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How the Rohingya Escaped

nytimes.com

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#22

Is this about religion again? Or what exactly are they hated for?

> Is this about religion again? Yes. Islam vs Buddhism or Buddhism vs Islam, whichever way you wanna look at it.

There is a large community of Islam living peacefully in Myanmar. If you look around Yangon (the largest and most popular city of Myanmar), you could find a lot of mosques (some even closed to famous pagoda). So this issue is much more complicated than Islam vs Buddhism.

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#24
Nothing is about religion, just as nothing is about race, gender, favorite football team or whatever they come up with next. Basically all conflicts are political conflicts; envisioned, ignited and fueled by psychopaths aiming for power at any cost. The only thing that changes is the method for dividing the people, the goal is always conquering. This has been going on constantly since forever, and will continue until we get it collectively.

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#25

Is this about religion again? Or what exactly are they hated for?

What I've found is that there is no consensus on who the victim is, and only who the losers are. This surprised me at first, but it really wouldn't be unique at all, in hindsight.

Most of the discussion is around unrelated parties having empathy, because there are suffering people and the political machine is not helping anywhere.

The tricky part is having an objective discussion, for example, I have no idea who these soldiers in the bushes are. This article didn't tell me. Where were they before? Hasn't this crisis been going on since like forever? What changed to accelerate this? What is the majority power doing, thinking, dealing with?

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#26
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s one of the more purely religious conflicts out there, for most of its history. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0928/Is-Rohingya...

It's an ethnic conflict. In conservative societies, there is little difference between religion and ethnicity.

an adjective and distinction which changes what, exactly?

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#27
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this about religion again? Yes. Islam vs Buddhism or Buddhism vs Islam, whichever way you wanna look at it.

That’s an extremely simplistic way of seeing it though. The Rohingya were simple people, mostly poor, and lived in Myanmar for generations; religion would be a code of life for them, not a political tool. It’s likely the opposite for the monks and their followers though; Buddhism is about peace, fundamentally and (in nearly all cases) in practice. My patience with Aung San Suu Kyi has run out completely. Too little s…

> Buddhism is about peace, fundamentally and (in nearly all cases) in practice.

Normally, yes, but there are several violent buddhist groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Karen_Buddhist_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/969_Movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodu_Bala_Sena

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#28
post #19

Incredibly moving. One of the more impactful interactive reports by the NYTimes. There’s talk about trying to get Aung San Suu Kyi to the ICC. People complained about Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize, but all objective reports show credible allegations of true modern genocide (shocking for a word meaninglessly bandied about so often) in Kyi’s case, giving the prize a new low with a recipient going from Oslo to The…

My understanding is that the military did this, not the civil government.

Well, there's "doing it" and being complicit in it. She called the reports "fake news." The administration won't pronounce the word Rohingya because they deny that the people are an ethnic group.

Merely being accessory to genocide and not actually an instigator of it doesn't seem better.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41170570

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#29
We are failing refugees the world over. This is heartbreaking, and so is the situation in Syria, in South Sudan, in Eritrea, and in countless other places. And I don't feel like we're getting any better and we're certainly doing no better at preventing these crises. With the world getting more crowded, is there an end in sight?

This piece reminded me a bit of the self-recorded documentary of a Syrian woman trying to escape the turmoil there: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/aug/02/escape-f...

Re: How the Rohingya Escaped

#30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this about religion again? Yes. Islam vs Buddhism or Buddhism vs Islam, whichever way you wanna look at it.

There is a large community of Islam living peacefully in Myanmar. If you look around Yangon (the largest and most popular city of Myanmar), you could find a lot of mosques (some even closed to famous pagoda). So this issue is much more complicated than Islam vs Buddhism.

The last Mughal Emperor (a Muslim) was also exiled to, and eventually buried in Yangon.
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