While that widely-proclaimed silent majority may find it difficult for the rest of us to be perpetually disturbed thinking about the troubles of foreign strangers; our overwrought display of love, compassion and empathy towards the Rohingya are, simply put, a call towards the restoration of human rights.
The crisis plaguing the Asian continent very much involves different sectors of society and government, and has grown to become very complex in accommodating a sustainable scenario. The issue of public health and the COVID-19 pandemic heightens the panic as it accompanies Malaysia’s political instability and economic anxiety.
This has, however, intensified the campaigns against the Rohingya community on social media. A wave of hate speech and xenophobic messages flood Twitter and Facebook timelines, as more and more of both sides speak their two cents.
From here on out, its the outspoken minority versus the silent majority.
The Malaysian people, who are not foreign to calling on injustice, have – in recent cases to the Rohingya issue – turned to perpetrating injustice. We, who once condemned violence, have now become agents of violence through online hate campaigns. This leaves the most vulnerable people caught in the narrative.
The Rohingya look towards the Malaysian shore (or any shore, for that matter) with hope. They are a people who have been traumatised with the decapitated bodies of their loved ones, and the violent ruins of their livelihoods. And we’re calling for them to be sent back.
A very popular argument is of the opinion that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants and should be treated as such, in accordance to the country’s Immigration Act – a penalty of RM10,000 or five years in jail, or both.
The mere suggestion of this is troublesome. It exhibits the scale of ignorance and illiteracy in law and governance on the refugee crisis.
To start off, the different definitions of refugee, asylum-seeker, migrant and internally-displaced person are vital to know and acknowledge, because it constructs the root of effective conversation regarding the Rohingya crisis.
Jason Kennedy discusses this in his Concern piece. Click here to read the full article.
The Rohingya ARE NOT illegal immigrants. They are refugees. This means three things:
(1) Malaysia’s Immigration Act – or any law pertaining to immigration and deportation – are inappropriate to impose on the Rohingya community simply because they do not meet the criteria of the persons mentioned in the act.
(2) The Rohingya are travelling illegally because they don’t have travel documents.
(3) As a REFUGEE, a Rohingya has the right to be protected by the country in which they seek asylum in, and can’t be forced to return home. As customary international law, it is ILLEGAL for Malaysia to turn them away.
Write that down. That’s a fact.
The reality, however, is a little more trickier.
Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. The country does not possess a legislative and administrative framework to address refugee matters, and therefore, strains the domestic capacity to cope with both Rohingya refugees and illegal immigrants in the country.
The signing of the Convention and the recognition of Rohingya as refugees have been a persistent demand of human rights groups and advocates.
“They put themselves in this situation of risk by conscious choice. They paid human traffickers RM8,000 – RM10,000 in order to board the boat.”
“The Rohingya willingly abandoned their homes and paid smugglers a lot of money to get there.“
Make no mistake – the Rohingya are being persecuted back in their home country. Their refugee status remains to be “the most persecuted in the world” by Amnesty International. The fact that they paid illegal smugglers to get away does not diminish the reality that they are a people facing real persecution.
In another context, the Palestinians, who abandoned their homes in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba had also paid human smugglers to get them to other Middle Eastern and North African countries.
It isn’t baffling to suggest that the only difference between the Rohingya and the other refugees who have fled to Malaysia – namely the Palestinians and Syrians – is the skin complexion. The dark-skinned Rohingya is a strong factor lending to the reactions of the Malaysians towards these people, and could possibly explain why the majority Malays allegedly favour the pretty Arabs over the “swarthy” Rohingya.
It isn’t preposterous to insinuate that the Rohingya would be embraced with open arms if they had looked more like the fair-skinned Palestinians or Bosnians. Their cause would automatically elicit much more sympathy if this was the case.
This startling reality coaxes an exploration into the Malaysian criminal mind in relation to racism and the Rohingya issue. In his MalaysiaKini post, S Thayaparan wrote “The reality is that the Rohingya issue exposes our criminality as much as it dispels the victimhood card that many folks like to play on behalf of the community.”
One comment on the use of uncivil language in the context of ethnicity was from a Malaysian-Chinese man living in the UK. He trivilised the growing xenophobia against the Rohingya in his own experience of being racially identified. “I did not feel insulted when others called me ‘Chinaman’ or ‘Chink’ in the full knowledge of their inborn inferiority complex compared with the civilised.”
