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Vol.3, No.7 ISBN-1906-438X October 10, 2014

A PUBLICATION OF BUDDHIST RAKHAING CULTURAL ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
www.rakhaingguardian.org
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IN RETROSPECT OF THE COMMUNAL RIFT IN RAKHAING STATE

Maung Tha Hla

The inter-communal conflict in Rakhaing state of Myanmar between the natives and alien
Bengalis did win much the opinion of the predisposed West over the side of illegal immigrants
who made full-throated howls in the charade of victimhood, notwithstanding the barbarous
crimes committed by them. The West and the United Nations Organization, which had become
hostage to the Muslim lobby, persistently upheld steadfast support for the disfranchised Bengalis
under the rubric of human rights. However, there emerged recently a lapse from the odds out of
an ostensible pragmatic approach by the Western powers towards modification of attitude that
was all on one side. Likewise the United Nations Organization seemed to have come to close
quarters with the realistic appraisal of the course of action in Rakhaing state apparently
regulating its assistance programmes to be beneficial to all communities but just not amassing
the services on the Bengalis alone as it had been the case for the last two decades.
Given the changing attitudes one is tempted to reminisce how the Western powers and the United
Nations Organizations, human and civil rights groups as well as the media and academia have
assiduously indulged the alien Bengalis.

PROEM: The indigenous Rakhaings have long been saddled with the iniquity of invasive
Bengalis having encroached upon and clutched at the tribal lands of the natives who felt
threatened by the presence in their midst of ever growing Muslim population who were destined
to disaffect loyalty to host nation guided by the impulse of Islamic secessionist ideology that
incited hostility and belligerency against the natives, which sprang resentment and grievous
sentiment towards the parasitic Bengalis; hence the two communities diverged.
The decades-long mutual antagonism burst forth into a deadly conflict ignited by the gang rape
and brutal murder of a Buddhist girl by three Muslim men, which culminated in tit-for-tat clashes
with atrocities committed by both sides, each bearing the greater of casualties in the
circumstance of being the minority in a given locality; however, the strife was superficially
sanctioned by the political players as asymmetric violence against the Muslims. The people in
Myanmar were greatly perturbed as they were accused of being injurious, while the Bengali
aggressors were treated as inculpable despite the revulsive pugnacity and obnoxious cruelty
which had never been mentioned by the panderers who were engaged in the requitable Islamic
propaganda campaign.
Ridiculously, the ardent supporters who inverted reality portrayed the pugnacious Bengalis
innocent as a child and innocuous as a lamb. Had the Bengalis Muslims been innocent victims as
depicted why should there be thousands of displaced Rakhaings, scores of them killed or
numerous homes and a number of monasteries destroyed? The ethnic Rakhaings who had been
subjected to the utter enormity of crimes committed by the Bengalis were extremely troubled by
the treatment of the aggressors as seraphically benevolent having them depicted as blameless
victims of racial discrimination and religious persecution. Have the apologists been living in the
region that Rakhaings have been living for the past century they would have experienced the
horrors wreaked by the settled Bengalis who wiped out Rakhaings from hundreds of villages on
the borderland thrusting to lay the groundwork for creation of an Islamic state. Expulsion of the
natives had caused tremendous disruption in their life.
Amidst the growing international angst about the looming menace of global Islamization through
demographic infiltration the danger of vastly accumulated illegal immigrant Bengalis agitated
the ethnic Rakhaings who fostered a legitimate fear of taking over of their ancestral land by the
alien Muslims. The once immigration problem has now turned to a socio-political crisis, which
sparked violence laying bare deep seated divide between the natives and aliens.
THE ROOTAGE: The most erroneous conclusion that seemed to be gaining currency among the
liberal as well as conservative critics, who had the least understanding of the intricate aspects of
the Bengali issue, libelously transfused the communal conflict into religious confrontation. The
root cause that underlies the strife is not about religious affront but about self-identification by
the settled Bengalis who illegitimately claimed to a national ethnicity under a belied name,
which brought vigorous socio-political opposition of the Rakhaings who had long confronted
the illicit implantation of an Islamic foothold shoving out the local residents from their lands
where the intruders built up monolithic secluded colonies, even the capital city of Rakhaing state
was swamped by the inflated Muslims. The most deluged vicinage was outstretched area of
Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships where the once predominant Buddhists were rapaciously
overwhelmed by the Bengali interlopers in the ratio of 97 to 3 per cent, having inflicted great
slaughters on the Rakhings, the 1942 ethnic cleansing alone claimed 20,000 lives not to mention
later attritions. It is only natural that the Rakhaings were induced to resist the Bengali inroads
which endangered their livelihood, their culture and their land.
