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A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

nytimes.com

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Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#21

Post by dingo_bat »

apsec112 wrote: post #4
dingo_bat wrote: post #2

Key point: Government of Myanmar is responding to a terrorist attack. This is no more a "genocide" than USA's war in Afghanistan.

Responding to a terrorist attack clearly doesn't justify the deliberate massacre of civilians, either legally or morally. Most people don't exonerate Bashar al-Assad's crimes against civilians because the Syrian government suffered terrorist attacks (which it very much has).

I agree, but most news outlets are painting this whole thing as a sudden genocidal action from Myanmar without any rhyme or reason. In reality it is response to a terror attack. There is no excuse for brutality on innocents, but there is no excuse for bad journalism too.

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#22

Post by dingo_bat »

slim wrote: post #19
dingo_bat wrote: post #2

Key point: Government of Myanmar is responding to a terrorist attack. This is no more a "genocide" than USA's war in Afghanistan.

The terrorist attack was in response to decades of persecution and genocide. In 2013 they've been described by UN as "the most persecuted population on earth" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people

Is this the same UN whose human rights council chair is Saudi Arabia? Because that totally invalidates any such description.

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#23

Post by eimg »

The Truth About Myanmar’s Rohingya Issue - http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/the-truth-about-myanmars-rohi...

"On all issues, the people of Myanmar are with you. But on the Rohingya issue, the people will never be with you. What is at the heart of this huge gap between perspectives of the majority of Burmese and the international community, and how does this inform making progress on alleviating the genuine humanitarian crisis facing the Rakhine Muslims in Sittwe?"

"On the other side of the political tension in Rakhine state ... are Rakhine Buddhists who are genuinely afraid of a (false) Muslim takeover."

"For Aung San Suu Kyi to retain legitimacy where it matters most, it is understandable that she is not outspoken on an issue that could spark even more violence."

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#24

Post by abhishivsaxena »

archagon wrote: post #18

The amount of pro-genocide comments here, on Reddit, etc. makes me lose my faith in humanity. Decades down the line, people will wonder how such nominally reasonable and interconnected people could develop such hateful, vile opinions.

Genocide is very strong term, the fact that you use it in such a light way for a law and order situation seems to suggest something else.

> Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves [1]

Worst you can call is mass expulsion from Rakhine.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#25

Post by eimg »

Bias on the Rohigya issue - https://goo.gl/1h4vav

"Though the Rohingya armed groups carried out attacks on security forces and civilians on 9 October 2016 in which nine policemen were killed and on 25 August 2017 in which 30 police outposts were attacked leading to the death of 10 police officers, one soldier and one immigration officer, the [UN] Special Rapporteur Lee failed to name the Rohingya armed opposition groups."

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#26

Post by aaron695 »

archagon wrote: post #18

The amount of pro-genocide comments here, on Reddit, etc. makes me lose my faith in humanity. Decades down the line, people will wonder how such nominally reasonable and interconnected people could develop such hateful, vile opinions.

Currently there are only 18 comments. So how you can say this early thread represents HN is pretty disgenious.

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#27

Post by fractallyte »

The problem is that application of the term 'genocide' is subject to endless, recursive, despicable politics at the UN.

I wish there was (forcible) injection of ideas from computer science and mathematics into politics. An example, for this case: a subset of general language that could describe a political or humanitarian situation in unambiguous terms, so that there could be no 'wriggle room' for politicians to shirk their duties. (Herbert's Dune featured a 'battle' language.)

And signatories to the UN should be compelled to adhere to a set of clearly defined moral principles, to open the way for action to be taken immediately against violators.

Sure, I've been criticized many times for such 'simplistic' ideas, but why shouldn't it be this simple??

Here's some other genocidal activity taking place right now: Turkey against the Kurds, Russia against the Caucasian peoples (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc.).

Incidentally, Stallone's most recent Rambo movie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo_(2008_film)) addressed the brutality of the Burmese regime. He wasn't afraid to speak out, 9 years ago.

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#28

Post by [deleted] »

eimg wrote: post #25

Bias on the Rohigya issue - https://goo.gl/1h4vav "Though the Rohingya armed groups carried out attacks on security forces and civilians on 9 October 2016 in which nine policemen were killed and on 25 August 2017 in which 30 police outposts were attacked leading to the death of 10 police officers, one soldier and one immigration officer, the [UN] Special Rapporteur Lee failed to name the Rohingya armed opposition gro…

[deleted]

Re: A genocide against the Rohingya may be looming

#30

Post by archagon »

aaron695 wrote: post #26
archagon wrote: post #18

The amount of pro-genocide comments here, on Reddit, etc. makes me lose my faith in humanity. Decades down the line, people will wonder how such nominally reasonable and interconnected people could develop such hateful, vile opinions.

Currently there are only 18 comments. So how you can say this early thread represents HN is pretty disgenious.

When participating in online discussions, do you not get a sense of what opinions are OK to express even before the conversation gets going? The current zeitgeist in many public forums is very “fuck Muslims at all costs”, and even if those comments do eventually get downvoted, people still feel safe to post them over and over again. In some forums, they even float to the top with frightening regularity; see /r/news et al. In other words, I already knew what I would be seeing as soon as I stepped into this thread.

Even 1% of a population speaking out in favor of genocide is a fucking travesty.

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