The man, however, failed to recognise that his perception does not dismiss the fact that the comment is racist. The context of its crime disregards an individual’s interpretation and response to it when it symbolises an entire group of people.
Similarly, the ample food on your table doesn’t dispute the fact that world hunger is sending one in nine people to bed hungry every night.
The language that we use in our era has been designed to manipulate society, and those words tend to come off as sounding and feeling more deliberately racial. Again, it depends on specific factors like who said what to whom, for what purpose and how they would affect the target community.
Racial adjectives have been essentially associated to certain actions and features. In the Malaysian sphere, it has been used to utter domination – ketuanan Melayu/Malay supermacy – and segregation – bumiputera & non-bumiputera status.
Racially-motivated language expresses the workings of our minds. It normalises the intention to devalue and denigrate the ‘Other’ as lesser people of an inherently inferior culture.
It has often become a precursor to the escalated violence and hostility against vulnerable minorities. In the extreme scale of this, we look to the use of language in justifying ethnic cleansing in Africa, genocides in Europe, and pogroms in the Middle East.
Adolf Hitler referred to the Jews as rats. The Hutus called the Tutsis “cockroaches” during the Rwandan genocide. The Israelis regard the Palestinians as “animals” and “vermin” that should be exterminated.
Dehumanisation is never a good thing.
“Where is ASEAN in all of this?“
“The UN should help resolve the Rohingya issue at its core.“
While the more logical option would be to use the mechanisms available in ASEAN to make Myanmar stand by its responsibilities, the ASEAN principle of non-interference prevents the other member states from directly interfering in domestic affairs.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has, however, urged Myanmar to take immediate steps to resolve the Rohingya problem in 1992. This was consistent with Mahathir’s foreign policy to project Malaysia as an Islamic nation concerned for the welfare of Muslim minorities.
“Malaysia must not let the Rohinyga become our problem.“
Another hard-hitting truth is that Malaysia is under intense pressure from the international Muslim community. It would be difficult for any standing government to cave into the international load when the accusations of being a Muslim country who refuses to aid other suffering Muslims start piling in.
This brings into question the role of the Islamic faith in the refugee discussion. It might be construed as some kind of bias but the truth of the matter is that it is precisely the fact that the Palestinians, for example, are “fellow Muslims” that their cause has garnered so much public interest and support as compared to the scores of other refugees out there.
The implication of faith cannot be discounted given the mere reality that the Rohingya are largely persecuted for their practice in the Islamic faith.
This perspective explains the geopolitical circumstannces surrounding the Myanmar state.
The Rohingya would have been too much trouble for India’s Hindu-nationalist racism and Pakistan’s tribalistic Islamism. Singapore’s family dynastic rulership of a six million Chinese-majority population is governed by the fear of being surrounded by three large Muslim states: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei – another disaster destination for a Rohingya refugee.
“What we desperately need is a war general.“
Amidst the slew of vitriol targeting the Rohingya community, of hundreds of thousands of Malaysians signing petitions, endorsing Facebook groups and chanting harmful demands for the Rohingya to be criminalised and ousted on WhatsApp – it paints the impression that the silent majority are getting off on the idea of a martyr-like war, where they can unite under the cause of patriotism as once were the “glory days”.
The delusion to realise a fantasy-driven victory against the “invaders” is not only ludicrous, but is dangerously disrupting any discussions for sustainable solutions. It is even more jeopradising for the ones on the receiving end of this hatred.
The hostility rooted against the Rohingya is on the account of ethnicity or ethnic differences, and it is one that lingers till today. It’s spiraling growth has since increased – predictable in the time of the country’s political and economic crisis.
When the Malay establishment invoked the Chinese in their bid of control for the economy, it had resulted in the bloody race riots of May 13.
Unless we start confronting the very real possibility of repeated history, the result of this, I’m afraid, will eventually lead to war.
In the very multiracial Malaysia, public opinion on the Rohingya crisis remains to be at split ends. It is often a stand-off between the idealistic liberalist and the capitalistic realist. There has yet been a situation where both sides lay down their weapons and meet half-way.