To the Rakhaings their patrimony belongs to them but nobody else's. Bidden by the agony of the
past they stood ground against the Bengali invaders in the context of perpetual struggle to hold
onto the heirloom. The land of Rakhaing, formerly a thriving Buddhist kingdom for thousands
of years, has been turbulent through history marked by dark and bloody conflicts consequent
upon the Burmese conquest in 1785, followed by the British colonization after the first Anglo-
Burmese war of 1824-26 and the large-scale Bengali invasion ever since. For over a century
before the national independence in 1948 the land of Rakhaing was a division in British Burma,
whereupon the economic migrant Muslims from the Chittagong district of British Bengal,
current Bangladesh, freely streamed into the adjacent land. There was no Muslim problem before
the imperial British imported them for their vested interests as part of massive transmigration
from the Indian sub-Continent that accompanied the British colonial expansion. In sum the
Bengalis are themselves at the source of the ongoing conflict.
THE EXTERNAL PRESSURE: Following the communal strife the escalation of pressure
exerted by the external actors was getting worse proving itself an arrogant disregard of the
sovereignty of Myanmar, having it scapegoated over the vexations of Bengali life which, none
the less, were symptomatic of the broader issue of self-inflicted political demarche infused with
Islamic motivation to create a free Muslim state. As a matter of fact the Bengali problems are
attributable to their own actions. Yet, the government and Buddhist community were fingered as
the culprits and woefully pressured to take urgent steps in favour of the alien Bengalis, while the
apologists ignored to address distress of the natives.
There has been a great deal of drive to grant wholesale citizenship to the illegal Bengalis as the
solution of the problem. As a matter of fact the citizenship is not the be all and end all of
Bengali question as the West persistently insisted peddling on behalf of the Muslim world. It is
only the first step towards accomplishing the Bengali political agenda paving the way leading to
legalization of them as a national ethnicity and ultimately to the establishment of an Islamic
state.
Nowadays, many countries are beset with the immigration crisis but no country welcomes just
anybody who makes it across the border, or permits blanket citizenship no matter how long one
might have been in the country without proper process, with documents vetted in accordance
with the provisos of the national law and interviews by the authorities. Different countries have
different laws with regard to acquiring of citizenship as well as the loss of citizenship leading to
statelessness. In Myanmar measures have been taken with a view to considering each individual
Bengali for citizenship who is eligible for it under the 1982 Citizenship Law, enhancing the
Action Plan which is being set in place in order to bring peace to the two communities and
stability and development to the region.

The Citizenship Law which, as accused, was not designed for the persecution of Bengalis, but it
had effects on the Indians and Chinese as well. Among others, two prominent figures of Chinese
ancestry, one was a Minister and the other a Deputy Minister in the government lost their
portfolios on the grounds of the same law.
Over the decades the massive influx of illegal immigrants from across the Western and Eastern
borders shifted population balance in some regions, especially in the cities, which prompted
visceral appeal of nationalism raising sentiment against the foreigners; the bigger population they
grew, the greater political influence they exerted, and the more concession was extorted,
effectuating the political, social and economic problems of the nation.
The land of Rakhaing, which has experienced large-scale Bengali infiltration for over a century,
now harboures a Bengali community that has grown figuratively into over 1 million, which is
about one-third of the state population. The swell of Bengali population in the birth rate ratio of
10 to 1 over the local Rakhaings gave rise tensions as the Buddhists felt a sense of insecurity and
a threat to their existence. The demographic escalation by means of outbreeding the natives
boosted shifting of ethnic balance. Enactment of family planning measures including two-child
limit and a ban on polygamy was aimed at easing tensions between the two communities. The
plan was applied exclusively to two townships, Maungdaw and Buthidaung which, contiguous to
Bangladesh, had a fast growing Bengali mass constituting 97 per cent of the local population
relative to other parts of the state.
