By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Politics Discussion - The utter lack of western media's reporting on Burmese Genocide is appalling...

Yeah, the idea this topic hasn't been in mainstream news is kind of a strawman.
And if the OP missed it, Myanmar DOES have significant amounts of gas/oil. Whoops.
FYI, Sri Lankan oppression vs Tamils was certainly previous example of "Buddhist terror" though I agree the concept escapes mainstream worldview.
Ironic how so much wrong can coexist with so much self-righteousness in OP's post.



Around the Network

I wonder what their relationship with Christian is also like. On wikipedia it says the percentage is higher but I don't see any attack reports on them. So it makes me think they either have special hatred towards muslims or (some) muslims in fact do things that made them retaliate.

But it is sad hearing that many innocents have to die just because of the few that presumably make terrorist attempts. Also, I don't see how US intervention would help in such a place where they have that hatred so internalized. Besides US can't be the protector of everything everywhere.



...Let the Sony Domination continue with the PS4...
Aeolus451 said:
I have a suspicion of why the news is tip toeing around this. I'll keep that to myself. It has nothing to do with religion. 

1) Distancing from British responsibilty for creation of situation
2) Imperialist competition for influence with Burmese government ala US, Japan rivalry with China.
(Approach problem by 'imperialists sanctioning Burmese government' will only push them to embrace countries who don't.)
    The alternative of simply arranging safe new home for them whether in Bangladesh or elsewhere actually involves
    financial costs and domestic political implications wherever they would be settled, and that's complicated so why bother?



mutantsushi said:
Aeolus451 said:
I have a suspicion of why the news is tip toeing around this. I'll keep that to myself. It has nothing to do with religion. 

1) Distancing from British responsibilty for creation of situation
2) Imperialist competition for influence with Burmese government ala US, Japan rivalry with China.
(Approach problem by 'imperialists sanctioning Burmese government' will only push them to embrace countries who don't.)
    The alternative of simply arranging safe new home for them whether in Bangladesh or elsewhere actually involves
    financial costs and domestic political implications wherever they would be settled, and that's complicated so why bother?

They were sanctioned before as a way of putting pressure on them to stop doing the same kind of shit (different ethnic groups) they are doing now. Of course, they'll do business where they can to make up for the sactions. Some countries might have imperialist intentions while others just want to put out fires as they happen. How else do you deal with a government that's killing alot of innocent people outside of sanctions/threatening their interests and/or war?

On the new home thing, inching towards what I think you are? It is complicated because each country has their own issues to deal with and adding more refugees doesn't help that a great deal. If a country is up to it, I don't care. The US is already involved with a bunch of different countries. The UN should step to the plate on this either through action, financal aid or whatever. This is definitely right up their alley.



fluky-nintendy said:
I wonder what their relationship with Christian is also like. On wikipedia it says the percentage is higher but I don't see any attack reports on them. So it makes me think they either have special hatred towards muslims or (some) muslims in fact do things that made them retaliate. 

The Christians are almost all members of hill tribes, mostly Karen in E Burma, and in Chin State in SW, north of Arakan where Rohingya are. The primary factor is unlike Rohingya these are recognized national minorities seen as native residents of Burmese state, not colonial settlers. While these tribes have fought for autonomy in opposition to military/government, the legitimacy of their presence was not challenged as such, even if their communities are poorer and marginalized from power especially in military dictatorship era (though some also participated in army). Also important to note that Rohingya are probably less than half of Muslims in Burma, the rest being recognized ethnic minorities with citizenship. While generic sectarian sentiment very much exists, de facto it is tied up with specific ethnic groups and their status in majority Burmese society. 



Around the Network

Absolutely zero ties with the country, our media is too obsessed with trying to brainwash us with the delights of Mass Immigration & Multiculturalism.



Aeolus451 said:
mutantsushi said:

1) Distancing from British responsibilty for creation of situation
2) Imperialist competition for influence with Burmese government ala US, Japan rivalry with China.
(Approach problem by 'imperialists sanctioning Burmese government' will only push them to embrace countries who don't.)
The alternative of simply arranging safe new home for them whether in Bangladesh or elsewhere actually involves
financial costs and domestic political implications wherever they would be settled, and that's complicated so why bother?

