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In their new book Myanmar's 'Rohingya' Conflict, Anthony Ware and Costas Laoutides have deftly traversed the disputatious minefields that surround the current Rohingya problem. They have done so with balanced, sensitive, and measured steps and analysis, providing insights into the complex, conflicting historical and present narratives that make up real and mythical history. This book provides the necessary background for judicious appraisal of the problems, if not simple means for their solution. We are in their debt.
Yet the minefields remain and are likely to expand over time. Multiple historical narratives regarding this group of people are in dispute, encumbered by various myths and half-truths that solidify into supposedly revealed wisdom. The present is emotionally and legally entrapped in the past. Responsibilities are ignored. Access is restricted or denied. Prejudices mount. And international outrage and internal suspicions of such outrage are increasing. The United Nations, world and regional powers, and the Myanmar government differ in their responses. But the longer solutions are ignored or denied, the more intractable the issues become.
Myanmar's political liberalization and technological changes have heightened confrontations. Better access to diverse information-informed or derogatory-and the relative freedom to express such views, together with the power of technology, have quickly spread vituperative prejudices and misinformation. Cumulative issues and group identity, but ones sparked by individual incidents, cause "ethnic entrepreneurs seeking to anchor their narratives in particular events" (p. 187). Flashpoints cannot easily be controlled and are likely to persist.
With careful, deliberative attention, the authors have sought what Confucius called "the rectification of names." The term "Rohingya" in political parlance exacerbates tensions and is restricted in Myanmar circles, as it implies a distinct indigenous group to Myanmar officialdom and contrasts with the officially preferred term "Bengali," indicating foreign origins. So too does Burmese terminology excite passions: lu myo (literally, "people type"-race, nationalism, ethnicity) and taing yin tha (literally, "sons of the country"-indigenous ethnic groups) have been "weaponized" to further particularistic goals and exclude others, although the terms can overlap. "The taing-yin-tha definition of indigeneity, and the politics that drive it, are not inherent in history or the context. Rather, they are weapons of exclusionary politics, largely perpetrated by General Ne Win and the military regime after the 1962 coup" (p. 200). The authors...