KUALA LUMPUR – For the past decade, internationally-renowned photographer and activist Shahidul Alam has been documenting the plight and suffering of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, a topic that has been largely “ignored” by the international community.
The Bangladeshi cameraman – whose past work includes features in National Geographic – said photography remains a powerful tool in portraying their immense struggle for survival after decades of persecution and forced eviction from their own homeland.
Shahidul said his moments behind the lens with the marginalised community included its forced and often fatal migration by sea, and the limbo of living in Bangladeshi refugee camps.
Speaking to The Vibes recently, Shahidul lamented the fate of the Rohingya, who were not only ignored by his government, but by the world at large.
Shahidul said the Myanmar government refused to even acknowledge their existence, instead preferring to dehumanise, persecute, and even perpetrate violence against the community.
Another plight of the Rohingya-Muslim group, he said, is its statelessness and inability to return to the community’s homeland due to constant fear of oppression and cruelty by the Buddhist-majority Myanmar government.
He further explained that every Rohingya refugee he spoke with shared the same aspiration to return to their villages.
“All of them simply want to return home and live in peace. But they realise that they can only go back home if things are different. Under the current regime, it will not be any different,’’ he said.
Over a million Rohingya have fled violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar since 2016, following a brutal military crackdown.
Some governments have repeatedly accused Myanmar’s government and hardline Buddhist nationalists of propagating acts of violence and genocide against the Rohingya.
The British-educated Shahidul was one of the individuals listed as Time Magazine’s persons of the year in 2018 for his work in documenting human rights violations and political upheaval in Bangladesh over the past three decades.
In 2018, Shahidul was arrested on the grounds of making “false” and “provocative” statements against the Bangladeshi government following their response to protests pushing for road safety.
Genocide, banishment for financial gains
Although the Myanmar government repeatedly claimed they were carrying out a military campaign to ensure stability in the region, Shahidul said it was likely motivated by financial gains.
“Myanmar journalists who have been reporting on the story have told me that (the campaign) has to do with land-grabbing rules in Myanmar.”
“If these people (Rohingyas) leave, then the government gets to own that land, it becomes their property. So this displacement is the way through which they acquire the land.”
“So that has a very direct financial implication for them. Although it’s not been verified, this is what people from Myanmar have told me.”
“The land is also very rich in minerals. These are resource-rich places that corporations and the military want their hands on. So evicting them gives them access to not only to the land, but what is underneath,’’ he said.
Since 2016, Rohingya refugees have made their way into neighbouring countries such as India, Thailand, Malaysia, and even other parts of South and Southeast Asia.
However, Bangladesh has seen the most number of Rohingya refugee arrivals, with over a million of them living in camps within its borders.
While Bangladesh has garnered some praise from the international community for recognising the plight of the Rohingya and providing necessary shelter, the nation does not recognise them as refugees.
“What’s very interesting about the Rohingya situation is that technically they’re not called refugees in Bangladesh.
“Because the minute you call them a refugee, they’re entitled to rights. The refugees are entitled to sort of a lexicon that actually being managed to ensure that they do not have rights. For so many years Rohingyas are still not called refugees in Bangladesh,” he said.
However, Shahidul also called out the “hypocrisy” of western governments for sidelining the Rohingya situation, compared to other humanitarian crises in the world.
“The crux of the matter is not that they (Rohingyas) are refugees, but because they are Muslims.
“Ironically, Buddhism teaches tolerance towards other religions, Buddhism is meant to be a language, a religion of non-violence.
“The fact that such brutality can take place on non-Buddhists to me is remarkable.”
“What is more remarkable is the fact that you have a situation where weeks, days, even after the invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations can have a resolution talking about the Russian invasion,”
“What’s been happening in Palestine for 50 years, what is happening in Myanmar for so long is quietly accepted. This duplicity of the international community amazes me,’’ he said.
When asked about solutions to the Rohingya crisis, Shahidul said there should be more aggressive efforts from the international community to pressure the Myanmar government.
This includes the participation of India and China, he said, adding the latter has a much bigger influence on Myanmar. – The Vibes, October 20, 2022
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