I, too, am driven by a sense of pride and loyalty towards this country, eventhough I advocate against political and social identities. I’ve spoken very ill of patriotism and ultra-nationalist movements because it can mobilise and paralyse whole sections of society.
However, I cannot deny the arguments on the other side of the aisle.
Would I be distressed if my citizen rights to access education and medical resources were taken away from me to accommodate a foreign people? Would I feel irritated if the lines between citizen and foreigner were blurred? Would I viciously protest against the abolition of my access to safety and security during a national crisis?
Yes, I would to all. But, don’t mistaken this exaggerated scenario into reality. It is far from it.
On a scale of numbers, the Rohingya people make up less than 1% of the entire population in Malaysia. The aid that is attributed to the community is donation-driven and involves private/non-governmental organisations.
To put this into perspective, my citizenship privilege of comfort, education and security are far from being affected.
The attitude on the other side is to deny all charity towards a people other than their own, simply because they’re not “one of ours”.
To a degree, the concerns of the humanitarian are just as valid as the nationalist. It ultimately comes down to a workable solution that they can both benefit and sustain.
With that in mind, I think it’s safe to say that the Rohingya issue is our issue, and it has been for the last decade or so.
It starts to get complicated when they become the commercial pawns of the powerful and corrupt. There is a joined criminal entity operating in this country and abroad that boasts a network of underground activities. The Malaysian state has chosen to turn a blind eye.
The country remains to be in the business of shunting and blaming the refugees – through the associations of NGOs and political associations – obfuscating public opinion to extort state and foreign aid funds. To a point, this crisis is just one piece of a 100-piece puzzle.
Without getting too much into that mess, it’s pretty clear to discern the role of governmental bodies in this issue. As we continue to bicker among ourselves, the people on top pull the strings.
Malaysia’s refusal to participate in the international agenda for refugees has crippled the country’s ability to implement an effective check-and-balance system, while the scholarship on the study of the demographic, social and economic impact of the Rohingya in Malaysia has been limited to public interest and awareness.
There must be a plan in place. These are people – human beings – we’re talking about, not objects to be stored in a warehouse waiting for the next shipment to arrive.
From the far-right to the ultra-left, we should all collectively hold the government responsible for the signing of that convention. And while it may not guarantee a fundamental or immediate shift in the way we respond to refugees, the Refugee Convention provides internationally recognised legal frameworks to establish appropriate policy development.
The Rohingya issue is not just a border or national security issue – it’s a human one that tests our compassion, and realistically demonstrates where exactly our Malaysian values lie. This has grown to become a regional issue that acutely needs regional cooperation for a solution. Malaysia can lead this effort.
But for now, I urge you to stop reacting to the misinformation you hear. Listen, instead and see the realities that are happening, and consider their hardship. I suppose it’s not hard to believe that Rohingya as a people dirty and diseased if we have little to no contact with them. The politicians and media feed our brains the biased and inaccurate ideas so that we can piece together a negative representation of them. From there, we fall into the vicious cycle of having these prejudicial ideas reinforced.
One reckons that Malaysians would understand prejudice better than anyone else seeing as how, we too, have experienced it at some point of our lives. “Malays are lazy!” “We already gave the Chinese and Indians citizenship, and they still want to ask for more?” “We only rent to Chinese people.”
Prejudice reduces the humanity of a person, both the good and the bad, into a single living signifier. We only see the nationality or ethnicity in a Rohingya. It is so easy to vilify Rohingya when we don’t see that, they too, have personalities, interests and ambitions just like us. What strings us together is more common than we think but our ability to empathise is simply shut off.
We’ve come to the point where Malaysians need to move beyond their discomfort and defence to a more constructive discussion on the Rohingya refugees crisis. Refusing the refugee boats to land will not solve the problem. While it may be easier to stick to the simplistic prejudicial arguments by dumbing down our God-given thinking abilities, we need to afford the issue with the level of thought a regional humanitarian crisis would require. Because that’s what this is.
We almost always tend to forget that the Rohingya are humans too, and empathy is required to free ourselves of prejudicial sentiments. To pity comes from a position of superiority, so no, not that either. It’s by being empathetic that we’re able to acknowledge the common humanity we share with the Rohingya, and that can build a mutual sense of respect which crosses ethnic and racial lines.
The Flying Olives 