment in which the Rohingya and Arakanese would support one another in opposing the belligerent ruling classes of their own ethnic groups.
It is imperative to combat those who assert that their own group is the one native to the Arakan region, and accuse the other group of being post-colonial settlers. These people pose a threat to multicultural society and are fundamentally fascistic.
In conclusion, it's critical that everyone support the fight for universal human rights and civil rights by standing with unarmed civilians on both sides of the conflict. It's also crucial to remember that nobody in any area associated with Bharat is a post-colonial settler. Numerous large migrations have occurred in this area, scattering people from different ethnic backgrounds throughout.
The Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet, regardless of whether they are native to the area or not. Every person has an obligation to ensure that the governing classes and governments understand that.
Pic: displaced Rohingya in 2017, from Wikimedia Commons
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group from the state of Arakan (Rakhine). A British scholar named Francis Buchanan-Hamilton said in his 1799 article "Burma Empire" that "the Mohammedans, who have long dwelt in Arakan," refer to themselves as "Rooinga, or natives of Arakan". "Inhabitant of Rohang" was the early Muslim name for Arakan.
Rohingya have been denied citizenship since the 1980s under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. In 2017, 740,000 out of 1.4 million living in Burma had to flee the country because of the genocide attempts by the Myanmar military junta. U Thein Sein, the former President of Myanmar and former Myanmar military leader, once stated that “there are no Rohingya among the races in Burma. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming during British rules”. Golden Hand, a mouthpiece for U Hla Swe, an ultranationalist former USDP (pro-military) MP who goes by the nickname “Bullet Hla Swe”, once publicly stated that “All intruders must be hanged”, referring to Rohingyas as illegal immigrants and spreading the conspiracy theory that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (a consortium of states with large Muslim populations) was working to destroy Myanmar and to establish a separate “Islamic state in Burma”.
The Myanmar military junta considered Rohingyas to be illegal post-colonial Bengali immigrants and radical Islamists. It committed war crimes against the Rohingya population and forced an exodus. Aung San Suu Kyi, once a Nobel Prize winner and a democracy icon, sided with the military on this and, for short-term compromised political gain, defended them at the UN International Court of Justice, ignoring the atrocities suffered by Rohingyas.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the political party called the United League of Arakan (ULA), which was established on April 10, 2009. The United League of Arakan is an ethno-nationalist separatist group which seek to form a sovereign ethno-state for Arakanese people with confederate style association to Burma. It is popular for its involvement in the “Three Brother Alliance” which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which led operation 1027 against the Myanmar military junta.
In an interview with The New Humanitarian, the ULA/AA claimed that AA is now the largest de facto state-armed organisation in Myanmar in terms of manpower. In the same interview, AA officially stated that "Rohingya" is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, their fatherland, by destroying the integrity of their ancestral history.
AA said in the same interview that "as Arakanese people are a part of the Bangladeshi nation, [so] Bengali is a part of the Arakan nation". According to AA, there is ample evidence of mass migration from Bengal to Arakan during British colonial rule. But, they say, if "a particular group of people tries to claim as ‘Rohingya’ rather than ‘Bengali’", then that "is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, ourfatherland, by destroying the integrity of our ancestral history".
AA conflated Rohingyas with hundreds of thousands of post-colonial Bengalis who migrated to Arakan, particularly during the "War of Liberation" in Bangladesh. The above-mentioned narrative of conflating Rohingya and Bengali is essentially the same as the Myanmar military junta.
Tun Mrat Naing, the commander in chief of ULA/AA, has been Rohingyas "Bengalis" for the past ten years, thus adopting the Myanmar military's position when it comes to the Rohingya issue.
So the United League of Arakan seems to agree with the Myanmar military junta when it comes to the indigenous status of Rohingya. They view Rohingya people as post-colonial Bengali settlers who are trying to separate off a part of Arakan's ancestral fatherland. That is essentially right-wing bigotry, xenophobic and ultranationalist in nature.
The narrative is false on two levels. Firstly, Bengali are not post-colonial settlers. Secondly, Bengali and Rohingya are distinct ethnic groups, with different traits.
Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King, became the king of the Launggyet Dynasty in 1404 but was driven out of Launggyet in 1406 by Crown Prince Minye Kyawswa of Ava. He sought refuge in the Bengal Sultanate and later entered the military service of Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah. In 1429, he reclaimed the Arakanese throne with the help of the sultan and ruled the kingdom. He founded a new capital, Mrauk-U, in 1430 at a more strategic location, and took the Arabic name of “Suleiman Shah” while maintaining his Buddhist faith.
It’s said that Kingdom of Mrauk U was home to a multiethnic population with the city of Mrauk U being home to mosques, temples, shrines, seminaries and libraries. Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was asked to help to re-establish an Arakanese dynasty by Min Saw Mon, a well-known Arakanese King. Khayi, a son of Min Saw Mon, succeeded to the throne and took the title Ali Khan. Their newly founded kingdom was a vassal of Bengal.
According to the Arakanese chronicles, Khayi managed to unify the Arakanese region and to break the ties with the Bengal Sultanate, and even managed to occupy the Chittagong area, taking it from Sultan Rukunuddin Barbak Shah.
Bengalis were not settlers coming in after the colonial period. They were not even colonial-period settlers. Areas such as Chittagong and Mrauk-U were under both the Bengal Sultanate and Arakanese kingdoms at different times of the history. That explains both Arakanese indigenous history and Rohingya indigenous history.
Since the coup in 2021, both Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation have allied with the Myanmar military junta and fought against the Arakan Army, even though the military junta was the regime that committed genocide against the Rohingyas and was accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. To heighten sectarian tensions, the ultranationalist Buddhist military junta and Rohingya Islamic terrorists started setting fire to Buthidaung town's mostly Buddhist and Hindu neighbourhoods on April 11.
On the other side of the Mayu River, the Arakan Army was seizing total control while these attacks continued throughout April in Buthidaung town. It besieged and overran the last military installations of the junta one by one.
The Myanmar military junta and the NUG/CRPH government-in-exile in Myanmar both removed AA from the official state level terrorist organisations list following the coup d'état in 2021. Initially, a temporary ceasefire was agreed to by the junta and the Arakan Army.
Later, though, the Arakan Army began to enlarge its territory and participated in Operation 1027. Currently, the Arakan Army has taken control of several cities, airports, and other locations. During the last week of April, a few Rohingya villages including Raza Berha village and others in the region which Arakan Army controlled were burnt down.
On May 17, 2024, a familiar image unsettled the Rohingya neighbourhoods of Buthidaung, in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Before setting their homes on fire, armed gunmen from Arakan Army had arrived at their doors and given them the order to leave. They were warned that they would burn along with their house if they refused. Almost 400 houses in residential neighbourhoods for Rohingya people were set on fire when the Arakan Army took control of the two border guard police camps and the final four light army battalions in Buthidaung on May 18. On 17 May 2024, there was allegedly widespread burning because of Arakan Army advances on the northern Rakhine town of Buthidaung, forcing thousands of Rohingya civilians to flee their homes. Additionally, on August 5, a group of Rohingya villagers were slain while leaving the town of Maungdaw, which is close to the Bangladeshi border.
After being driven from their houses by Arakan Army soldiers into a riverbed, Rohingya from many communities were attacked by drones carrying explosives. Even though the survivors attributed the attacks to the Arakan Army, those attacks against Rohingya have been denied by the Arakan Army.
The hatred and segregation between the communities will increase significantly at the rate at which the Arakan Army is committing war crimes against the Rohingya people and the Rohingya Islamist groups are working with the Myanmar military junta to commit war crimes against the Buddhist Arakanese population and Hindu minority people in the Rohingya-dominated areas.
If the Arakan Army were to eventually free its Arakan homeland from the Myanmar military junta, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others might end up serving as the regime's proxies. In the worst situation, Rohingya Islamist organisations such as ARSA, RSO, and others would reorganise under their original political Islamist tenets and begin calling for the establishment of an independent Rohingya state.
The leaders of both ethnic groups should take into consideration a single secular state approach to arrive at the best and most practical long-term answer. A multicultural country where the rights of the Arakanese and Rohingya are respected might represent a restoration to the Mrauk-U kingdom's former state.
