The Rakhaing-6

The Rakhaing-6  
               by Dr. Tha Hla

The history of Rakhaing abounds ups and downs. The centuries-long sovereignty over portions of Bengal heightened the Rakhaing power to a climax it had never before or ever since attained. However, the ancient Rakhaing conquerors might not have foreseen that centuries later the flood of Bengali Muslims would swamp the Rakhaing proper and endanger the very existence of their own people and culture. If the eminent Rakhaing monarchs were to return to life today, they would certainly be amazed by the changes which has taken place since the time of their reign. They would hardly discern the land being the same kingdom they had bequeathed to their people. They would particularly be astonished by the demographic transposition in that the Bengali Muslims after having dislodged the Buddhist Rakhaings from the former colonies infiltrated into and squatted on the Rakhaing soil itself. They would not believe their own eyes that in certain remote corners of the land the local Buddhist monasteries and pagodas had been replaced by the Muslim mosques let alone the latter stood side by side emulating the former elsewhere across the land, which emitted piercingly amplified prayer calls of the muezzins five times a day, everyday resounding throughout the neighbourhoods. Exasperated by the demographic transformation they might lament that the historical legacy had collapsed; the countries-old taboo had been broken; Islam had made its headway into the Rakhaing and far beyond. Their sweet memories of the good old time would be eclipsed by the deepening anxiety for the misty future of the Buddhist culture. Would the adherents of the faith be able to withstand the swiftly prolific Muslim population and dynamic sweep of Islam?

The persistent Muslim penetration combined with the rigorous Islamic politicking would exacerbate their anguish and put the ancient rulers into a state of pensiveness that it might not be a question of if but a matter of when the land of pagodas as known to the West would be absorbed into the Islamic fold.

The persistent Muslim penetration combined with the rigorous Islamic politicking would exacerbate their anguish and put the ancient rulers into a state of pensiveness that it might not be a question of if but a matter of when the land of pagodas as known to the West would be absorbed into the Islamic fold. Reminiscing their role as the patrons of antiquities at Mrohaung (Mrauk Oo) which stood test of time. Scanning the horizon above the high mountain ranges on the east they might wonder what would happen to innumerable edifices at Pugan, which survived destruction inflicted by the invading troops of Kublai Khan? Perhaps they might recall the city of Nalanda where the Buddhist institutions were desecrated by Aurangzeb, a Muslim fanatic who was one of the rulers of the Mogul empire in India. Bewildered and confused they might ponder what would become of the great Maha Muni in Mandalay? At the same time they might experience an eerie sensation at the thought of Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque at Delhi which was grafted on to a tenth-century Chauhan temple, or the disputed mosque at Avodya which was allegedly erected on top of a Hindu temple or as was to be the case with many other temples. Vitualizing in their mind the silhouette of the magnificent golden Shwedagon spiring against the red amber predawn sky, their memories might flash back to what had happened to Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine church in Constantinople. Four slender minarets were added and the church was converted into a Muslim mosque after the Turkish conquest of Byzantium in 1453, which remained as the mosque of Hagia Sophia in the European side of Istanbul for centuries before it was transformed into a museum in 1932. Their apprehension might presage what the future holds for the Buddhist culture in Burma. Islam made itself visible through construction of mosques in the conquered lands and the adopted countries. Who would have thought that the Sule pagoda, in the heart of the nation’s capital city of Rangoon, which was built in the third century B.C. laying the cornerstone of Buddhist culture in lower Burma, is now dwarfed and overshadowed by half a dozen Muslim mosques1 within the sight of one another, located at the vintage points in the proximity of the historic pagoda as close as a few feet from the pedestal. The mosques were erected in the British colonial era. The country has regained its sovereignty but the luster of the Sule pagoda will never be recovered. The colonial Burma was subject to the British imperialism as well as the Islamic expansionism. Throughout the country the British had left permanent reminders of their colonialism. A piece of history remains frozen in time.

