Three Faces of the Rohingya Crisis: Religious Nationalism, Asian Islamophobia, and Delegitimizing Citizenship

Abstract

Myanmar is a non-secular Buddhist majority country born out of the ashes of the murder of their leader of independence struggle, General Aung San, was assassinated on July 19, 1947, a few months before the independence of Burma on January 4, 1948. His failed legacy in integrating Myanmar into a multicultural nation which contains of Burmans as ethnic majority and non-Burman minorities continues to obsess Myanmar’s people. The Rohingya crisis is not a religious conflict between Islam and Buddhism because both of them have a long-shared history of peaceful coexistence. Furthermore, it is also not only a case of Buddhist persecution against Muslims as recognized by the Rohingyan nationalists. Actually, it is a clash between two views of nationalism over the claim to Myanmar citizenship. The conflict invokes Buddhist and Muslim nationalist in order to protect and preserve national ethnicities as religious identities in turn causing the rise of the new phenomena of Asian Islamophobia.

Multidimensional Social Crisis and Religion Harassment in Southeast Asia

“…The Rohingya crisis was not a religious conflict between Islam and Buddhism, as both had a long history of peaceful coexistence, but rather clashes between two views of nationalism for the claim of Burmese citizenship (Yusuf, 2018). The Rohingya faced the government's discrimination policy and discriminatory action since long ago, since its independence in 1948.…”

Islamophobia as a Form of Violent Radicalisation

“…Islamophobia is also growing in Philippines and Thailand where it seems to be linked to colonial history and Islamophobic radicalisation that is spreading internationally (Nawab & Osman, 2019). Genocidal Islamophobia is being perpetrated in Myanmar by Buddhist fundamentalists (Yusuf, 2018), the national army (Le Monde, 2019) and armed militias in conjunction with the forced (or consensual?) silence of former leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, while another Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama, pays lip service to condemning Islamophobia.…”

Muslim and Buddhist Encounters: Between Conflict and Harmony

“…Contrarily, (Gravers 2015) and (Stewart 2014) suggest part of the motivation could be led by prejudice against Muslims where they deemed and capable of competing religious, cultural, economic, national and government influence. Imtiyaz Yusuf (2018) in this regard concludes that Buddhist religious animosity of Muslims is also due to their belief that Muslims once plundered Buddhist lands (Imtiyaz Yusuf 2018). As such, the Muslim community perceived as a threat to the survival of the religion, culture, and economy of the nation and a threat to the Buddhist kingdom (Crouch 2016;Gravers 2015;Stewart 2014;van Klinken & Aung 2017).…”

“…As such, the Muslim community perceived as a threat to the survival of the religion, culture, and economy of the nation and a threat to the Buddhist kingdom (Crouch 2016;Gravers 2015;Stewart 2014;van Klinken & Aung 2017). Such sentiments are often baseless and have no indication of merit as proven by Imtiyaz Yusuf (2018). He emphasized that both religious communities in Myanmar once had a long history of good relations.…”