The historical evidence of the Mrauk-U Kingdom, where the Muslim sultanate and Arakanese Buddhist respect both religions and cultural heritages, must not be overlooked, especially since the Arakan Army always takes pride in its palingenesis politics. That would only be feasible if there was a chance for a different political environment in which the Rohingya and Arakanese would support one another in opposing the belligerent ruling classes of their own ethnic groups.
It is imperative to combat those who assert that their own group is the one native to the Arakan region, and accuse the other group of being post-colonial settlers. These people pose a threat to multicultural society and are fundamentally fascistic.
In conclusion, it's critical that everyone support the fight for universal human rights and civil rights by standing with unarmed civilians on both sides of the conflict. It's also crucial to remember that nobody in any area associated with Bharat is a post-colonial settler. Numerous large migrations have occurred in this area, scattering people from different ethnic backgrounds throughout.
The Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet, regardless of whether they are native to the area or not. Every person has an obligation to ensure that the governing classes and governments understand that.
Political Buddhism and Political Islam in Arakan
WORKERS LIBERTY
12 December, 2024 -
Author: Hein Htet Kyaw
Pic: from Wikimedia Commons
Prior to British colonisation, the Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese Buddhists coexisted amicably in the area for decades and even centuries. Bengali Muslim settlements in Arakan were first documented during the reign of Min Saw Mon (1430–34) of the Kingdom of Mrauk U. However, there is no historical record of interethnic or interreligious warfare.
To free Burma from British colonial rule, Burmese insurgents forged an alliance with the Japanese Empire during World War Two. Even though the Japanese Empire was a fascist state in terms of political theory, most Burmese nationalists and left-wing rebels initially believed that it would liberate Burma. General Aung San, who was the founding father of the “Burma Independence Army” and a co-founder of “Communist Party of Burma”, led the group of Thirty Comrades to receive military training from the Japanese Army.
There were, nevertheless, some communist dissenters. The "Insein Manifesto," a thesis written by Thakin Soe, the important leader and theoretical head of the "Communist Party of Burma" at the time, essentially declared that fascism was more dangerous than colonialism. Consequently, the Marxist faction of Thakin Soe remained opposed to the Japanese Empire and supported the British Indian colonial regime.
Certain ethnic groups with distinct political interests, like the Karen, supported the British-Indian colonial government and continued to oppose the Japanese Empire. However, the Arakanese, a distinct ethnic community from Burma, rebelled against British domination and sided with the Burmese majority.
In northern Arakan, the British armed Muslims to counter the largely pro-Japanese ethnic Arakanese and to create a buffer zone that would protect the region from a Japanese invasion after they retreated. The British offered the Rohingya a separate Islamic state in exchange for their loyalty to the British Empire. Violence also erupted between Rohingya militants linked with the British and Burmese-Arakanese nationalist movements during this period.
Over 20,000 Arakanese were tortured, raped, and killed by Muslims from Northern Rakhine State. Buddhist Arakanese and Japanese forces retaliated by killing, raping, and torturing Indians, Bengalis, and Rohingya Muslims. Tens of thousands of Rohingya were forced into the Bengal state of British India.
The Rohingya Muslims in western Arakan launched a separatist movement in the 1940s to join the East Pakistan Movement. The Mujahideen, a well-known Islamist organisation that was active in the Afghanistan-Soviet War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Philippines, and Pakistan, were crucial to the Rohingya Muslim movement in western Arakan. Muslim leaders claimed that they had been promised a "Muslim National Area" in the Maungdaw area by the British. During 1946, the creation of an independent Rohingya state was also demanded.
Given their religious affinities and proximity to East Pakistan, Muslim leaders from Arakan wrote to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, before to Burma's independence in January 1948, requesting his help in assimilating the Mayu region into Pakistan. Two months later, at modern-day Sittwe, the North Arakan Muslim League was established. The political Islamist objective here was never carried out because Jinnah allegedly rejected it, stating that he had no business meddling in Burmese affairs.
The Rohingya Independence Front (RIF) was founded on April 26, 1964, with the intention of establishing an independent Muslim area for the Rohingya. After changing its name to the Rohingya Independence Army in 1969, the group changed its name to the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) on September 12, 1973. Following the separation of the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) into extremist factions, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) was established in 1982.
