When Aung San Suu Kyi visited Yale last year, she was hailed as a savior of democracy, a doughty champion of civil rights who had survived the torment of a military junta to install a faintly democratic system of governance in her country. I have no doubt she is all these things, and I have great respect for her. However, Ms. Suu Kyi has remained silent on an issue that goes to the heart of why Burma (or Myanmar, as its military rulers have rechristened it) is considered to be an autocratic, uncaring state: the plight of its mostly Muslim minorities.
During Britain’s rule over Burma, thousands of Indian-origin Muslims came to the country to serve in various capacities in the imperial state. They numbered in millions, and often bagged the best jobs, feeding a sense of resentment among the ethnic Buddhist Burmese people. It is hence not surprising that ever since 1962, when the military junta seized power from the civilian government of a now-independent Burma, the minorities have borne the brunt of pent-up Buddhist rage. Thousands of Muslims have been deported back to Bangladesh, and the few who remain are persecuted. In response, several ethnicities, such as the Karen, have taken up arms against the repressive state.
Perhaps the saddest plight is that of the Rohingya people, 800,000 of who are said to live in the country. Persecuted and discriminated against, many are desperate enough to make a perilous (and illegal) sea journey in rickety boats to Australia, hoping to gain asylum there. As Burma transits to a semi-democratic system, with the former military dictator donning the hat of President, the ethnic violence has only grown worse. The pogroms have spread from the outskirts of the country (where the Rohingya live) to the heartland. Recently, the town of Meiktila saw Buddhist mobs destroying mosques, burning Muslim houses and cleansing the city of its non-Buddhist population.
Amidst all this, Ms. Suu Kyi has remained surprisingly silent, choosing to focus instead on getting the military to cede more powers to the civilian representatives. But one is tempted to ask of what use the representation is, if 800,000 of her Rohingya compatriots lack citizenship? And what use her efforts at getting the generals to lose their khakis are of, if non-Buddhists can’t exist without fear of life and limb.