During past few days the most potent images and videos of rivers of blood, beheaded children, dead bodies lying on streets and burning people alive have started a new debate onto the issue of Rohingya Muslims. This is not the first time that Rohingyas have had to face violence and brutality, until now thousands of Muslims have become victims of this ‘slow-burning genocide’ in Myanmar. Myanmar — otherwise known as Burma — was one of the 48 states that voted for the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, which states that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”. Article 5 of the UDHR even states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Unsurprisingly, Human Right Organisations, Amnesty International, western countries and international media outlets like the BBC and CNN are quiet about the violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights over this genocide that has no parallel in the world today. Even the response of Aung San Suu Kyi, one of prominent leaders in Myanmar and a champion of Nobel Peace Prize was quoted saying, “I don’t think there is ethnic cleaning going on against any ethnic minority. I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening”, which clearly indicates her biases. On a similar note, Human Rights Watch stated that the government of Myanmar has to “stop the offensive” and they should allow ‘humanitarian assistance’ to Rohingya Muslims. Now the question is why these IOs and ROs are only resisted to statements and why are they waiting for permission from the government of Myanmar to help Rohingya. History is full of incidents where Western powers never waited for permission if they had genuine interest in the region. The western peace builders are keeping their mouth shut because instead of being the perpetrators, Muslims are the victims of this unending cycle of violence in Myanmar. It seems Buddhist nationalists can and will wipe out the Rohingyas and not a single light will light up to save them Back in 2001, on September 26, just after fifteen days of the 9/11 attacks, the US covertly inserted members of the CIA’s Special Activities Division led by Gary Schroen as part of team Jawbreaker into Afghanistan, forming the Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team. Although, history has proof that US took no approval for any kind of ‘assistance’ in Afghanistan. Instead, the rest of world were left to choose between being seen as either for or against the US led war against terrorism and after years of sacrifice states like Pakistan are still asked to ‘do more.’ Hundreds of women folk in Myanmar were gang raped after ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and young boys are burned alive instead of being educated after ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on July, 15,1991, but not a single peace keeping mission was send to act against the violation of ratified treaties or human rights. This whole episode of Rohingya genocide and the silence of so called global peace protectors reminds the very well theory of international relations known as ‘Clash of Civilisations’. In this theory, Samuel P Huntington argued that world politics is entering a new phase, where divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain to be the most powerful actors in world affairs, but principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations. The clash of civilisations will dominate global politics and the fault lines between civilisations will also be the battle lines of the future. The case of ethnic killings in Myanmar is the exact example of what Huntington wrote back in 1993. The western agenda-based peace builders are keeping their mouth shut because instead of the perpetrators, the victims of this unending cycle of violence are Muslims. So, the Buddhist nationalists can and will wipe out the Rohingyas and not a single light will light up to save them. The Rohingya Muslims will suffer and it will be very hard to get international attention as the West that is shouting asking to ‘do more’ to help them continue their so called war against terrorism will ‘do nothing’ to save innocent lives in Myanmar because this is a war of civilisations and the victims are Muslims. The writer is associated with Strategic Vision Institute, a think tank based in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be reached at nailafarooq@hotmail.com Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2017.