The apologists were too engrossed in the unalloyed blindness towards the status of stateless
Bengalis as if they were the only lot on earth. There are an estimated 10 million stateless people
worldwide. Apart from Myanmar other nations with stateless groups are Thailand, Malaysia,
Nepal, Kuwait, Syria in Asia; Kenya and Ivory Coast in Africa and the Caribbean nation of
Dominican Republic. Also Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are teemed with
stateless people. Most of Arab nations which condemned Myanmar for not granting citizenship
to the Bengalis denied citizenship to Palestinian immigrants who were also deprived of many
civil, economic and social rights.
Citizenship is not a trump card; the Bengalis are not recognized as an official ethnic group
regardless of their citizenship status. Citizenship will not eliminate the basic cause of conflict so
long as the Bengali community remains rooted in the Islamic geopolitical agenda, hanging on to
bogus ethnicity under the belied term.

Much has been voiced disputing the official designation of Bengalis by their national origin.
Nothing is wrong calling a spate a spate. The cumulative Muslim community originated from the
Chittagong District of East Bengal, who migrated into the land of Rakhaing at different times
under different circumstances; the bulk of them were the British colonial vintage coolies, plus
new-sprung arrivals after Burma gained independence from the British, with a few slave settlers
from the days of Rakhaing monarchy.

ETHNO-NATIONALIST POSITION: Antipathy between the Rakhaings and immigrant
Bengalis, and for that matter between the ethnic nationalities and foreigners, was rooted in the
colonial past. During the decades prior to the national independence several occasions of deadly
violence related to racial tensions took place which seriously exacerbated communal conflicts
between the natives and immigrants from British India. The anti-Indian and anti-Muslim riots
which flared up in 1930 and 1938 as a result of economic, social and political upheavals were the
effects of confrontation with the immigrants.

The 1942 Buddhist-Muslim violence which had profound effect on widening gulf between the
Rakhaings and Bengalis was further broadened as the Bengalis followed up the treacherous
scheme to dismember the Buddhist land arousing Buddhist nationalism nationwide. The latest
conflict consequently festered in the sentiment of Buddhists nationwide, which animated deeply
embedded distrust and animosity against the Bengalis. To further agitate the Buddhists was the
show of Islamic solidarity worldwide with the Bengali Muslims. Intensified upon the backdrop
of global impact of Islamic expansion the natives were resolved collectively to never let the
invasive Bengalis take over an inch of the Buddhist land nor let them dictate the Buddhist
society being succumbed to Islamization, hammering home the popular perception that "As goes
the Rakhaing land , so goes the nation", since the land of Rakhaing has been strategic to the
defence against the Islamic infiltration over the past centuries, much to reflect credit on the
nationalist local vanguards who coalesced into a homogenous society imbued with vehement
inspiration of Buddhism. Had it not for the impregnable damming put up by the patriotic
Rakhaings, Myanmar proper as well as Thailand and Indochina would have been Islamized like
Malaysia and Indonesia. It is comprehensible that the anti-Bengali sentiment struck a cord with
the mass which was unified to safeguard the national religion as they felt they were at the
receiving end of Islamizing drive. As the radical Islam is on the rise and at the center of any
violent conflict around the world, the danger of secessionist Bengalis who pose a threat to
national security, having pushed an internationally coordinated drive for self-identification as a
political entity, is much greater than any time in the past. On August 19, 2013 a Bengali jihad
group released a You Tube video in which it urged the Mujahadins worldwide to join them in the
fight against the government and Buddhists of Myanmar. Qaeda leader Ayman al-zawahiri
declared on September 3, 2014 about the expansion of operation to Myanmar. The outflow of the
Islamic solidarity across the globe against Myanmar spurred a growing concern about the
Bengali Muslims which induced ethno-nationalist fervour throughout the nation; wherefore the
racial conflict in Rakhaing state provoked anti-Muslim sentiment that had long been simmered
throughout the nation.
ABUSE OF RELIGION: Unfortunately what that has been burgeoning in the international
community about the communal violence was the erroneous inference from religious
confrontation, overdramatizing prejudice against Buddhism. The attention to the problem was
mainly focused on the stereotype of religious persecution against the Muslims. Any clash
between the two communities was maliciously conflated with religion by the bigoted Muslim
nations where the religion was defining factor, so too was the delusive West where the religion
shaped nations' character, all in the utmost rigour of emphatic bias against the Buddhists who
were obliged to defend their faith. Had the communal conflict been centered primarily on
religion as perceived, clashes would have been deliberately widespread all over the nation rather
than random and spontaneously confined to sporadic locations as the Muslims sow each incident.
