Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness expresses the account of Kurtz, a manager of the station in the depth of Congo, while he was carrying a colonial mission into the “dark continent,” Africa.
The hatred for the native Africans and the exploitation of black lives show a darker side of human barbarity.
The tyranny was merely a part of the cleansing operation of an entire community of people living in that part of the world for thousands of years.
Let me introduce, quite analogically, the recent story of Myanmar, who are also exterminating helpless Rohingyas from Arakan state with brutal force.
It now seems the “clearing” operation of Myanmar’s armed forces is an all-out razing effort -- a meticulously planned effort of the extermination of a race.
This is just as odious as the Nazis’ venture of eliminating Jews from Europe.
In Azeem Ibrahim’s The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide, the author wonderfully details how a historical canard is used as a pretext to completely erase them from Myanmar.
The book also explores the fact that among 135 ethnic minorities, Rohingyas are the worst treated, stripped of all rights as citizens, depleted of wealth and property, pushed to the edge, and systematically exterminated.
The Rohingyas are considered to be originated from the Indo-Aryan ethnic group from Arakan. The origin of the word Rohingya has always been a controversial subject.
Many historians believe that the name was derived from the word “Rahaam,” meaning sympathy, used by the Arabian businessmen, as they were rescued from drowning by the small community of people living in that Rakhine state.
This story dates back to 8th century, hundreds of years before British Colonial rule.
The popular narrative used as a basis for effacing the Rohingyas is that, during colonial British rule, migration had been encouraged to Myanmar from India and Bangladesh.
This historical migration event takes place in the first quarter of the 19th century.
The word Rohingya is a recent invention, and they are identified as the descendents of the colonial-era immigrants in Bangladesh.
In the controversial 1982 Citizenship Law, drafted by the military, the name Rohingya is crafted out so as to legitimise their systematic expulsion from the land.
It is such drafted: “Nationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, or Shan who have settled in any of the territories included within the state as their permanent home anterior to 1823AD are Burma citizens.”
The torture perpetrated on the ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar has been quite unparalleled in modern history
Thus, the rights of an ethnic community living in the land for hundreds of years have been denied legislatively.
More controversial is the clause that says “The Council of State may decide whether any ethnic group is national or not” (clause 4, chapter II).
Even according to that controversial citizenship law, some recorded historical facts can give Rohingyas the scope to become naturalised citizens of the country.
An article published in the UNHCR website mentions how in 1799, Francis Buchanan, a surgeon with the British East India Company, travelled to Myanmar and met members of a Muslim ethnic group “who have long settled in Arakan [Rakhine], and who call themselves ‘Rooinga’ or natives of Arakan.”
That would indicate they were self-identified as Rohingya living in Rakhine at least 25 years before the 1823 cut-off for citizenship.
A good number of Muslim people lived in Arakan even before the timeline of eligibility was set by the military for citizenship.
When Arakan was an independent state and was ruled by Mrauk U from the mid-15th to late 18th century, many rulers of the same dynasty are known to have had Muslim titles in their names.
The later annexation of Arakan within Burmese territory (1785), therefore, has a historical record of the existence of a Muslim population.
Long before the set timeline, Muslim history thrived in Arakan state.
So, disowning them and forcing them into exile is merely an orchestrated event.
The torture perpetrated on the ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar has been quite unparalleled in modern history.
The history of disowning a people is a long-planned extermination formula.
Razing 1,200 homes, as can by Human Rights Watch through satellite images, is a step to drive people off their land.
Capsizing the boats, raping indiscriminately, mutilating people, blocking the media and international bodies would possibly give the victims a feeling similar to that as stated in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels: “I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.”
I am afraid people will lose faith in humanity if the international community plays the role of mere bystanders.
Like the fictional account of the historical brutality demonstrated in the African Congo by the coloniser in Conrad’s text, another account of suffering, deportation, and torture is surfacing in Myanmar today.
Sadat Zaman Khan is Assistant Professor and Chairman, Department of English, Premier University.