They were sanctioned before as a way of putting pressure on them to stop doing the same kind of shit (different ethnic groups) they are doing now. Of course, they'll do business where they can to make up for the sactions. Some countries might have imperialist intentions while others just want to put out fires as they happen. How else do you deal with a government that's killing alot of innocent people outside of sanctions/threatening their interests and/or war?

On the new home thing, inching towards what I think you are? It is complicated because each country has their own issues to deal with and adding more refugees doesn't help that a great deal. If a country is up to it, I don't care. The US is already involved with a bunch of different countries. The UN should step to the plate on this either through action, financal aid or whatever. This is definitely right up their alley.

Sanctions are obviously largely ineffective at actually effecting change, US sanctioned Iraq for decades for only effect to kill a million civilians thru deprivation, while finally going to war a decade later. Largely it's a mean to 'bleed' enemies (abstract concept, real victims), and this can be done thru sponsored insurgency as well, e.g. Nazi UPA remnants terrorizing Soviet Ukraine after WWII even though nobody expected them to "win". The opposing interest against doing that is competition in national/business interests, and really that isn't just China e.g. Japan did not impose same sanctions but pushed major investments while US was still in sanctions mode in 90s. Note, the US didn't sanction Burma until the 90s, despite the military government pursuing the same type of conflicts vs ethnic militia earlier because the ethnic militia were allied with Communists the US preferred to have military dictatorship killing them.

Re: settlement, as I said that it's complicated, costly, etc, is exactly why issue is downplayed and not addressed. UN doesn't have any $ of it's own, it's irrelevant to suggest them doing something, they can at most be FORMAT for refugee support but that doesn't address location of refugees. Certainly many countries can help if they so choose, "Rohingya" refugees already live in many countries. Bangladesh is natural destination given the country was started as nation for Muslim Bengalis which Rohingya are, but there is political and financial issues there which at least need 3rd party support, if that means others help pay for it while not taking Rohingya immigrants themselves, that's politics. UK's historic responsibility certainly is hard to ignore, and they plausibly can play a role $ or people wise, and have existing Bengali community as well. The more countries that can help either $ or people wise the more realistic it is to solve it, doesn't really matter who these countries are, but not helping in these areas is not part of solution, and neither is pearl clutching. Maybe there is some sentiment that resettlement is less legitimate because they should all be able to stay where they are, but that ignores the historical illegitimacy behind large "Rohingya" population there and Myanmar/Burma is 110% conscious of that factor. So pretty clear that resettlement of at least large majority is the objective means to solve problem and prevent further human rights violations, issue is just who is willing to help. Or not.



It's been getting a lot of attention in the west lately... To be fair, there's plenty of bad news to keep the west occupied without looking to Burma.



Can anyone actually explain why Buddhists are attacking Muslims here. I have no knowledge of the situation.



Sony want to make money by selling art, Nintendo want to make money by selling fun, Microsoft want to make money.

mutantsushi said:
konnichiwa said:

Not totally true tho, those people lived their for generations and never got the same freedom/rights like other citizens

So with a Japanese user name you should know other countries namely JAPAN also do not give citizenship just because one was born there, and in fact large communities of Chinese and Koreans live there with significantly less rights than Japanese citizens. 

konnichiwa said:

and while poverty/economic issues started the leaders/politicans/military leaders blamed that group while they maybe responsible for a small issue but certainly not responsible for the big issue that is/was going on in the country. Years we saw headlines about buddhists killling muslims and it was basically this region that they were talking about (even if not all the attackers were buddhists and all victims were muslim but it is better for the headlines). 