They were the culprits whose criminal acts provoked the local Buddhists who, having already
been rattled by the growing influence of Muslims on their life, were constrained to let out the
scorching pains that had been smouldering for decades.
It takes a saint to bear the impact of abhorrent conduct of Muslims. Unless a Buddhist girl was
robbed, gang raped and brutally murdered by three Muslims in Rakhaing state, or a Buddhist
couple who came to sell a gold ornament were attacked by Muslim gold shop owners and
consequently a monk was gruesomely murdered, having hacked and dragged him into a mosque
where he was burned alive by a group of Muslims in Meiktila, or a Buddhist woman was doused
with gasoline and set on fire by a Muslim in Lasho, or a novice monk was physically assaulted
by a Muslim woman at Oakkan, or offensive remarks made by some Muslim women upon the
monks who were on the daily round of alms begging at Kyaung Gone in the Bago township, or a
Muslim attempted to rape a Buddhist woman at Kantbalu in Sagaing region, or a Buddhist man
was insulted by a Muslim in Thandwe, or a Buddhist woman was misemployed by a couple of
Muslims who plotted to revenge themselves on two Muslim brothers in Mandalay, there would
not have been serious disturbances in the nation.
It is ironic that the Buddhists were demonized as iniquitous for not being passive to the Muslim
aggression by the ostensible righteous Westerners in spite of the legacy of Crusades, and also the
bigoted Muslims notwithstanding bloodthirsty Islamic wars of the past and continued violence
against other religions as well as deadly wars between themselves today. Buddhists are tolerant
and generous but there is a limit to patience and generosity. Being a Buddhist does not mean that
he or she should be a pacifist in the presence of danger, who has the right to self-defence.
The Buddhists have an existential right to defend themselves from invaders. One should realize
the harsh reality of the life of Buddhists in Myanmar who had endured humiliation under
Western colonization and now lived in fear of being Islamized, which readily prompted them to
come to the defence whenever their nation and religion came under external threat. The basis
motivation of ethno-nationalist position could hardly be obscured by a camouflage of
philosophical and moral platitudes. The ethical conducts such as "non-violence", "loving-
kindness" and the fundamental precept "not to harm to living beings" were unduly stressed upon
the Buddhists to fully abide by the principles, while the followers of Jesus Christ and
Mohammed were unable to realize them in practice. As a sentient being an ordinary Buddhist is
no different from any follower of other religions. To safeguard the national interests is not to be
oblivious by being shrouded in the mist of moral inanity.
Buddhism is a religion of self-redemption. Richard Reoch, President of Shambala, a Buddhist
organization based in London, pointedly dispelled misconception of Buddhism with the answer
to a question, "Why are Buddhist killing?" at a panel discussion under the caption, " Buddhist
Fury: Violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka and Myanmar", which was held at the central
European University's School of Public Policy in Budapest. He said, " It comes down to three
factors - emotion, culture and identity; that the three factors together could make people forget
about their faith and carry out acts that are unbefitting to them, regardless of the faith of the
individual."

Religious moralists have been vocal about Buddhist nationalism despite the fact that every
religion has its mark in the nation's character. Historically Buddhism has been integral to the
national identity that plays an important role in social and political life of the majority of people.
By traditions the clergy takes a crucial role in the development of national responsibilities to
safeguard the religion after the demise of monarchy which was defender of the religion. Buddhist
religion has been the source of nationalist political inspiration which stirred politically motivated
young monks, pioneered by U Ottama, whose resistance against the British rule eventually led to
national independence. The monks who are guardians of the religion hold considerable political
stature. Myanmar owes much to the clergy for what it is presently.
ISLAMIC THREAT: The threat of pugnacious Bengali separatists who maneuvered a new push
for political agenda posed much greater than any time before given the ardent support of the
Muslim world, implicated by maverick politicians and civil activists of the West who were
mesmerized by idealistic view on human rights, which accordingly exacerbated the fears of the
Rakhaings and for that matter the Buddhists in all walks of life that their land would be overrun
by the Muslims.