What was precognition is now comprehension. Never has there been a mind boggling question which the Burmese Buddhists hardly can bear to answer. It is too painful and unsettling. Is Islam a threat to Burma, leading to disappearance of the Buddhist culture? The answer lies in the question of the Islamic doctrine and the historical contexts. Conceptually Islam ascribes the utmost importance to conversion. There being no distinction between religion and politics in the faith of Islam, the believers used religion to legitimate aggression and warfare and transformed the lives of others. Persecution and ferocity earned some Muslim conquerors notoriety for anti-infidel activities such as iconoclasm, notably in India. The Muslims are bound by a fundamental tenet that they are to live in "Dar-ul-Islam," a land of peace ruled by Muslims; if they reside in a non-Muslim country, "Dar-ul-Harb", a land of war, they are obliged to wage Jihad, Holy war against the infidels as occasion calls for. A Muslim’s first duty is loyalty to Islam and to his race, no matter who and what he is or whether he lives in Burma, Thailand, India, China, Europe or the United States of America. The conscious of faith supersedes the national sentiment. To a Muslim nothing assures him a place in paradise as most readily as to die fighting for his faith. Antipathy between Islam and other religions ignited regional wars in different parts of the world at different tines, and communal virulences in many countries as often as the domestic squabbles in a family. Tension mounted and skirmishes erupted between the Muslims and other religion communities in the Muslim domains as well as in the lands they settled. Historically Islamic fundamentalism had been as issue of international concern in the past centuries. In their bid for sweeping conquest the Muslims turned themselves to dreadful invaders. Their reputation proceeded them for rapacity and ruthlessness. The Muslim radicalism constituted one of the major issues in the twentieth century. The religious and racial persecution in the magnitude of genocide took place for the first time in the modern history eighty years ago in the land of Armenians who were annihilated by the Turkish Muslims just because they were Christians and racially different. The ethnic cleansing claimed the lives of over one million Armenians who went through the atrocities only to be paralleled by the Nazi holocaust during the Second World War in which millions of Jews were exterminated. Burma had every reason to fear he bigoted Muslims, particularly for what was going on in adjoining Bangladesh where genocidal killings and Islamization of he tribal people have been rampant in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The minorities were mostly Buddhists and of Mongoloid origin, whose lives had been peaceful and undisturbed until the birth of the Muslim state. For a glimpse of the heinous crimes, excerpts are reproduced hereunder from "Survival International Annual Review, No.43:-

"After massacres: In December 1980 the home Minister, Mustafizur Rahman, the same man heading the parliamentary inquiry into the Kaokhali massacre, introduced the Disturbed Area Bill. The bill, which became law in early 1981, gave police and the army unrestricted powers to shoot anyone suspected of anyone or make an arrest without warrant in any defined politically disturbed areas. The bill was greeted by massive opposition for it was a further step in the militarization of Bangladesh generally. Upendra Lal Chakma stated: the government is looking for a genocidal solution to the problems of ethnic minorities up there."

"The genocidal solution had been heralded on 26 May 1979 when Brigadier Hannan and lieutenant-Colonel Salam, in an unguarded moment, declared at a public meeting in Panchari that "we want the soil and not the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts".

"The Bangladesh military junta has made a secret plan to force the tribal people to become Muslims. With this end in view, it has established an Islamic Preaching Center at Rangamati, the capital of the CHT. Saudi Arabia is financing the construction of a big Mosque and also an Islamic Cultural Centre at Rangamati. The Bangladesh Government has built hundreds of Mosques throughout the CHT as part of its plan to Islamise the tribal homeland. Recently the Martial Law Government secretly circulated a letter to all army officers now stationed in the CHT, encouraging them to marry tribal girls with a view to assimilating the tribal people."

"The following article, written by a Chakma tribal who prefers to retain anonymity, effectively summarises the extensive documentation that exists on what is one of the most serious predicaments for tribal people anywhere in the world."

