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ROHINGYA
The Rohingya people of Myanmar have been described as the most persecuted people in the world , some scholars suggest in the whole of human history , and yet with a regional story that goes back at least one thousand years it ’ s hard to understand the full context of this human catastrophe that includes genocide not seen for generations .
Understanding the Rohingya story is understanding a regional history that has been meddled with for at least two hundred years , colonialism , discrimination , and outright disregard have left the Rohingya a stateless people that most countries do not want .
Influenced by Arab traders , Moghul powerlords and Portuguese colonialists the Rohingya claim a history that goes back a millennium to when their homeland , Arakan , was a slip of land that sat between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia . This all changed when in 1824 the British Empire expanded into neighbouring India under its premise of colonisation , ‘ unifying ’ the subcontinent under the one administration known as the Crown Rule Of India or the British Raj .
The area included nations that we now know as India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , Myanmar ( Burma ), and more . While the British proclaimed a level of stability it was a rule by xenophobia , ethnic and religious groups were encouraged to never trust the others . A mistrust that remains to this day and one that the Myanmar government promotes and still blames the British for .
In reality , the contemporary situation is not that simple and blaming the British past would be irresponsible and wrong . Successive Myanmar governments have blamed the British past as they entertain the notion of hatred and even genocide against the Rohingya .
During the mid-1930s the British separated the area we now know as Myanmar ( Burma ) from British India to be used as a buffer zone between India and Southeast Asia , encouraging many Muslim workers to migrate from Bengal and Chittagong into the Arakan region , or what is called the Rakhine state where most Rohingya live . At the same time many Indians were promoted into positions of minor bureaucratic roles within Burma .
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