The expansion of Islam today has increased geographically, with the numerical growth of
Muslim population to some 1.6 billion across the globe. Myanmar which is being faced with a
political crisis brewed on demographic Islamization has every reason to fear invading Bengalis
in the face of exploding Muslim population worldwide, who regard demography as a political
weapon to dominate and conquer the world through the channels of high birth rate, influx of
migration and aggressive proselytizing. Given the swift rise of Bengali population who conspired
to establish an Islamic state, and following as a natural effect of Islamist terrorism that engulfed
the world, defending against Islamization is not religious paranoia but phenomenal reality which
obviously afflicts in testimony of history.
Violence has been instrumental in the success of Islam. More than half of the present world
population lives in areas where Buddhist culture flourished. Buddhism had been dominant
religion before Islam was established in the north Indian kingdom of Gandhara, what is now
northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. Buddhism spread north of Hindu Kush Mountains
into Central Asia where it flourished, especially eastern Turkistan until the ninth century when
the Muslims conquered the region. Closer to home, Eastern Bengal, the former homeland of
Bengali separatists, was once under the influence of Buddhist culture before the Muslim invaders
conquered the area in the twelfth century; so were Indonesia and Malaya which turned to Islamic
nations in the thirteenth century. The existential threat that Islam poses to the world is real.
In the trauma of fanatically virulent transformation mustering vigorous growth of Islam, the
Muslims in the past abrogated the established religions and native cultures in numerous lands
they vanquished. In the modern time expansion of Islam and its inspiration to dominate the
world is amply evident; for instance, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
explicates the Islamic zeal in its motto that, " Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other
faith, but to become dominant", not speaking of fanaticism that virulently drives the jihadists like
those of the Islamic State (ISIS) who thrust themselves forwards ferociously along in the quest
for caliphate, which epitomizes supremacist Islamism that perpetuates the Muslims in their belief
that they are obliged to dominate peoples of other faiths and to spread their doctrine throughout
the world.
THE HYPE, THE LIE AND THE FACT: Unfortunately, there has been no in-depth study on the
part of international actors analyzing the history, political and socio-economic aspects of
Rakhaing state as well as external factors related to the Bengali question. The bigger problem
was that those who assumed the role of arbitrators were too tendentious to promote the Bengali
cause. They did not judge the communal strife in perspective of the trajectories of Rakhaing
state; hence failed to paint a balanced picture of the conflict.
The Bengalis are rabble rousers in search of rabble to rouse and hoaxers in need of imposture to
incessantly clamour victimhood. Over the decades they crept up and down the back alleys of
Rakhaing land generating sinister scams and stoking aggression against the locals. A people that
deceptive will ever be deceptive, somehow and one way or another. The latest example was the
alleged massacre in last January of Bengali women and children at Du Chee Yar Tan village in
Maungdaw District. Clueless as were to the intrinsic mastery of Bengalis in setting up schemes
against the adversaries, the gullible apologists victimized themselves having been grossly
engrossed in the rumours floated by the Bengalis who tricked them into a scandalous ploy which
was fabricated to cover up the killing of police Sgt. Aung Kyaw Thein, a Rakhaing national, by a
Bengali mob, having the incident duped into a deadly rampage by the Rakhaing villagers.
No sooner had The Associated Press broke the iffy story than embassies of the United States
and the United Kingdom (the Robin to America's Batman) joined by the United Nations as well
as the media and human and civil rights groups provokingly reacted to the rumoured massacre in
an orchestrated campaign against Myanmar only to find out that they had been double-crossed as
the much politicized bloodbath turned out to be a hoax, which was contrived to hide the killing
of police sergeant, the sole fatality of violence, whose remains were still to be recovered, so too
were the culprits yet to be brought to justice.
How contemptible is the demeanour of Bengalis, but what is more ignominious is that the West
was stone-blindly reliant on the realm of speculations despite controversy swirled around the
feigned butchery of Bengalis. It is pity that self-esteemed Western panderers were naively
turned into a bunch of dunces by a group of backwater Bengalis, having them baited into a plot
that was planted through the Arakan Project which in turn hatched the story as a fiery mob
rampage by the Rakhaing villagers, but not police or army, by analyzing that the victims were
"stabbed with knives, not shot or beaten." Evidently, the alleged incident was devised to
demonize local Rakhaings, given the grotesque exaggeration of brutalities supposedly committed
by the Rakhaings in the 2012 conflict, buttressed by selective illustrations and morphed pictures.