Many Islamist organizations, including Angkatan Belia Islam sa-Malaysia, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami, Hizb-e-Islami, and the Islamic Youth Organization of Malaysia, supported it. Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) was founded in 1982 following a large-scale military operation conducted by the Myanmar Army. Operating in exile in Cox's Bazaar, the Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) was established on October 28, 1998, following the merger of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front.
In 2012, a Buddhist woman in Arakan was raped by a group of male assailants who were supposedly of Muslim and Rohingya ethnic backgrounds. The cops arrested three individuals and sent them to a nearby jail via bus. Perhaps believing that those were among those on board, a mob attacked a bus in a nearby city. After the Rohingya Muslims retaliated, there were intercommunal rioting, which significantly contributed to the growth of the 969 movement in Burma. The violence caused an estimated 90,000 people to be displaced, and 2,528 houses were set on fire; 1,336 of the homes belonged to Rohingyas, and 1,192 to Arakanese.
Given the instances of intercommunal rioting, the Myanmar military's dictators saw it as a chance to manipulate most Burmese nationalists and Buddhist leaders, who had previously been anti-military, into viewing the military as a protector of Buddhism. Venerable Wirathu, who was dubbed the “Face of Buddhist Terror” had the history of starting an anti-Muslim riot in 2003. He came to equate all Rohingya and Muslims with terrorists. He refused to seek solidarity between the communities.
Venerable Wirathu along with some other nationalist monks, started to form the 969 movement, which later became the Patriotic Association of Myanmar. The anti-Muslim racist 969 movement and Patriotic Association of Myanmar, even though most of the organisers had close ties with the 2007 Saffron revolution and anti-military activism for years, ended up taking the Myanmar military as the defenders of Buddhism from Islamism. The Myanmar military declared a lot of policies against the Rohingya population in the Arakan region and committed several human rights violations and war crimes.
As a result, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) with the original name Harakah al-Yaqin (the Faith Movement) was founded in 2013. Later, the name “Harakah al-Yaqin” was changed to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Even though both Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army are based on Rohingya nationalism and Islamism, they do not get along with each other and each is always busy murdering the cadres of the other group in Bangladeshi refugee camps and elsewhere. On 25 August 2017, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army massacred 99 Bengali Hindu villagers. There were other incidents where Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army committed massacres against Bengali Hindus, Christians and Arakanese Buddhists too. ARSA has traditionally prioritised a secular nationalist viewpoint above a religious one. This has prevented global jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State from establishing a new front in South-east Asia.
However, Katibah al-Mahdi fi Bilad al-Arakan, a new pro-Rohingya rebel group that publicly professed allegiance to the Islamic State and preached jihadist views, appeared in November 2020. Al-Qaeda chiefs of the time ,Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State, had both called for jihad against Myanmar to exact revenge for the horrors committed by the military regime. The Rohingya cause has garnered significant support from regional jihadist networks in South and South-east Asia.
Notably, the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State's offshoot in Bangladesh have provided training, weaponry, and financial support to prospective jihadist groups in Arakan State. Furthermore, it has been claimed that Salafi-Jihadist organisations in Indonesia intend to recruit 1,200 volunteers for "humanitarian jihad" in Myanmar, with the stated goal of helping Rohingya populations.
Even though Arakanese nationalists viewed Burmanization as a form of colonialism, Burmese and Arakanese nationalists have a history of cooperating against the Rohingya, whom they frequently mistakenly referred to as Bengalis, to deny indigenous and citizenship rights. The Bangladesh army's state-sponsored extermination and Islamization campaigns against the indigenous Chakma and Marma people, who are Buddhist and Hindu, in the Chittagong Hill Tract, strengthened the anti-Rohingya and anti-Bengali political stances of Burmese and Arakanese nationalists.
Given that the Arakan Army always takes pride in exalting the Mrauk-U Kingdom, it is important to recognise the historical evidence that indicates the Bengalis and Rohingyas, as well as the Arakanese living in the area, respected one another and all the religions and cultural heritages that were related to Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. As in the past, the Arakan Army and Arakanese Buddhist nationalists ought to learn to live in harmony with the Bengalis and Rohingyas.
