A brief history of the word “Rohingya” at the heart of a humanitarian crisis

The Rohingya are a largely Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar at the center of a humanitarian
catastrophe. But the Myanmar government won’t even use the word “Rohingya,” let alone admit they’re
being persecuted. Instead, the government calls them Bengalis, foreigners, or worse, terrorists.

This difference between these two terms—Rohingya and Bengali—is crucial to understanding the crisis
unfolding in Myanmar, where more than 500,000 Rohingya have recently fled following a government
crackdown and which has been called a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing by the top United Nations
human-rights official. Many of those ended up sheltering in makeshift camps in Bangladesh, telling tales
of the killings, rape, and massacres.

Before the massacres, there were thought to be around 1.1 million Rohingya living in the country. The
Rohingya have existed in Myanmar—a Buddhist majority country—for centuries. It was known as Burma
under British colonial rule (from 1824-1948) and there was significant migration between today’s
Myanmar, India, and Bangladesh. Once Burma won independence in 1945, the government passed the
Union Citizenship Act (pdf), which detailed the ethnicities “indigenous” to Myanmar. The Rohingya were
not considered to be one of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups.

That said, the Rohingya were able to carve a place for themselves in newly independent Burma; with
some serving in parliament and other high offices. And their ethnicity was included in the 1961 census.

The situation quickly deteriorated for the Rohingya, however, following the 1962 military coup, when the
government—driven by Bamar-supremacist ideology (paywall)—gave fewer official documentation to
the Rohingya and refused to fully recognize new generations of the Rohingya population. In 1974, all
citizens in Burma were required to get national registration cards, but the Rohingya were only allowed to
obtain foreign registration cards.

By 1982, a new citizenship law was passed that prevented Rohingya from easily accessing full
citizenship, rendering many of them stateless. In 1989, the country was renamed Myanmar.

It’s not just the Rohingya, outbreaks of violence have affected non-Rohingya Muslims across Myanmar.
Certain extremist monks have intensified the Islamophobic rhetoric in the country, claiming Myanmar’s
dominant Buddhist faith is under threat from Muslims (pointing to Afghanistan and Indonesia as
examples). These monks were crucial in passing “race and religion” laws that targeted Muslims and
attempted to stem their population growth.

In 2009, a UN spokeswoman described the Rohingya as “probably the most friendless people in the
world” and it’s easy to see why. In 2015, the plight of the Rohingya was brought to the forefront when
boats packed with Rohingya migrants were left stranded at sea. The Rohingya—collectively dubbed
across international media as “boat people”—were stuck because they were turned away from a number
of Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Unwanted in Myanmar, the
Rohingya are also often rejected from the countries they hope to flee to.

Since the late 1970s, nearly one million Rohingya are estimated to have fled Myanmar. The 2014 census
—which the UN helped conduct—banned the use of the term “Rohingya.”

Words matter

By referring to the Rohingya as “Bengalis,” the government is able to designate this persecuted minority
as the “other.” This perception of Rohingya as outsiders and illegal immigrants provides a not so subtle
justification for the systematic disenfranchisement of the group and the government’s efforts to root them
out of their homes. It implies they belong in Bangladesh, with other Bengali Muslims.

It’s a tactic the world has seen before. In 1992, a couple of years before the Rwanda genocide, Léon
Mugesera, a well-known Hutu ideologue, delivered a now infamous speech in which he rallied others to
exterminate the Tutsis. During the speech, he called on Hutus to “wipe out this scum” and send the Tutsis
to Ethiopia by way of the Nyabarongo River. At the heart of this genocidal discourse was the belief that
the Tutsis were not native to Rwanda and originated from Ethiopia (known as the Hamitic hypothesis).
Mugesera message had clearly resonated; at the end of the bloodshed, tens of thousands of dead Tutsis
were thrown in Rwanda’s rivers.

Perhaps, most depressingly, is the reaction of the de facto leader of Myanmar and Nobel laureate, Aung
San Suu Kyi, who has remained largely silent on the humanitarian crisis. Suu Kyi response has shocked
the world—with other Nobel laureates condemning her failure to act—but a look at the words Suu Kyi
has long etched out her position.

In 2012, she said that she did not know if the Rohingya could be regarded as citizens. And just like the
military, Suu Kyi has also long refused to use the term “Rohingya.”