Opinion: Truth, Lies and Conspiracies in Myanmar
Disclaimer:
Let’s set the shaky foundations of this opinion piece straight. This is not meant to be a journalistic piece in the fullest sense of the word. It was written by an eighteen year old Singaporean, after numerous discussions with her best friend in Myanmar, regarding an unsettling disturbance in their communities and the world around them. Take it with more than just a pinch of salt. My hope is that readers will give this opinion piece a chance, while following the ideal that Aristotle articulated thusly: “It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
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On the 2nd of January, a video emerged depicting row after row of civilians kneeling with their hands on their heads as police brutally kicked and and beat them with their batons. Who were these victims? The Rohingya- a minority in Myanmar. They have been persecuted for decades, both by the ethnic Arakanese who live alongside them, and the military junta in Myanmar. The video should have been one more piece of irrefutable to be thrown upon a wretched heap, to attest to the apt of their moniker as “the most persecuted minority in the world”. The swift condemnation of the violence by many international media outlets should have rallied domestic sympathy to the Rohingya’s plight.
And yet I found myself arguing with my best friend, an ethnic Burman from Myanmar, over whether the video had been fabricated. This was shocking. We had passionately discussed many things together: feminism, gay rights, inequality, the need for diversity. Now, with an acute sense of disbelief, I was sharply accusing her of genocide denial, of willfully contradicting Amnesty International’s claims that what the Rohingya were going through could amount to crimes against humanity.
But then slowly she began to win me over slightly by pointing out suspicious points in the circumstances surrounding the video. For instance, according to The Guardian, a youtube user known as The Rohingya Blogger posted the video over the weekend. Yet, at the same time, it can be clearly seen from the video that it was taken by a Myanmar military soldier “selfie-style”. The video was presumably in the soldiers possession. How then did the this youtuber get his or her hands on this video? Were they secretly disguised as a soldier while they took the video? Did they manage to steal the video tape while the soldier was distracted, Mission Impossible style?
Finally onto this aura of doubt, she grafted the grand theory of politics that many Burmese have been brought up with: that the MILITARY was behind the incident. The video was faked. This was a part of the omnipresent military junta’s plan to regain full control of the country by destabilising the newly elected democratic government under Aung San Suu Kyi.
The military knows that the source of Aung San Suu Kyi’s strength, that is, the popular support for her from the people, is also her greatest weakness. If she was elected because her ideals matched that of the people’s, then she must stick to their ideals in order to retain enough hold on power to reform the country. So if her voting bloc espouses not only her democratic ideals, but also casual racism and islamophobia against the Rohingya, then she must turn against her own conscience. This politically necessary decision will make ethnic minorities who have warred against the government in Myanmar lose faith in her abilities to be a peace negotiator that can defend their interests, when she has abandoned the Rohingya. For turning against human rights, she will lose her credibility and moral authority in the international arena.
It sounded surprisingly convincing.
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Of course, when you really think about it, this theory about the origins of the video makes very little sense. It could equally be argued that the military junta, if it wanted to fake the video of the beatings, would have done a better job. They would have filmed it from a hidden camera angle rather than the video’s suspicious selfie camera angle, to eliminate all doubt of government meddling (unless one wishes to enter an infinite loop of doubt by suggesting that the government intentionally made the video slightly suspicious so as to make it seem a more authentic and undirected).
Nonetheless, I would like to suggest, this example possibly reveals gaps in the international media’s reporting of the situation in Myanmar. It is surprising that no questions were raised about the context of the video. This inconsistency in the story about how the video was filmed should have been quickly noticed by professional journalists. But what was probably more surprising to my co-writer and myself were the rumours that have blossomed around cracks in the story, like fungus choking an injured plant. Some of these rumours go so far as to half-believingly suggest, in spite of all the undeniable evidence attesting to the wretched state of Rohingyas, that the Rohingya’s suffering is being manipulated by the military, or even that the Rohingyas are in cahoots with the military junta. Testimonies offered by Rohingya survivors, such as that of this woman who told investigators that security forces gang raped her after killing her husband, and then her eight month old infant to silence him, conveniently fade away in their community’s consciousness. This is a suicide of logic, eerily familiar now to many Western developed nations, except with already genocidal consequences.
This easy and vast proliferation of rumours amongst many Burmese perpetuate the marginalisation of the Rohingyas and other social groups. It needs to be stopped. Without popular support from most of the Burmese population, the nation’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi is unlikely to expend the necessary political capital to defend the Rohingya, especially when she could face a backlash from the general population for defending a group they view with some hostility. This would condemn the Rohingya to lasting agony. This climate of conspiracy mongering needs to be eradicated at its roots, or at least mitigated. The ‘post-truth’ dynamics of Myanmar’s social culture needs to be addressed.