Introduction : An extraordinary state of affairs is prevailing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). The Bangladesh Government has been carrying out a programme of systematic extermination of the indigenous nationalities of he CHT because they are ethnically, religiously and culturally different from the Muslim Bengalis. As a result, all human rights and civil liberties have been violate; tens of thousands of innocent tribal men, women and children have been murdered; 12-15 thousand tribal people have been detained without trial, tortured and some of them killed; thousands of tribal women have been kidnapped, raped and many of them forcibly converted into Islam; tens of thousands of tribal farmers have been herded into concentration camps and their farm lands have been distributed among the outsider Muslim Bengali settlers; about 85 per cent of the tribal houses have been burned; Buddhist temples have desecrated and destroyed; Buddhist monks have been detained without trial, tortured and some of them slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of outsider Muslim Bengalis have been rehabilitated by displacing the tribal farmers. In 1947, the tribal population and Muslim Bengalis formed 98 per cent and less than 2 per cent of the total population of the CHT respectively. By 1982, the Muslim Bengali population accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total population in the CHT. All development works have created job opportunities exclusively for the Muslim Bengalis, whereas the tribal people are not even allowed to do business. During the British period the people of the CHT enjoyed an important degree of autonomy, the rule of law and justice, police and official protection, full employment and prosperity. However, under the Muslim Bengali rule, they have been deprived of all human rights and forced to become landless, homeless, jobless refugees. They are facing the prospect of total extinction."

While there exists discrepancy between the radical fundamentalists and the moderate Muslim leaders who were critical of the religio-political movements carried out by the extremists who manipulated and distorted true teaching of Islam, the recent developments in Bosnia and Kosovo in former Yugoslavia, and Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia tended to illustrate the Islamic revisionism and secessionism as much as the Muslim hotbeds in Asia, Africa and the West tempted the non-Muslim nations to view Islam through the prism of religious fanaticism and terrorism. With the fundamental concept of bringing the world under the umbrella of Islam, the extent of the global movement is reflected in the spiritual allegiance of the populations, irrespective of the race and ethnic divisions, which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. The genesis and geographical expansion of Islam dates back to the seventh century fueled by passion of faith as well as the economic and social interests. Through conquest and conversion the Islamic community, a religious polity of global dimension, which originated at a place called Medina in Saudi Arabia has grown to a mammoth brotherhood society that represents one fifth of the world population extending from Arabia to North Africa, the heart of the old Soviet Union, western China and east and southeast Asia. Included in the expansion were the former territories of the Byzentine and the Sassanian civilizations. Besides being confederated into a 54- nation Organization of Islamic Conference2 the Muslim world continued to grow in India, China, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Europe and the United States of America.

The Muslim invasions of India brought about vast and shattering historical changes over many centuries, which at long last led to partition of the deeply troubled nation into two republics in 1947 ending the British rule; one republic for the Hindu majority and the other for the Muslim minority, Pakistan which later fell apart on the ground of racial and cultural dichotomy. The Bengali speaking East Wing broke away from the Urdu-speaking Punjabi West in 1971 and the state of Bangladesh came into being. Islam is the dominant religion in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the second largest in India. The Indian subcontinent where more than one fifth of the world Muslims live was one the hub of Buddhism during the reign of Asoka, the greatest ruler of the Mauryan dynasty whose rule extended from Afghanistan to Deccan. Asoka established Buddhism throughout the empire in the third century B.C. and sent Buddhist missions to the Mediterranean regions, Ceylon, Burma and other southeast Asian nations. The development of the Art of Gandhara, the north Indian kingdom what is now northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan, illuminates the cultural influence of Buddhism which had been the dominant religion there before Islam was established. Buddhism spread north of Hindu Kush Mountains into Central Asia where it flourished, especially eastern Turkistan until the ninth century when the Muslims conquered the region and replaced it with Islam. Excavation and ancient monuments bear witness to the golden age of the Buddhist religion in the area located on the legendary silk routes. Buddhism became a world religion during his time. However, following the revival of Hinduism, Islamic expansion reached India wave after wave of invasions beginning from the eighth century A.D. Islam won many Hindu convert; conversion by the sword as well as by political influence. The vast majority of the ruling Muslim community in India were Hindu converts with only 1 or 2 per cent of the Arabic, Persian, Afghan, Turkish and Mogul invaders. A great number of conversion came from the Hindu ranks, with a few from upper class whose preference was either out of conviction or in the hope of reward. Some were forcibly converted in times of crisis and distress. In Eastern Bengal the accession was wholesome. The entire region where a corrupt form of Buddhism had flourished, turned to Islam in order to escape the Brahmin domination following the flight to Tibet of the Buddhist monks when the Muslim invaders conquered the area in the twelfth century. Animists might well have embraced Islam. Hindu outcasts changed to Muslims for the relative freedom of Islam. It was the factor that pockets of Muslim minority scattered all over India among the Hindu majority, except in Sind and Punjab.

