As the world mulls over how to deal with the Rohingya crisis, which is now deemed as a textbook case of “ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations, there is so much more that Pakistan can do. Gradually, the world is now waking up to a horrifying truth that a “silent genocide” is taking place in Myanmar, which is vehemently carried out by the oppressive Burmese military against the Rohingya which is one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May, recently announced at the UN General Assembly that the UK would suspend its joint UK-Burmese military training over the inhumane treatment of Rohingya, the US has also decided to provide an aid relief of $32 million to help the constant influx of over 400,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
While village after village burns in the Rakhine state of Myanmar as satellite imaging shared by Amnesty International indicates, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also requested Myanmar to take back the large influx of Rohingya it holds and to stop calling Rohingya as ‘Bengalis’.
Myanmar’s once-revered Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi broke her long-running silence and openly denied any sort of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya community. Suu Kyi did acknowledge that some Rohingya people are being displaced but never pointed out the real culprits like the Burmese military behind the many attacks Rohingya have suffered. For many, Suu Kyi’s speech was filled with hollowed promises.
Meanwhile in Pakistan, which one might think must be heaven for the Rohingya community due to the persistent interest in the Rohingya issue shown by many religious and political parties here, it is also a “living nightmare” for many of the Rohingya refugees who now call it their permanent home.
It is estimated that between 350,000 to 500,000 members of Pakistan’s Rohingya community live in deplorable conditions, mostly in the slums of Karachi (the country’s financial capital), and after decades of living in the country are denied their basic rights of citizenship. Many of them are not even able to get any sort of basic education, health care or easy access to jobs which is crucial for the community’s welfare, even worse is that Rohingya in Pakistan are often harassed by law enforcement agencies who often view them as “illegal aliens” that are a threat to the national security of the country.
A large majority of Pakistan’s Rohingya who stayed back still remain “stateless aliens” in a country which fails to see them as its own, many of Pakistan’s Rohingya now see themselves betrayed by a false notion of a promised land.
Pakistan which has long established itself as a bastion of the “Muslim Ummah” has all but miserably failed to protect the rights of its own religious and ethnic minorities many of them, including the Sunni Rohingya, Shia Hazara, Ahmadis and Christians, all face collective institutionalised discrimination at the hands of state institutions and are even persecuted by extremists groups who are often linked to terrorist activities both at home and aboard.
Such a display of selective humanity comes as a hypocritical notion, especially from a society which often takes pride in standing up for the rights of the oppressed and persecuted Muslim populations all around the world. But the irony remains at large that the plight of minorities across Pakistan remains unheard of despite considered equal citizens according to the law of the land.