The more irrational fear Arakanese Buddhist nationalists have of the Bengalis and Rohingyas, the more similar the views of Bengalis and Rohingyas will be towards Arakanese and Burmese Buddhist nationalists. The Arakan Army's war crimes against the Rohingyas and Bengalis will attract more of them to the radicalisation of political Islam, perhaps accelerating the prospect for ethno-state separatist movements and the othering of politics between the communities.
To have a multicultural Arakan where all the diverse ethnic groups can live peacefully and in harmony, it’s important to make sure that the Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese and Arakanese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet.
Pic: from Wikimedia Commons
Prior to British colonisation, the Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese Buddhists coexisted amicably in the area for decades and even centuries. Bengali Muslim settlements in Arakan were first documented during the reign of Min Saw Mon (1430–34) of the Kingdom of Mrauk U. However, there is no historical record of interethnic or interreligious warfare.
To free Burma from British colonial rule, Burmese insurgents forged an alliance with the Japanese Empire during World War Two. Even though the Japanese Empire was a fascist state in terms of political theory, most Burmese nationalists and left-wing rebels initially believed that it would liberate Burma. General Aung San, who was the founding father of the “Burma Independence Army” and a co-founder of “Communist Party of Burma”, led the group of Thirty Comrades to receive military training from the Japanese Army.
There were, nevertheless, some communist dissenters. The "Insein Manifesto," a thesis written by Thakin Soe, the important leader and theoretical head of the "Communist Party of Burma" at the time, essentially declared that fascism was more dangerous than colonialism. Consequently, the Marxist faction of Thakin Soe remained opposed to the Japanese Empire and supported the British Indian colonial regime.
Certain ethnic groups with distinct political interests, like the Karen, supported the British-Indian colonial government and continued to oppose the Japanese Empire. However, the Arakanese, a distinct ethnic community from Burma, rebelled against British domination and sided with the Burmese majority.
In northern Arakan, the British armed Muslims to counter the largely pro-Japanese ethnic Arakanese and to create a buffer zone that would protect the region from a Japanese invasion after they retreated. The British offered the Rohingya a separate Islamic state in exchange for their loyalty to the British Empire. Violence also erupted between Rohingya militants linked with the British and Burmese-Arakanese nationalist movements during this period.
Over 20,000 Arakanese were tortured, raped, and killed by Muslims from Northern Rakhine State. Buddhist Arakanese and Japanese forces retaliated by killing, raping, and torturing Indians, Bengalis, and Rohingya Muslims. Tens of thousands of Rohingya were forced into the Bengal state of British India.
The Rohingya Muslims in western Arakan launched a separatist movement in the 1940s to join the East Pakistan Movement. The Mujahideen, a well-known Islamist organisation that was active in the Afghanistan-Soviet War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Philippines, and Pakistan, were crucial to the Rohingya Muslim movement in western Arakan. Muslim leaders claimed that they had been promised a "Muslim National Area" in the Maungdaw area by the British. During 1946, the creation of an independent Rohingya state was also demanded.
Given their religious affinities and proximity to East Pakistan, Muslim leaders from Arakan wrote to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, before to Burma's independence in January 1948, requesting his help in assimilating the Mayu region into Pakistan. Two months later, at modern-day Sittwe, the North Arakan Muslim League was established. The political Islamist objective here was never carried out because Jinnah allegedly rejected it, stating that he had no business meddling in Burmese affairs.
The Rohingya Independence Front (RIF) was founded on April 26, 1964, with the intention of establishing an independent Muslim area for the Rohingya. After changing its name to the Rohingya Independence Army in 1969, the group changed its name to the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) on September 12, 1973. Following the separation of the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) into extremist factions, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) was established in 1982.
Many Islamist organizations, including Angkatan Belia Islam sa-Malaysia, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Jamaat-e-Islami, Hizb-e-Islami, and the Islamic Youth Organization of Malaysia, supported it. Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) was founded in 1982 following a large-scale military operation conducted by the Myanmar Army. Operating in exile in Cox's Bazaar, the Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) was established on October 28, 1998, following the merger of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front.