In China the Muslim community which started from a few thousand merchants who settled in some coastal cities in the eighth century grew their numbers through massive immigration via land routes of Central Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Muslim ranks swelled as they married Chinese women and bought out Chinese children whom they raised as Muslims. Many Chinese converted to Muslims. Spreading all over the country the Muslims now constitute the majority in the Autonomous Region of Ninghsia and sizable minority in Kensu, Shensi and Yunnan. In the nineteenth century an Islamic revivalist movement swept across the land impelled by the Islamic inspiration, more intensely in the northwestern and southwestern China. In 1950s the Muslims again proclaimed their sentimental identification with the Arabic culture. Demand for the Islamic identity continued which means that aspiration for secession still persisted. Islam spread to much of southeast Asia which extended in a bend, from southern Thailand through Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. While Islam represents only 4 per sent in Thailand, 5 per cent in the Philippines and ranks after Buddhism and Taoism in Singapore, it is the state religion in Malaysia and Indonesia where Hinduism Buddhism had been prevalent before Islam became the dominant religion in the sixteenth century. The Borobudur shrine in Java stands testimony to the blossoming of Buddhism in the region. Much of the Hindu culture still survives in the island of Bali. Islam reached the Asian archipelago in the beginning of the twelfth century and Malacca on the southern coast of Malaysia became the first major Muslim port in southeast Asia where the Muslim merchants traded and married the local women. Attracted by the Islamic doctrine and Sufi mysticism, the rulers in the area converted to Islam and their subjects followed suit. The same sequence was repeated in Sumatra. Java and Borneo in Indonesia and the Sulu island in the Philippines. Together Indonesia and Malaysia form a population of some 250 millions, the majority of them are Muslims.

In Europe the Muslims occupied Spain from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, and penetrated into southern France only to be halted by the battle of Tours, one hundred miles southwest of Paris. The Muslims even invaded the city of Rome and sacked St. Peter’s Church. Advancing to the east they conquered and Islamized the territories which are now known as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhastan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the fifteenth century the Ottoman Turks overran the Balkan peninsula which includes Bulgaria and Serbia, and the local population were turned into Muslims who may be found today in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and other territories. In the present time many western European nations are faced with the grim reality of the problem of Muslim immigrants and the Islamic fundamentalist threat. The same predicament has been in the center stage of the United States of America so far as the national security is concerned, the world’s most powerful nation where freedom was compromised with the threat of terrorism. The exquisitely embellished landmarks of the national pride and power such as the White House, the Capitol Building and the like in the nation’s capital city of Washington, D.C, have been barricaded and defaced by the concrete fortification in fear of the terrorists who had tried with incredible ineptitude to blow up New York City. The inroad into the American politics by several million Muslims both immigrants and African Muslims drew much attention in the political and social arenas as a force to be heard and seen. The American Muslim Alliance, among other Muslim organizations in the United States of America, through its seventy regional chapters in twenty six states, has been actively involved in the local and congressional elections across the nation, organizing and encouraging the growing Muslim community to participate in the American politics. In 1998 twenty Muslim candidates entered the local elections. A Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh sought election in the senatorial race in the Queens district of New York, who had earlier been elected to the local Board of Education.