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“Post-truth” as a concept has primarily been used to describe the troubles of developed countries like the United States and Britain, in failing to maintain a citizenry informed by the truth rather than sensational and tribalistic lies. But the framework surrounding the concept of “post-truth” can also shed some light on the situation in Myanmar.
Like in the US and the UK, untruths could spread swiftly through Myanmar because many did not trust their own country’s journalistic institutions to hold up a picture of the truth. They thus had no reliable reference point for truth which they could use to corroborate or discredit information that they encountered. In Myanmar’s case, part of the reason why this situation exists is inevitable: the country’s press is under heavy state influence. But another reason is their diminishing trust in international media, and thus their rejection of a source which they once used as a benchmark for truth (though arguably their access to foreign media was curtailed especially if they remained in the country). This has led to an excessive openness amongst the populace towards rumours and conspiracies regarding the political situation in their country.
The explanation for the second reason likewise resembles the diagnosis that many media heavyweights have given to why trust in mainstream media has faded. Quoting Lydia Polgreen, editor in chief of The Huffington Post, journalism has become a profession that “feels extremely distant from the experiences of the people [journalists] write about”.
This observation can be applied to the mainstream media’s negligent handling of the news that a video capturing violence against the Rohingya had emerged, as mentioned earlier. In the eyes of many Burmese (or so I hear), the media failed to recognise the suspicion that many in Myanmar would have regarded it with. They thus could not address the Burmese’s habit of seeing incidents in Myanmar as attempts by the military to jeopardise the governance of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. They therefore did not hold that unique lens with which they could have spotted so called inconsistencies that had emerged in the video. It would have seemed that the international media had stuck to what was within their sphere of interest, that is condemning human rights abuses, rather than being a moderating force to the paranoia that the video had provoked amongst many.
Another instance, which in my experience led to Burmese doubting the truth-telling abilities of the international media, was regarding Aung San Suu Kyi, in light of her inaction in the face of the Rohingya crisis. As former senior researcher on Myanmar for Human Rights Watch, David Mathieson opined, “Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s aura as an international human rights icon has understandably been tarnished. [But] At the same time, criticism of her is so sweeping and excessive that it obscures the considerable obstacles she and her government face, and the complex realities of post-authoritarian Myanmar”.
One view held by many Burmese is that it is unfair that Aung San Suu Kyi is criticised for the atrocities committed against the Rohingya by the security forces, because it is questionable if she even has the power to rein them in: the Constitution means that it is the senior military officers and not Suu Kyi that has control over the three key security ministries of defense, border affairs, and home affairs, while reserving for unelected military officials one-quarter of all the seats in parliament. Moves on her part to persuade the military to desist from their abuse the Rohingya could be seen as an attempt to usurp their power, giving the military an excuse to retaliate.
Furthermore, while Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to use her moral authority to persuade her supporters to sympathise with the Rohingya, her supporters feel like this would be a politically dangerous move. They feel that much of the population has absorbed decades of military propaganda convincing them of the superiority of Buddhism and the maliciousness of Muslims like the Rohingya. These are ultra-nationalistic voters that the military could sway to their side, by painting Aung San Suu Kyi as a ‘Muslim lover”, whose disloyalty to the country is further evident from how she had lived overseas for decades, even marrying a foreign husband.
Again, here, the same spectre looms in their imagination: a conniving military crafting opportunities for themselves to regain total domination of the country. This is not surprising, considering how decades of living in fear and uncertainty under a brutal military government can plant a seed of paranoia in anyone’s mentality. By crafting conspiratorial theories about the military junta, perhaps many Burmese gained some sense that they could keep one step ahead of the military’s next move. Sadly in such a dysfunctional nation, paranoia can hit the mark. For instance, Human Rights Watch writes in this report about a disturbing observation made by a credible eyewitness to the bloody 2001 Taungoo riots in Myanmar. The extremist monks who had incited the deadly violence were seen carrying handphones. But since most of the Burmese population cannot afford handphones, there is reason to suspect that these monks were actually military intelligence operatives in disguise.
It thus might seem like naivete in the eyes of many Burmese for the international media to focus solely on Aung San Suu Kyi’s sidelining of human rights issues; without taking into consideration the fact that she has to move cautiously around a military that seeks to exploit her moves to their advantage. Articles in general did not create a synthesis that factored in both the ability of a human rights focused agenda to derail the progress of the new democratic government, and its immense importance to holding the government accountable to the people. This has made many Burmese feel mistrust towards the international media, especially when it appeared to be embarking on a human rights crusade, without convincing them that they had taken into account the full complexity of their situation when offering suggestions for the direction for their country.
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Perhaps the international media needs to take a different approach to continuing to write about the Burmese people, specifically by directly addressing the fears and concerns of the Burmese. For instance, silly rumours that threaten to turn Burmese against Burmese should be nipped in the bud, especially when it concerns the Rohingya crisis. The following section is an illustration of how it could possibly be done.
