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Dr. Abid Bahar
Xenophobic Burmese Literary Works – a Problem of Democratic Development in Burma PDF Print E-mail
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Wednesday, 04 June 2008

 ‘One blood, one voice, one command’. You cannot build unity with such a slogan especially when 40% of your population is different.-Harn Yawnghwe Director of the Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office.

This excerpt is from Abid Bahar’s book Burma’s Missing Dots-the Emerging Face of Genocide, Ch 2

For the past half a century, the uninterrupted military rule in Burma, characterized by xenophobia and oppression against minorities’ caused the eclipse of much of Burma’s people’s history. Minorities culturally and racially different from the dominating Burmans have been uprooted from their localities under the pretext of being “Kula,” ”Non natives,” or even outright "foreigners." Nowhere is it as serious as in the province of Arakan. Arakan's historic location between South Asia and South-East Asia makes it a “frontier culture” of two major ethnic groups, the Rakhines and the Rohingyas.  Here the problem persists between these two major ethnic groups. A survey of the mainstream Burmese literature shows common features of hate and xenophobia. Some of these works are so well-crafted that they could mislead casual readers of Arakan as seemingly academic works. In this chapter, the report of the survey is presented and the research concludes that the growing chauvinistic literary works have the potential to breed intolerance and aggression in society – factors that could contribute to producing more refugees to its neighboring states. The survey also notes that these beliefs and attitudes among the xenophobic intelligentsia could also be the antecedents to the problems facing democratic development in Burma.

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Arakani King: A Lover or a Murderer of the Suja Family? PDF Print E-mail
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Tuesday, 03 June 2008

Abid Bahar
 
Rabindra Nath Tagore's short story Dalia is about the story of Shah Suja's daugher Amina and the king of Arakan. Shah Suja and his family were given the promise of assilyum in Arakan by the King and were also promised to be sent to Mecca. Thus, Suja began his unfortunate journey from Chittagong through the now called Shah Suja Road. As they arrived in Arakan, Suja's daughter Amina was asked to give marrage to the King. When refused, the entire family was massacred at the order of the King. All of Suja's children were brutally killed by axe.
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Arakan bottled up in Pride and Prejudices PDF Print E-mail
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Thursday, 30 August 2007

Abid Bahar

In Burma, majority of its people follow Buddhism as their faith. Buddhism is known as a religion of peace. The Buddhist samsara discourse in its subtle meaning is normally understood to work as an aid to pacify anger and promote peace. This is however is not the case in the north western corner of Burma’s Arakan province. Contrary to Buddhist precepts, in Arakan, Buddhism is used to promote antagonism and violence against its Rohingya citizens. In this type of use, the xenophobic Moghs have elevated their religion to the status of a political ideology. It has lately promoted the political conceptualization of Buddhism to fight its perceived enemy, the Rohingyas. In this endeavor they are using Buddhism to justify their political agenda of exclusivity and ethnic cleansing, similar to the former Yugoslavian Serb’s use of religious discourse to commit genocide against Muslims.

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Burmese Invasion of Arakan and the Rise of Non-Bengali Settlements in Chittagong of Bangladesh- Arak PDF Print E-mail
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Thursday, 30 August 2007

Dr.Abid Bahar, Canada
February 15 2006

In Burma, majority of its people follow Buddhism as their faith. Buddhism is known as a religion of peace. The Buddhist samsara discourse in its subtle meaning is normally understood to work as an aid to pacify anger and promote peace. This is however not the case is in the north western corner of Burma's Arakan province. Contrary to Buddhist precepts, in Arakan, Buddhism is used to promote antagonism and violence against its Rohingya citizens. In this type of use, the extremist Moghs have elevated their religion to the status of a political ideology.

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