The Muslim domination of India might have been brought to an end by the conquest of the British; However, whose occupation of Burma had an adverse effect because it contributed the cause of Islamization. The colonial-born generation of Muslims in Burma began with flow of the Indian immigrants during the British rule. India being the keystone of the British empire, the citizens of the Indian subcontinent were exported to East Africa, Caribbean, Fiji, Malay and Burma as part of massive transmigration that accompanied the British colonial expansion. Aimed at shattering the burning spirit if the nationalist Burmese the British incorporated Burma into the Indian empire as a province and flooded it with spades of the Indian immigrants, the vast numbers of them were the Hindus mostly the Tamils of south India, and the rest being the Muslims. They were mainly engaged in trade and commerce with the exception of a few in the civil service. They clustered in the urban trade centers where capital and goods accumulated. At the outbreak of the Second World War 500,0003 Indians fled Burma making their long journey back to India. Most of them perished who fell victim to disease, famine and the Burmese who preyed on them. After the war some returned to Burma only to leave the country for good in the aftermath of indigenization and whereby foreign investments and access were confiscated. The Hindus immigrants were as proud of their nationality as they were happy to be back home in India. Unlike the Hindus, the Muslims had their own agenda to accomplish. They were not just the ordinary economic pollutants but the social polemicists as well, who were deeply involved in the Burmese politics and exerted Islamic influence in the Burmese Buddhist society. Moreover, opening of the Suez Canal facilitated the rice export and the British expanded their commercial interest by promoting rice cultivation in the Irrawaddy delta as well as in the alluvial plains of the Rakhaing land. Thousands of migrate Bengalis were engaged in the British rice industry in Rakhaing. They were largely seasonal workers who joined their families in Bengal after the harvest, while some households moved in and settled in the peripheral areas of the rice industry. The Muslim settlers among the predominant Buddhist Rakhaings have ever since been outlandish, the language and culture of their mother land intact. Separated by linguistic and cultural differences, an unbridgeable chasm existed between the native Buddhist Rakhaings and the alien Bengali Muslims. The ethnic cronyism and Islamic politics made the relations all the more difficult to improve. They never integrated into the mainstream Rakhaing society. On the other hand, the descendants of the mogul refugees were entirely different from the Bengali immigrants. Though Muslims by faith, they adopted the local customs and picked up the native tongue since the time their rebellious ancestors were suppressed and deported to Ramree island by Sanda Wizaya at the outset of the eighteenth century. Many of the older generation received education in the Buddhist monasteries and some excelled in the Burmese language and literature. Rather than joining the Muslim separatist movement they proudly distanced themselves from the Bengali Muslims who were foreigners to them as much as the Pathans of Pakistan were aliens to the Bengalis of the Dravidian strain.

The Muslims in India and for that matter in Malaysia, Indonesia and China being the indigenous converts they were essentially the natives of the respective land. In Burma the Muslim community which comprises 4 per cent of the total population was not the local converts recruited through persuasion but was made up of the immigrants and their offsprings. Therefore, the Muslims in Burma remained an alien entity in the exclusively nationalist Buddhist society who vigorously preserved the pristine faith of Buddhism which starkly contrasts to Islam wherein every issue in life is judged from the sectarian point of view; consequently the two communities became separate and conflicting social groups. A Muslim might be in good standing but socially he was regarded not being one of the same mould with the Buddhist on the basis of ethnic affinities and cultural backgrounds; hence less being commingled and few interracial marriages between the two communities. United on the strength of the religious faith, the Muslims in Burma though small in numbers perpetuated their power in the communal politics and their assertion was fostered by various concessions that the A.F.P.F.L government was forced to make including legalization of the illegal Muslim immigrants in the Rakhaing land. The trouble was the manner in which the unscrupulous Burmese politicians fanned the flame of animosity. Out of rancour, the legacy of generations, they turned against the Rakhaings in every way and by any means while placated the Bengali Muslims by favour and rewards which whetted the political appetites of the Muslims for more power. Added to the political advantages the Muslims were given access to the national radio networks, a privilege not accorded to the indigenous Buddhist Rakhaings at the time. The above measures together with the continued influx of the illegal Muslims well served the political expediency of the shortsighted Burmese politicians in their effort to counterpoise the intensely nationalistic Rakhaings who regarded the impetuous ossification as a betrayal which still rankled in their mind long after the politicians were gone. The esteem had turned to disdain because of the politicians. The perverted politicians were too naïve to realize that national security would eventually by threatened by the growing population of Muslims whose sole interest being to conquer the land. The Muslims lived off the Burmese hospitality but they did not unite with the Burmese. Their political loyalty was too often on sale to the highest bidder. What drove the point home was the shifting alliance of the Muslim parliament members, who switched sides back and forth bargaining for the most available numbers of cabinet posts, between the two factions of the ruling party, each trying to outmaneuver the other in the self-destructive inner party struggle. Since the party adherents including the native minorities were divided and with the opposition party allied to one faction the gang of six Muslims became crucial to both sides for successful outcome in the no-confidence motion against the government of U Nu, which finally brought down the whole house of cards, paving the way for the military dictatorship to replace the constitution regime.