It is morally reprehensible that the apologists who were motivated by prejudice were involved in
impertinent interference with the internal affairs of Myanmar. The Western powers which were
supposed to look for the solution to the conflict were only engaged in the impetuous critique on
Myanmar. The United Nations Organization which is not to be bias towards or against any nation
or people based on race and religion only forfeited its integrity turning itself a stooge of the
special interest groups.
There continued a rising chorus from the human right activists, journalists and intellectuals sort
of elements whose parochial mission, as much subjective as being reckless, was to funnel their
politicized, tendentious views to the general public, having erroneously presented the situation
with facts wiped up through misinformation They did not respect the truth but irresponsibly
indulged in speaking out as they wished free from the need to answer to anyone. The way their
trades were practised was suscitated by calculated, cynical political reasons, which brought an
accusation against them of being surrogate propagandists, lousy with petrol money.
The Sharia-compliant apologists and publicists who romanticized the plight of Bengalis were too
assertive to permit a sound judgement. The Human Rights Organizations and INGOs were key
players of slanderous accounts accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Bengalis,
notwithstanding the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the bellicose Bengali separatists. The
media was the mainstay that disseminated pieces of hyperbolized writing articulating an isolated
incident being recycled by different editorialists, columnists or so-called investigative journalists,
one trying to outdo the other in an effort to dramatize the living conditions in the in the internally
displaced persons (IDP) camps of Bengalis( excluding Rakhaing IDP camps), having blown out
of proportion about a single case of prenatal or birth mishap, infant mortality or child
malnutrition into the health and malnourishment crisis, despite the fact that Rakhaing state was
chronically dilapidated, where the maternal mortality rate was double the national average and
the malnutrition rate was 23 per cent, well above 15 per cent of emergency level set by World
Health Organization.
Let's face squarely the situation of Rakhaing state, with 40 per cent of people living below
poverty line. Either child malnutrition or illiteracy was not resulted from the communal conflict
as asserted, but it had been chronic syndrome of the Bengali community where the prolific
breeding was the destined goal through the religiously motivated practice of polygamy no matter
how meager an income of the bread earner of household was to feed the huge family let alone to
educate numerous children. Besides, most of the rural Bengali population preferred madrasa
schools to secular learning institutions. Family planning is religiously taboo to the sexually
potent and virile Bengali society wherein a husband has the right to divorce any of his four wives
at his will to replenish the harem, leaving the deserted wives in abject poverty with a number of
children who grow up undernourished and illiterate. Poverty forced many Bengali children to
work in order to augment the family income. Had the criticizers been to villages where Bengalis
live in hut-like bamboo houses with thatched roofs and earthen floor, they would have seen child
labourers at work in the field as well as naked little ones with bulgy belly running about in the
muddy terrain frequently inundated during the monsoon season.
The conditions of Bengali IDP camps came under carping criticism. Perhaps, the living
conditions in those camps might have been measured against the standards of the Western
societies, wherein people living on the economic fringe are much well off than the majority
people of largely low-income Myanmar, which is one of the least developed countries in the
world. The life of common people, especially predominant rural community constituting 70 per
cent of the total population, regardless of race and religion, has been in the want of modern
amenities; worse is poverty-stricken Rakhaing state, the second poorest in the nation . Electricity,
running water, sanitation and adequate health services are only in the dream of general
population in the rural areas. As a matter of fact the living conditions in the Muslim camps under
the state supervision were much better than those of many Bengalis outside the camps and
natives living in some parts of the state, even devoid of toilets.
Moreover, the security measures being put into effect in the Bengali camps were wildly
condemned, which nonetheless were comparable to the restraints at the Palestinian refugee
camps set up in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon by the Arabs, where they were not allowed the same
things which Myanmar was blamed for not allowing the Bengalis.
The Muslim community in Myanmar which represents an estimated 4 per cent of the total
population is not all supposedly languishing Bengalis nor are all Bengalis cramped in the IDP
camps as it has been quirkily twisted by unscrupulous quarters especially the Islamic media.
The Bengalis constitute only a segment of the Muslim populace, numbering about 1 million and
the bulk of them live in Rakhaing state flocking in the area which borders on Bangladesh. The
Muslims who are confined to the camps include those who used to live in micro colonies at some
of the Buddhist-majority cities and towns and also a few from a couple of secluded villages. The
remaining stateless Bengali mass, about 85 per cent of them, continue to live in the pre-riot
situation at the rest of towns and self-isolated villages.