In 2012, a Buddhist woman in Arakan was raped by a group of male assailants who were supposedly of Muslim and Rohingya ethnic backgrounds. The cops arrested three individuals and sent them to a nearby jail via bus. Perhaps believing that those were among those on board, a mob attacked a bus in a nearby city. After the Rohingya Muslims retaliated, there were intercommunal rioting, which significantly contributed to the growth of the 969 movement in Burma. The violence caused an estimated 90,000 people to be displaced, and 2,528 houses were set on fire; 1,336 of the homes belonged to Rohingyas, and 1,192 to Arakanese.
Given the instances of intercommunal rioting, the Myanmar military's dictators saw it as a chance to manipulate most Burmese nationalists and Buddhist leaders, who had previously been anti-military, into viewing the military as a protector of Buddhism. Venerable Wirathu, who was dubbed the “Face of Buddhist Terror” had the history of starting an anti-Muslim riot in 2003. He came to equate all Rohingya and Muslims with terrorists. He refused to seek solidarity between the communities.
Venerable Wirathu along with some other nationalist monks, started to form the 969 movement, which later became the Patriotic Association of Myanmar. The anti-Muslim racist 969 movement and Patriotic Association of Myanmar, even though most of the organisers had close ties with the 2007 Saffron revolution and anti-military activism for years, ended up taking the Myanmar military as the defenders of Buddhism from Islamism. The Myanmar military declared a lot of policies against the Rohingya population in the Arakan region and committed several human rights violations and war crimes.
As a result, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) with the original name Harakah al-Yaqin (the Faith Movement) was founded in 2013. Later, the name “Harakah al-Yaqin” was changed to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Even though both Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army are based on Rohingya nationalism and Islamism, they do not get along with each other and each is always busy murdering the cadres of the other group in Bangladeshi refugee camps and elsewhere. On 25 August 2017, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army massacred 99 Bengali Hindu villagers. There were other incidents where Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army committed massacres against Bengali Hindus, Christians and Arakanese Buddhists too. ARSA has traditionally prioritised a secular nationalist viewpoint above a religious one. This has prevented global jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State from establishing a new front in South-east Asia.
However, Katibah al-Mahdi fi Bilad al-Arakan, a new pro-Rohingya rebel group that publicly professed allegiance to the Islamic State and preached jihadist views, appeared in November 2020. Al-Qaeda chiefs of the time ,Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State, had both called for jihad against Myanmar to exact revenge for the horrors committed by the military regime. The Rohingya cause has garnered significant support from regional jihadist networks in South and South-east Asia.
Notably, the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State's offshoot in Bangladesh have provided training, weaponry, and financial support to prospective jihadist groups in Arakan State. Furthermore, it has been claimed that Salafi-Jihadist organisations in Indonesia intend to recruit 1,200 volunteers for "humanitarian jihad" in Myanmar, with the stated goal of helping Rohingya populations.
Even though Arakanese nationalists viewed Burmanization as a form of colonialism, Burmese and Arakanese nationalists have a history of cooperating against the Rohingya, whom they frequently mistakenly referred to as Bengalis, to deny indigenous and citizenship rights. The Bangladesh army's state-sponsored extermination and Islamization campaigns against the indigenous Chakma and Marma people, who are Buddhist and Hindu, in the Chittagong Hill Tract, strengthened the anti-Rohingya and anti-Bengali political stances of Burmese and Arakanese nationalists.
Given that the Arakan Army always takes pride in exalting the Mrauk-U Kingdom, it is important to recognise the historical evidence that indicates the Bengalis and Rohingyas, as well as the Arakanese living in the area, respected one another and all the religions and cultural heritages that were related to Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. As in the past, the Arakan Army and Arakanese Buddhist nationalists ought to learn to live in harmony with the Bengalis and Rohingyas.
The more irrational fear Arakanese Buddhist nationalists have of the Bengalis and Rohingyas, the more similar the views of Bengalis and Rohingyas will be towards Arakanese and Burmese Buddhist nationalists. The Arakan Army's war crimes against the Rohingyas and Bengalis will attract more of them to the radicalisation of political Islam, perhaps accelerating the prospect for ethno-state separatist movements and the othering of politics between the communities.
To have a multicultural Arakan where all the diverse ethnic groups can live peacefully and in harmony, it’s important to make sure that the Rohingya should have the same civil rights as Burmese and Arakanese citizens and the same universal human rights as all people on the planet.
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