The anatomy of the Islamic strategy was through a combination of military and political measures. Despite the relentless efforts in the previous centuries the Muslims failed to achieve their objective but the ambitions did not die. As noted earlier the scheme of the Bengali Muslims in the Rakhaing land was to exploit monopoly and establish their claim to the territory. With this end in view all methods of craft were employed but none of them has yet met with success. As wily as they were, what crossed in their mind was another effete verisimilitude. Intent on concealing their true identity and thus forging an ethnic minority the Muslims in Rakhaing, who after having shed the emblem of the Burmese Muslims chose to claim themselves the Rakhaing Muslims. Nonetheless, the signature of Rakhaing being Mongoloid by ethnicity and Buddhist by faith, the credibility of their claim was bitterly challenged by the Rakhaings. Unable to surmount the gruff diatribe the Bengali Muslims decided not to cling to their claim. Desperately needed to rebuild the image they vainly tried to fake a thin camouflage by assuming a new name "Rohingya" which they hoped might change the general perception about their origin and hostile activities, since the Mujahids were closely identified with the Mujahadins who were associated with terrorism. The term Rohingya being sternly controverted, what would it be next? Perhaps "Rohingya" an Afghan clan who moved to India en masse and settled in Uttar Pradesh after they had been uprooted from the homeland by the Persians in the eighteenth century. Whichever brand the change might bring it is the same old wine in the new bottle, the same old militant Bengali secessionists in one more disguise, who were lying low, yet keeping ready to spring to action once time is ripe. While sizing up the situation they ostensibly moved the bases to the Thai-Burma border area. The new location was worth all the efforts in purporting noninvolvement of Bangladesh in the separatist movement as well as to join forces with the Muslim secessionists of Thailand. No matter whatever measure was taken to extricate Bangladesh from the intrigue it is the open secret that the Muslim secessionist movement was conceived in and generated by the Muslim nation next door which continued to incite its fellow Bengali Muslims inside Burma to conduct campaigns of terror and intimidation. It exploited the ethnic divisions within Burma with the object of bringing them to the point of popular uprising, seeking a pretext for outside intervention.

No sooner than independence was won Burma experienced multi-colour insurgency and subversions; however nothing was so distinguished than the Muslim separatist movement in that it was organized, financed and directed by foreign nations using religion power to rally support of the Islamic world and...

In international transactions all relations contain characteristics of conflict but the record of the neighbouring Muslim nation was in remarkable contrast to the generally accepted principle embodied in the Charter of the United Nations which prohibits member states from interfering in each other’s domestic problems. No sooner than independence was won Burma experienced multi-colour insurgency and subversions; however nothing was so distinguished than the Muslim separatist movement in that it was organized, financed and directed by foreign nations using religion power to rally support of the Islamic world and the international public at large by means of squandering lobbyists, public relations firms and an avalanche of propaganda of which sought through vitriolic language and gross exaggeration to crate impression that the Muslims were the subject of systematic persecution in Burma. The Muslims agitators who continued to provoke and manufacture incidents accomplished their objective by fomenting panic among the local Muslims; hence exodus into Bangladesh which led the world to believe that the minority Muslims were being pushed out from the land. What was seen was not all that appeared to be. A lie repeated over and over again became indistinguishable from the truth.4 The unsettled situation in Burma was dramatized by two domestic events in 1978 and 1992 involving the Bengali Muslim refugees. Burma was under the international pressure to take in more refugees than the number of Muslims who crossed the border into Bangladesh which found convenient to label any unwanted persons as the refugee from Burma while there remained 400,000 Bihari Muslims stranded in Bangladesh, whose repatriation Pakistan refused to accept. The basic issue of illegal immigration was diverted to the instigated refugee crisis and the secessionist movement was juggled into religious persecution. It seems too querulous and anomalous on the part of the critics to perverse the real aspect of religious freedom in Burma, particularly the peevish Muslims who contemn and trammel the non-believers much less to allow other religions establish or being practised on their soil while they themselves reached the deep pockets to insensately impose Islam on the non-Muslim nations and the peaceful peoples. It raises serious questions as to the essence of morality.