In the aftermath of the inter-communal riots fear and rancour surged in an unprecedented level
between the natives and aliens along racial lines, who embraced two distinct and antagonistic
ways of life. The spasm of violence might be eased off for the time-being but a spiral of the sort
of hate-thou-neighbour attitude will linger indefinitely. Agitation and mistrust in each other
polarized the two communities and tension heightened to such an extent that measures were
necessitated to keep them apart from each other for safety in the protective environments before
stability and endurable peace could be sustained.
However, out of share ignorance of realities in the daily life in Rakhaing state, it was asserted
that apartheid was imposed on the illegal Bengalis being settled in separate localities. Separation
is the hard way but it is the only way given the explosive situation which remains nervously
tense and explosive like a tinderbox. The 1942 communal riots had widened the gulf between
the two communities yet the latest violence irreparably broadened the chasm of mistrust and
enmity. In the circumstances, setting the two communities individually is the norm to prevent
recurrence of violence and any pressure to put the two communities back together is just not
practical.
Unfortunately, the proxies of the Muslim world who were succumbed to the temptation of
attributing the conflict to religion persecution slyly singled out Myanmar to criminalize it on the
accusation of committing violence against the Muslims and the alleged ethnic cleansing of
Bengalis, notwithstanding an overwhelming degree of ethnic and religion cleansing was
perpetrated by Muslims themselves. They have slaughtered millions of fellow Muslims on the
ground of politics, religion and ethnicity. It may be noted that carnage on a massive scale was
carried out in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria. On a
lesser lethal scale massacres took place in Chad, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria,
Turkey, Pakistan, Yemen, Zanzibar and Tanzania.
The Muslim world has been seethed with devastating Islamic violence, with hundreds of
thousands of innocent men, women and children being killed, and millions fled across the
national borders to become hapless refugees, but there had never been an orchestrated
propaganda campaign as the one organized to berate Myanmar. None of the human rights
fanatics which had touted on racial discrimination, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and
genocide sternly accused the radical Muslims of human rights violations, or religious tolerant
maniacs vilified Islam, or Nobel Peace laureates like hotheaded Bishop Desmond Tu Tu
denounced Muslim countries, who condemned neighbouring Muslim nations of Myanmar for not
invading the latter to avenge it for the Bengalis, or editorialists and columnists as well as the fifth
columnists, who depend on the Sharia welfare cheques, spun dyslogistic write-ups; perhaps,
none of the Islamic organizations would award them anything to malign the fellow Muslims and
their own religion.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION: In multiethnic societies conflict is inevitable. The incredulous
external patrons who offered their services to help solve the communal violence mapped out a
catalogue of issues such as reconciliation, integration, assimilation and peaceful co-existence, a
process which brings one into relation with another. Grappling with mounting tension and
hatred, the long-term solution of the crisis should not be over-estimated, before alleviation of
tension and restoration of community ties that existed before the strife.

As it now stands political reconciliation could not be feasible unless measures are taken to
address grievances of the natives who bear tenacious resentment against the inveterate squatting
of illegal Bengalis who remained buried in the political agenda, strictly adherent to Islamic
separatism, having conjured up for the status of a national ethnicity. In order to help break the
impasse the Bengalis must henceforth cease clinging on to the claim of bogus ethnicity which,
being none-existent in history, was rejected in the past, is not recognized at present nor will it
ever be accepted in the future for its intent which presents itself a synergic ideology
incorporating the political Islamism and biological racism laying emphasis on self-determination
of Bengalis as a political polity, aimed at setting up an Islamic state.

The question of integration and assimilation of the two communities is not as simple as it was
speculated given the self-asserted historical position of Bengali secessionists who maintain the
strong identity of their own, standing out against integration. It is a case of two peoples, one is
native and passive with their religious teaching, while the other is alien who profess aggressive
religion, remain wedded to a different set of culture patterns, resist the native values and speak
the dialect of their former homeland. The main contributing cause of the social problem of
Bengali Muslims is the religious-political agenda avowedly to not integrate into the local society.
By the dictates of religion dogma the Bengalis isolate themselves rather than integrate into the
native majority.
At this point of time, the prospect of peaceful co-existence between the two communities,
mingling each other, is limited if not impossible, because mistrust and hatred linger from the
conflict. As a matter fact, the Bengalis not only live at close quarters separate and apart from the
natives but also bear them malice.