Rumour 1:
Before Aung San Suu Kyi began to pose a threat to the military government’s hold on power, no one had even heard about the Rohingyas. But they always appear in the headlines whenever the Suu Kyi’s dream of democracy comes closer to reality.
In 2012, a sliver of hope shone, as Aung San Suu Kyi and her party won 43 of 45 seats contested in an April by-election, in their first act of political participation tolerated by the military in decades. Less than two months later, the violent Rakhine State riots broke out, the Rohingyas emerge in the international media as the primary victims, and Aung San Suu Kyi is criticised for not speaking out against the carnage.
In 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi finally rises to power in Myanmar. Later in October that year, the Myanmar’s police and armed forces crackdown on the Rohingya for an alleged attack on border police camps, again provoking international condemnation of Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence in the face of the Rohingyas suffering.
Isn’t this too coincidental? Is it possible that the Rohingya never existed before, but the military encouraged this group of people to make a name for themselves, kick up a fuss, and create trouble for Aung San Suu Kyi?
Correction:
From the viewpoint of many Burmese, it may seem that the Rohingya popped out of nowhere in 2012. In reality, the Rohingyas have existed since the British colonisation of Myanmar. They have also been suffering for decades. This report by Human Rights Watch in 2002 notes that even in the nineties, about half a million Rohingyas fled into Bangladesh, due to numerous human rights abuses, such as institutionalized discrimination and forced labor. In 2001, the Rohingyas were also caught in bloody riots with extremist monks in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan. At the very least, it is absolutely certain that the Rohingya’s woes are anything but new..
Rumour 2:
They call themselves the Rohingya and claim to belong to the Arakan State, and to Myanmar. But the Burmese language does not have the ‘R’ sound found in the name “Rohingya”. This proves that they do not truly belong to Myanmar, there is something fishy going on with them, and the military could be involved.
Correction:
Actually Arakanese retains the r sound which in standard Burmese has coalesced with y. An example that should be glaringly obvious is how the state of Arakan is also known as Rakhine.
More challenging is the question of how the name italics Rohingya emerged from the state’s traditional name Rakhanga (I.e. from “kh” to “h” and “a” to “o”). Explanations inevitably mention the influence of the Bengali language on the Rohingya’s own native tongue in facilitating the creation of the term “Rohingya” from “Rakhanga”. This alludes to the origins of the Rohingya as immigrants from Bangladesh.
Nonetheless, this difference in language and ancestral origin from the majority Burman population does not mean that they are not Burmese. Such an insinuation would mean that Myanmar’s other ethnic minorities with their distinct languages and cultures are not part of the country. Moreover the Rohingya have to a significant extent assimilated into the local culture. While they keep their language, they have for instance adopted the traditional Burmese attire- the longyi- for daily wear.
Rumour 3:
The Rohingya are untrustworthy and prone to exaggerating their suffering. So much web content produced by the Rohingya diaspora like Rohingya Blogger and Rohingya Vision are not reliable.
Correction:
This does not affect the credibility of international news outlets that have reported on the Rohingya’s suffering. Furthermore it would be unfair to dismiss all Rohingya based on the actions of a few. This article on Motherboard gives something of an inside look into the dynamic that members of the Rohingya diaspora have with the internet.
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Other than puncturing the logic of such rumours, the international media can also offer to the Burmese fresh perspectives which they can use to understand their situation. An example is this piece from the Guardian, which suggests that the persecution of the Rohingyas is primarily motivated by business interests rather than religion. It points to the annulment of the 1963 Peasant Law in 2012 that rendered smallholders more vulnerable to losing their land. It then connects this to the larger trend of an increasing number of Buddhist smallholders being expelled from their land, as large-scale timber extraction, mining and water projects replace the expelled. These projects in turn enrich the junta. The article then goes on to show how the expulsion of the Rohingya not only frees up more land and water for the junta’s later use, the Rohingyas also serve as a scapegoat to absorb the anger of Buddhist smallholders that should rightly be directed at the military for their merciless evictions of smallholders. This would change not only the way many Burmese regard the Rohingya, but also inform the way they deal with their military government.
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In conclusion, the media needs to step into in to fill the voids of doubt present in the minds of Burmese, and eliminate the dangerous role of conspiracy and rumors in their thinking. But then again, ironically, this article falls prey to its own logic. It was written by an amateur with no professional skills, and inspired by a series of anecdotes. Its credibility is grossly limited, much like the typical conspiracy or rumor. Only where true journalists have put their minds to work, can truth be said to be truly found.
Additional Clarifications:
In this article, I refer to a “Burmese” opinion. When I do so, I am referring mostly to those with the more common background in the country- those who are ethnic Burman and Buddhists. The opinions of Burmese who are from ethnic or religious minorities are likely to be somewhat different.