Poised between the ambitions of China, the world’s most populous nation and Bangladesh, the world’s most densely populated country per square mile, Burma has relatively few effective means of preventing infiltration from outside since its lengthy frontiers pass through high mountain ranges, thick forests and shallow rivers. To safeguard the sovereignty and protect the interest of the nation is the paramount duty of any government, the democratic or otherwise. Neither the national security nor the illegal immigrant issue is to be kept in bay. However, in Burma because of the military regime whatever events or however routine the administrative measures might have been, they were painted in much different pictures with the sinister intent to conjure up in the minds of the general public, especially in the West vision of the military dictatorship who in no time dealt with any threat to their authority. The Burmese people who did not recognize the legitimacy of the military rule, nevertheless accepted the general principle of primary loyalty to their own nation. They felt strongly that, with good reasons, the international community took no notice of the legitimate rights of the indigenous Buddhist majority of the host country while they sympathized with the alien Muslim immigrants. Are the Muslim victims, who sought to create a situation to enable them to take over the country they had emigrated? Are the Burmese aggressors, who struggled to defend their own nation? The Muslim agitation and subversions were constant irritants for the Burmese people who have unfairly been relegated to the role of Muslim haters, notwithstanding the fact that Burma, in good neighbourliness and on humanitarianism, extended hospitality to the Bengali refugees and safe transit to the West Pakistani military brass led by General Khan, nicknamed Tiger Khan during the 1971 civil war in then East Pakistan.

The irony is that the Muslim activists who hijacked democracy were now crying for democracy to advance their political legitimacy in order to achieve their objective. Some political analysts concluded democracy and Islam were incompatible. The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization equated Islam and Communism while former Vice President Dan Quayle in his address to the 1990 graduating class of Annapolis linked Nazism, Communism and radical Islamic fundamentalism. The radical Muslims could hardly contain their aspiration. Their quest for global dominance is never ending. They eyed the world with growing ardour. Islam knows no boundary. Geographical isolation is no longer a hindrance. No Muslim armies would come marching on the camel backs like in the medieval age nor blatant military intervention world be a choice; instead subversion and interference would continue to be the case. The Muslims are social parasitic elements like lichens in the sense that they grew on the doomed host and claimed it for themselves; and also are carcinomatous in that just like the malignant tumors they ensconced and spread inside the lymphatic segments of the non-Muslim society leading to its ultimate fatality. The situation in Burma might be different from the condition in the West, but no country is immune from the Islamic virus; every country in susceptible, big or small, developed or underdeveloped, wealthy or needy. There is no telling which country will be the next victim. The Muslims are communal hunters who gang up on others in pack. With the increasing trend in the export of Islamic fundamentalism, the global spread of Islamic threat is in the offing. In the face of the growing Muslim population the fear of demographic threat sounds the tocsin of alarm in the mind of the citizenry of the non-Muslim world.


Reference

(1) Sunni mosque in Sule Pagoda road; Surathi mosque in Shwebontha Street; Sunni mosque in Maungtawlay Street; Sunni mosque in Shwebontha Street; Shia mosque in the 30th Street; and Khoja mosque in Shwebontha Street.

(2) Members of Organization of the Islamic Conference, established in 1971:

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina, Fasco, Cameroon, Chad, The Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kazakastan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lybia, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, PLO, Qatar, Saudi Arbia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Yeman.

Observers: Uzbekistan and Turkish Federated State of Cyprus

(3) D.G.E. Hall, Burma, page 182

4. The culture of not being truthful was referred to the area Muslims in the book "The Raiders of Arakan", by C.E. Lucas Phillips; which appears at page 9:" Masters of intrigue and deception, the Chittagonians made extremely good Intelligence agents behind the enemy lines but, when it come to a clash of interests among themselves, they quarrelled violently and were awful liars.
Last Updated on Friday, 03 June 2011 09:28
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Sources: Rakhapuara