An answer to the conflict is not likely to be easy. Foundation for the economic development in
the region, the basis of long-term stability, is prerequisite to successful implementation of the
roadmap as socio-economic relation has much impact on political implications of the two
communities. What had exacerbated social frictions and turned the racially polarized
communities being offensive against each other was in part economic stagnation that had
afflicted Rakhaing state. Economically crippled by its half a century of the authoritarian military
rule which turned the state into a desolate region, the younger generations of Rakhaing and
Bengali alike were prompted to venture on perilous journeys by land and by sea in search of a
better life in the neighbouring countries. However, all those Bengalis who left the state for
overseas were sanctioned as victims of repression. Actually most of the Bengalis who went
abroad leaving their families behind were economic migrants who had all intention to seek
political asylum having exploited the situation at home; even Bangladeshis joined the flock to
seek refugee status abroad.
There is no simple solution to the conflict. Given the hatred palpable in both camps the recent
communal conflict, the deepest racial split ever, is bound to rankle in their minds which is the
least likely to fade away anytime soon. Hoping for returning to the condition of pre-violence
state is unrealistic wish and an expectation that cannot be attained. The bitterness that has
poisoned the Rakhaing community by the perpetual betrayal of illegal Bengalis is not to pass
away in the foreseeable future, and the conflict will fester so long as the Bengalis insist
themselves on being enslaved in the Islamic inspiration to colonize the native land, having it put
high on their political agenda.
CONCLUSION: Credibility is at issue. There is little trust in the state players who overly
emphasized an officious stance to find a solution to the conflict. Arbitrators and mediators have
to be on neutral terms with racially polarized communities and are obliged to look into the
grievances of both sides. The obstinate external players were out of touch with the local realities.
There was a huge gap between the Rakhaing reality and perceptions of the West. The powerful
actors who obtruded their agenda on Myanmar were motivated to exploit the conflict in the
advancement of their own political expediency aimed at pacifying the Muslim world which had
been seethed with hostility towards the West.

There was hardly a voice in the West not being aligned itself with the calumnies Myanmar was
charged to have committed against the jihadist Bengali separatists. What that had been drummed
up in the United States was tantamount to a translucent forewarning of the sort of "Do it as I say,
or else", consequent upon the alleged acts of hostility towards the illegal Bengali immigrants,
resorting to scaremongering about impediment of the democratic transition and volatility of
economic development of Myanmar. Making a mark of the caveat was the Presidential extension
of some economic sanctions followed by a Congressional ultimatum posing a threat to the
warming relations. The motivation was seen largely prejudiced in the context of its escalating
efforts to shape a pro-Bengali strategy.
The economic sanctions might be America's potential levers against Myanmar but on the other
hand Myanmar is critical to broad interests of the United States in the region.
In America the Islamic lobby has an enormous weight on its political institutions especially on
the Congress. As is usual with the Council on American Islamic Relations to exert influence on
politicians, Barack Obama was asked to advance the cause of Bengali separatists in his 2012 visit
to Myanmar and he faithfully did it. Now he is scheduled to go to Myanmar to attend East Asia
Summit in next November. It remains to be seen whether he will reiterate the pro-Bengali
rhetoric touting on the interdicted terminology or attune to the attenuated position on the Bengali
question, conspicuously setting aside "name issue" as Secretary of States John Kerry did during
his visit to Myanmar last August, who attended the meeting of East Asia Summit group of
nations.
The United Nations Organization and the affiliated agencies were too eager to take a stand on the
footing of the tool of special interest groups. It remains an open question whether international
bodies and aids agencies, which were wildly accused of neglecting the natives, will address the
grievances over the inequitable practices that unreflectively intensified tension between the two
communities.

It is time that the international bodies and aids agencies stationed in Rakhaing state stopped the
practice of discrimination and mistreatment of the natives, let alone involvement in the national
politics, in order to win back trust and co-operation of the hosts, which otherwise would not only
aggravate the situation but acerbate tensions between the irreconcilably polarized communities
leading to continued violence. In the event of implementing any programme by the international
community with the object of offering economic development to Rakhaing state, it would be
wise to make it all inclusive rather than devoting to the welfare of the illegal Bengalis alone, nor
should the natives be deprecated as being narrow-minded for defending themselves from the
alien intruders. After all, who would not be defensive against the foreign invaders?
*****