Your grammar and fundamental ideas here are hard to pin down, but I believe you're conflating the fact of Burma/Myanmar's decades long internal conflicts with other ethnic based militias (recognized as national minorities by Constitution) with the Arakan (SW Burma) issue which is fundamentally a national historic issue and not "poverty/economic" based. This is legacy of British colonialism which had subjugated Burma even integrating it to British Indian colonial regime, during which time large numbers of Bengalis moved to Arakan along with other Indians to Burma generally, this is indisputably recorded by colonial records. It IS historically established that some ethnic Bangladeshis had lived in Arakan before British and indeed before Burma had conquered it, these being invited by Arakan King who had ruled over areas of now-Bangladesh... But the British records undeniably show large #s of Bengalis moved there during colonial period, and "Rohingya" never accepted to distinguish these settlers. After regaining independence, large numbers of these Indians (including Pakistanis & Bangladeshis) who moved there during colonial occupation left to Indian territory, but "Rohingya" did not for whatever reason (rural location, illiteracy, integration with longer-existing Bengali community). This is national sovereign issue for Burmans because they don't believe they're obligated to extend citizenship to colonial settlers which they view Rohingya as. 

Of note, during WWII Burmans in general fought to remove British from Burma, but Bengali in Arakan (i.e. Rohingya) chose to side with the British rather than sympathize with Burmese fighting for national liberation. When Burma later achieved it's independence, that triggered "Rohingya" "mujahideen" movement seeking to secede and join Pakistan which at that time also included Bangladesh. So it's pretty clear they consistently identified with Islam and Pakistan more than they ever did Burma. Despite the portrayal of "Rohingya" as ethnic designation, it realy fails any objective measure of that, after all, knowing majority of them moved there during British colonial era that would imply an ethnic difference to existing community yet no claims or evidence of that exist, and along with shared dialect it is clear they are objectively same ethnicity as Chittagong Bengalis. Refugees in fact will often not describe themselves as "Rohingya" rather as "muslims from Arakan". That Bangladesh has not whole-heartedly welcomed them IMHO has to do with radical Islam being prevalent amonst them, to the extent of cooperation with Afghan mujahideen, and the semi-secular Bengali government which fought Pakistan for independence not wanting to undermine it's political majority. That and being more very poor people to increase burden on already poor country, while also not being fluent in centralized national standard dialect as opposed to their own dialect which is actualy shared with SE Bangladesh / Chittagong region. 

All of this is not to say that the "Rohingya" are not living in a legally precarious state, facing state organized as well as community based violence and hostility (this coming from Arakanese who should be noted are themselves minority within Burma at large, Arakan previously being it's own kingdom centuries ago). Much of this hostility, especially of the local community type, comes with fear based justifications largely revolving around threat of potential Rohingya local demographic dominance with higher birth rates due to cultural norms etc. I think approaching this issue from just one narrow angle is unrealistic and without prospect for lasting success. The legal implications of Rohingya/Bengali settlers during British era from Burman sovereigntist position cannot be swept away. At the same time, the idea a small component of "Rohingya" had long lived in Arakan previous to British may justify granting citizenship to some, even if all are not acceptable, especially given it is large population numbers which provoke Arakanese fears. Ultimately I believe other states need to accept their responsibility, namely Britain as well as Bangladesh and/or Pakistan. They should be able to accept and grant citizenship to majority of Rohingya, if Britain wants to pay Bangladesh to take a larger share so it doesn't itself, that is bilateral issue, and AFAIK other Muslim states have indicated tendency to support here e.g. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Malaysia. Bangladesh was founded on basis of being country for Muslim Bengalis, which Rohingya are, so trying to shut them out is nigh on incoherent, certainly Bangladesh is easiest new home for them to integrate given shared culture and language, but political and economic factors may not allow Bangladesh to take all of them even with economic support, so other countries involvement may likely be necessary, and that reasonably includes Britain who was liable for results of their colonialism during which population transfers occured. Financial support to Bangladesh (both direct and possible trade concessions, etc) is likely a critical part of solution IMHO.

Oh believe me, I complained about Japan a lot on the forums especially in the past including the issue that you stated but you can't really compare it with this situation, literally the brazilian community in Japan wasn't treated that well and it has lead to an exodus of Brazilian immigrants in Japan a peacefull one.

I just posted my comment because you can't make the situation a black and white one and the situation is that 10-100.000 people are trapped between bangladesh/rebels/military they even't can go back because they placed mines so yeah the situation for those Rohingya refugees/immigrants is inhumane.