Figure 1.--The Rohingya from Myanmar are Muslim, but traditionally they are not bond to the more strict Muslim custom. Their women cover their heads with a simple scarf not with the hijab. Anyway that meets the minimum Koran requirements. The young girls even go shirtless. Strictly speaking neither that is forbidden by 'Koran', although it is not common among Muslim communities. In recent times, however, some Rohingya seem attracted by stricter Islamic conventions. The photo was taken at the water pump at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. We see a woman dressed according to Rohingya custom and two shirtless girls, but also a woman wearing the niqab.
Rohingya Muslims are largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar. Most live in Rakhine state a coastal state on the Bay of Bengal, the northren tip of which borders onnbordering on Bangladesh. The Rohingya have do not speak Burmese. They have their own language and culture which differs from the majority national cilture. Not all Musilms in Myanmar speak Rohingya, especially outside of Rakhine (meaning way from the coast). The Rohingya maintain that they have descended from Arab traders and other groups who have been present in modern Mayaanmar for centuries. There is no doubtv that some do. Arab traders began settling in the Aralan (basically Rakhine state) (7th century). The Arabs began converting the local population to Islam which means that some Rohingya are descenced from the orifibalk population even though they are Muslim. [Syed Islam , p. 327.] At the time the population of what is now Banhadesh was not Muslim. This is the same process that brought Islam to Malaysia and Indonesia. There is a difference though. Burmna Myanmar borders on Bangledesh amd the Rohingya do seem similar to the Begalis, certainly much more so than Bamar. Just when this process took place is an open question. Yhere is evidence of population movementfrom Bngal inyo the Arakan. The Rakhines were one of the tribes of the Burmese Pyu city-states. Thesepeople began migrating into the to Arakan through the Arakan Mountains (9th century). The Rakhines established founded cities in the valley of the Lemro River (Sambawak I, Pyinsa, Parein, Hkrit, Sambawak II, Myohaung, Toungoo and Launggret). There has been a troubled history between the Bamar and the Rohingya. Burmese forces invaded the Rakhine cities (1406). The Rakhine rulers sought assistance of Bengal which by the time was Muslim. [Topich, pp. 17–22.] Some Rohingya sought refuge in Bengal. As a result there is evidence Bengali Muslim settlements in the Arakan (1430–34). The hostile history has continued into the midern era. The Bamar invaded the Araklan again (1785). There were terribke atricities and many dled to Bengal. At the time, the British were consolidating their position in India including Bengal. After a series of wars with the Bamar, the British invaded and seized Burma (1823). The British promoted Bengali and other indian migration into Burma, but they were destinct from the Rohingya and did not speak Rohingya. The Bamar were more anti-British than the Indians causing the British to favor the Indians and Rohingya. This hightendeds already negarive attutudes toward the Rohingya. This got even worse during World War II. Jaoan conquered Burmaforcing the Bitish to withdraw into India. The Bamar at firstvwelcomed the Japanese unil they began to learn what Japanese occupation meant. With the British gone, inrtcommunal violence flkared in the Arakan between Rohingyan and Buddhist Rakhine vullages. The British launched am offensuve into the Arakan and began arming Rohingyan villages which brought Japanese repression. [Jonassohn, p. 263.] Btitain granted independence to Burma (1948). The Burmese government adopted a very restrictive policies on citizebship. The people most effected by Myramar's ethnic policies are the Muslim Rohingya in the Arakan. he Government from the beginning refused yo recognize Rohingyani citizenship. The Myanmar Government denies the Rohingya citizenship and refer to them as Bengali. The Governmenyt maintains that they are illegal immigrants from neighbioring Bangladesh. This has rendered the Rohingya stateless. They numbered over a million, some 0.6 million of which have been rounded up and deported to Bangladesh in often brutal actions. The Burmese Governent claims they came to Burma during the British colonial era and thus are not Burmese. The Rohingya claim and are backed up with some historical evidence that they have lived in the Arakan for centuries. Numbers are, however, difficult to come by. It is not entirely clear why the Burmese Government has targeted the Rohingya. Islam may be the principal reason. The community's opposition to the Citizenship Law may be a related factor. Banladesh
is a poor, densely populated countryand there pribably has been immigration. This is not all the doing of the Myanmar Military. We notice that Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmeme primeminidster abd human rights activist, before she was deposed by the military made no effort to lessen repression.
Sources
Jonassohn, Kurt (1999). Genocide and gross human rights violations: in comparative perspective (Transaction Publishers: 1999)..
Myint-U, Thant. The River of Lost Footsteps--Histories of Burma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2006).
Syed Islam. in Andrew T. H. Tan (ed.). A Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia (Edward Elgar Publishing: 2009).
Summerer, Monika, Jürgen Horst, Gertraud Erhart, Hansi Weißensteiner, Sebastian Schönherr, Dominic Pacher, Lukas
Forer, David Horst, Manhart Angelika, Basil Horst, Torpong Sanguansermsri, and Anita Kloss-Brandstätter. "Large-scale mitochondrial DNA analysis in Southeast Asia reveals evolutionary effects of cultural isolation in the multi-ethnic population of Myanmar," BMC Evolutionary Biology Vol. 14, No. 1 (2014).
Topich, William J. and Keith A. Leitich. The History of Myanmar (ABC-CLIO: 2013).
