The Rohingya; Adrift and Stateless

Kelsey Harrison

Rels-2300

11/30/20

Who are the Rohingya? What has been happening to them, and why? Where are they

headed? In this essay, we will explore the history of the Rohingya, the history of Myanmar, and

the history of the genocide that has been committed there. We will then look at the religions of

the Rohingya and the Myanmar’s government through a functionalist perspective, to see if really

is the main factor here, or if the problem lies in a deeper, more sinister, place. A place that exists

inside all of us.

The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim ethnic group who live in Myanmar, who speak a

language called Ruaingga. They are not official recognized by the Myanmar government as an

ethnic group, though Muslim, including Rohingya, have lived there since at least the 12th century.
1
Because of this, they are denied citizenship; they are thus stateless people, with extremely

limited rights and opportunities.2 Most Rohingya are confined to Rakhine state, which is

impoverished, with basic necessities being hard or impossible to obtain. 3

Myanmar was colonized by the British from 1824 to 1948. The British treated it as

simply a province of India, with no realm concern for the political, geographical, and ethnic

concerns of the people they now ruled. During this time, many migrants from India and what is

1
(staff, Al Jeezera, 2018)
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
now Bangladesh emigrated to Myanmar.4 As the British considered Myanmar and India to be the

same colony, this was allowed, but many of the local people resented this move.5

In 1948, Myanmar achieved independence from British rule, all Muslims living in the

country, regardless of how long they had actually been there, were deemed “illegal.” Using this

excuse, they denied the Rohingya, a primarily Muslim ethnic group, citizenship under the

“Union Citizenship Act.” To further separate the Rohingya for their origins in Myanmar, they

were falsely called “Bengali.” The term “Rohingya,” others said, was a recent political invention.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, as Rohingya who has lived in Myanmar for at least two

generations were given limited, but not equal, citizenship.6

In 1962, there was a military coup, leading to all citizens being required to have a

national registration card. The cards of the Rohingya, however, were marked as “foreign” and

this limited their opportunities even more. In 1982, news laws were passed that, once again,

denied the Rohingya recognition as an ethnic group and thus citizenship, and introduced three

levels of citizenship. In order for the Rohingya to reach the first level, “naturalized citizenship,”

a person would need to prove their family’s residence in Myanmar before 1948, as well as be

fluent in one of the country’s national languages. These documents were either denied to many

Rohingya or simply did not exist in the first place.7

Because of their lack of citizenship, the Rohingya’s ability to marry, vote, study, work

and travel were either severely limited or plainly nonexistent. By law, the Rohingya cannot enter

4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
public office, practice medicine or law. All of these things have caused thousands of Rohingya to

flee to Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand since the 1970’s. 8

In the 2010’s, tensions boiled over, and hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled the

country, reporting extreme violence and oppression by both the Myanmar state and vigilantes.9

In October 2016, after the killing of nine border police officers, the government blamed the

Rohingya and sent soldiers into Rohingya villages in Rakhine State. The refugees have reported

that soldiers murdered men, women, and children, raped women and girls, burned down homes,

and tortured people. The government blamed they the Rohingya, claiming that the Rohingya

burned down their own homes.10

After being accused of ethnic cleansing by the UN, the government denied it, instead

pointing to deaths caused by the Araken Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) after ARSA raided

several police outposts. ARSA, for its part, claims to be protecting the Rohingya community, and

that they do not harm civilians, though there have been reports of them doing so. Labelling this

group as a terrorist one, the Myanmar government has used them as an excuse to further

persecute the Rohingya people.11

According to the UN, between 2012-2018, 168,000 Rohingya refugees have fled

Myanmar, and between 2016-2018, 120,000 are displaced withing Myanmar itself.12 Myanmar’s

government has repeatedly denied the violence, or, if the admitted it, blamed it on the Rohingya,

themselves, for being “terrorists.” Internal investigations have reportedly taken place, and the

military has reportedly been asked to stop the “crackdowns.” 13 Human rights activists,
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
journalists, UN investigation groups, and activists have been denied entrance into Rakhine

State.14

Currently, Myanmar and Bangladesh are trying to return the Rohingya to Rakhine state,

but many Rohingya are hesitant, because they are still denied citizenship and because of that and

other discriminatory laws, they are justifiably worried that violence will break out again.15

Functionalist studies of religion look at the effect’s religions have on society, and vice

versa, though these effects are studied in different ways.16 Sociologist Emile Durkheim argued

that religions are the glue that hold societies together by providing guidelines for public (laws,

social expectations) and personal morality (compassion, convictions).17 This definition focuses

not on what religion believes, but on what it does. 18 It is not free of agenda, however; Marx

famously describes religion as “the opium of the people”, making people complacently hope for

a better tomorrow that will not come without action. 19 It is important to keep in mind that some

definitions combine the two, such as Durkheim’s; “a unified system of beliefs and practices

related to sacred things.”20

From a functionalist perspective, the religion of the Rohingya and the other groups in

Myanmar functions as a marker for otherness among the Rohingya. When someone is Othered,

they are excluded from the main group. Usually, this means that traits that differentiate them

from everyone else are emphasized. In this case, the Rohingya’s religion and heritage as

descendants of Indians and Bangladeshis are used against them. But this is not a case of their
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Fisher, 2017, p. 4.
17
Ibid.
18
Prothero, 2020, p. 16
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
religion mattering, per se. The discrimination, like in so many other places, is based on prejudice.

Likewise, the violence done to them by their Buddhist-majority countrymen does not have much

to do with their religion. Buddhist teachings certainly do not advocate genocide! But, Buddhists

(or Hindus, or Muslims, or Atheists, for that matter) are not immune to prejudice, group think,

and government propaganda. Just as their religion can keep their communities together, it can

also push them apart of against other people, depending on cultural and economic factors.

The Rohingya of Myanmar, a primarily Muslim ethnic group, have been systematically

killed a persecuted by the majority Buddhist government of Myanmar. Looking at a functionalist

reading of religion, we have seen that, though the religions of the Rohingya and other people of

Myanmar matter, they are far from the only factors in the situations. In this case, the ethnic

makeup and supposed nationality of the Rohingya have had a bigger impact on the violence than

the religions of the parties involved. This essay has shown that we must all be aware of our

prejudices, no matter how justified they may seem, and the consequences these prejudices have

when they are put in law. The Rohingya remain a stateless and oppressed people, and they will

remain so until inner or outer pressures on the government of Myanmar compels them to give all

people in the country equal rights.

21
World Atlas.com, Staff, Al Jeezera, 2018
22
(I drew rough outlines of the states, and, using Al Jeezera’s map of ethnicities, I colored in Rakhine state. I
purposefully did not color the other states so that Rakhine state would be easier to see. I did not have access to a
scanner, so I took pictures with my phone camera.)
Bibliography
Staff, Al Jeezera. “Who Are The Rohingya?” AlJeezera, 16 April, 2018,
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/04/18/who-are-the-rohingya. Accessed 10 October
2020
Fisher, Mary Pat. Living Religions. Pearson, 2017.
Stephen, Prothero. Religion Matters, W.W. Norton, 2020
Author Unknown, Maps of Burma, World Atlas, date unknown
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/burma. Accessed on 11/30/20