Democratic Burmese Youths

Barbarity in the Bay and the Battered Beast

Abid Bahar

(Reply to Aye Kyaw’s recent article "The Rohingyas and Rakhing")

Arakan, once a beautiful kingdom in the Bay of Bengal, rose to its fame when it looked to West for help from the Sultan of Bengal. Sultan Jalaluddin’s army reestablished the exiled Arakanese king and helped to establish its historic city Mrohaung. Unlike its Burmese rivals of the time, Arakan’s glorious kings had learnt to develop civilization not as a matter of creating terror through destroying human habitat, raping women, using human beings in forced labor but by knowing the art of civilization; how to be kind to it subjects, encouraging tolerance among communities, be just and to encourage the development of art and literature. In Arakan however, with this beauty was also born a beast.

Bengal’s help in need was returned by the later Arakanese kings for terror. After the attack by Shah Sur, when there was a weak Bengal central government, the Moghs turned the lower Bengal and some parts of India into a place of terror; capturing civilian man, women and children and sold into slavery. With Portuguese help in terror centers like Deang Hills in Chittagong, Bengal witnessed its lose of peace for the next two hundred years. Until then this spilled over terror from Arakan was unknown in the Bay. Some of these unfortunate human beings who were taken to Arakan as slaves ( ancestors of some Rohingyas) were employed in agricultural activities. These Moghs almost completely depopulated southern Chittagong. Against this historic barbarity in the Bay, it was not until Shah Suja, the governor of Bengal that took shelter in Arakan, when in the name of giving shelter, at the king's order he was robbed and him and his entire family members were massacred. Shaista Khan, the Moghul Governor finally chased the notorious Mogh pirates out the Bengal territory.

Taking advantage of internal chaos, in 1784 the final blow to the once beautiful Arakan came when it was conquered by the Burmese army through indiscriminate genocidal killings of Buddhist, Muslim and tribal population. While it caused massive depopulation in Arakan, it gave rise to the nonbengali, Mogh, Rohingya and tribal settlements in Chittagong and in Chittagong Hill Tracts. Considering the state of anarchy in Arakan, it seems most of these people decided to stay in the peaceful Chittagong that was by then a British territory. It is from this single invasion that Bangladesh today has people of Arakani origin. Arakan was finally battered after Burma's independence when almost one third of its original territory was added to mainland Burma.

Today Arakan exists only as an ego in the mind of some xenophobic and Western trained historians. Prominent among them are Aye Kyaw and his student Aye Chan, unfortunately both have been teachers. Finding no other outsider enemy they can fight with, they now have turned their attention against their fellow Rohingya citizens called with a negative connotation, the "kula"(the Negro people). Arakan's is a racial problem.

The present Arakani xenophobist' s power base is the Burmese military. Aye Kyaw’s recent article "The Rohingyas and Rakhing" written in response to the "First Conference on the problems of Democratic Development in Burma and the Rohingya Issue" held in Tokyo in 2007 shows his self confessed collaboration with the Burmese army. In this article he notes that he was the architect behind the 1982 constitution Act that officially denied the Rohingya people their Burmese citizenship, triggering genocidal circumstances of unthinkable proportion in Arakan. His student Aye Chan coauthored a book named “Influx Viruses” identifying the Rohingyas as mere viruses now live in "enclaves" implying to be exterminated from Arakan. Both claim that Rohingyas entered Burma after 1826, the year British occupied Arakan and are therefore the “foreigners” in Arakan. Surprisingly, both of them live outside Arakan and enjoy the flavors of Western democracy. They obtained their citizenship in less than 10 years time. Aye Kyaw often uses vulgar expression, with Aye Chan often claim that they have never heard of the word "Rohingya." These circumstances led the Rohingyas into a stateless people. Contrary to this, Rohingyas trace their ancestry in Arakan from the 8th century. These xenophobic writers thus deny Rohingya's birth right in Arakan.

The beasts of today’s Arakan are not the oppressive kings of Arakan anymore but the notorious Aye Kyaw, Aye Chan and their followers whose views promote human suffereing. These are educated people like Julius Streicher of Germany who fanned the flames of the German Holocaust. Today, it is not the example and the inspiration of the founders of Mrauk U dynasty that makes Arakan famous; it is these xenophobic writers’ incitations and collaboration with the undemocratic Burmese government that makes Arakan notoriously famous abroad for its human rights violations and producing refugees.

It appears that Arakan lost its beauty when it replaced the art of civilization of civility for its barbarity in the Bay which was followed by internal chaos and the eventual Burmese occupation in 1784.

Burmese military government is presently trying to acquire powerful bombs, surely not to fight against the democracy movement leaders. Arakan today keeps its beast in its 30% representation in the 500,000 strong Burmese army that supports the whole of Arakan for its racially Mongoloid population. With the military help it has unilaterally renamed the province from its original Arakan into the Rakhine state. These are not the signs of democratic development in Arakan. In the Arakan of chaos, Bangladesh becomes the first victim of refugee problem. Still the xenophobic writers continue to blame the Rohingyas as being Bengalis. The beast of Arakan who feeds on xenophobia to mislead its people seems battered but not dead. Under the circumstances, Bangladesh should continue to seek Arakanese and Burmese people's friendship because xenophobia should not be an obstacle between nations. However, it should watch out especially those internationally identified notorious xenophobic writer's reported visits to Bangladesh and also should keep a watchful eye on the presence of some reportedly pumped up in prejudice so-called Arakani journalists in Bangladesh. If these visitors remain unchecked, it could inspire Arakani fundamentalist Rakkha-Buddhist sentiments spilled over in the otherwise peaceful Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts. After all, the developing and democratic Bangladesh walking on a tightrope can not afford to take things for granted.

(Professor Abid Bahar Ph.D. is the co-founder of Arakan-Burma Research Institute in New York)