What has been lost, what remains: The hope of Rohingya “Survivance”

(Toronto, Canada, August 25, 2020)

In late August 2017, the Burmese government and military waged a genocidal attack against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The government systematically removed Rohingya people from their land by burning villages, killing and physically attacking tens of thousands of people, and inflicting gender and sexual violence against women and children. Marzuki Darusman, the chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM) stated,

“During their operations, the Tatmadaw has systematically targeted civilians, including women and children, committed sexual violence, voiced and promoted exclusionary and discriminatory rhetoric against minorities, and established a climate of impunity for its soldiers”.

To escape this state-sanctioned genocidal campaign, more than 745,000 Rohingya fled across the border into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, an area where approximately 200,000 Rohingya people were already living. Today, more than 1.2 million people live in stateless limbo across the sprawling camps of Cox’s Bazar.

The 2018 IIFFMM report concluded that Myanmar’s commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and his top military leaders should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. These amount to the most serious crimes under international law.

On November 11, 2019, the country of Gambia submitted an application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Myanmar, initiating a case against the country for committing mass murder, rape and destruction of communities against the Rohingya group in Rakhine state since 2016. The Gambian delegation alleges in its application that these actions violate the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention).

On August 25, we commemorate the 2017 Rohingya genocide by marking the three-year-anniversary of the acute violence of that day, violence that has now become well-known worldwide. It is a day to commemorate all that we have lost. We remember all of the members of the community who have been killed, attacked and displaced. We remember the loss of the infrastructure and physical existence of our communities: our villages, homes and land.

But it is also a day to recognize the strength, spirit and successes of Rohingya communities around the world: the ‘survivance’ of Rohingya communities. Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor (1999) defined survivance as,

“an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and ‘victimry’. Survivance means the right of succession or reversion of an estate, and in that sense, the estate of native survivancy” (p. vii).

For Vizenor (1999), survivance is a way of life for Indigenous people which encapsulates and guides their everyday experience. We, on Rohingya Genocide Memorial Day 2020, adopt this idea of survivance to celebrate the endurance of Rohingya culture, beyond the popular narratives that pigeonhole our identities and existence around victimhood, tragedy and powerlessness; i.e. ‘the most persecuted people on Earth’.

Rohingya youth participating in discussions in the McGill University Faculty of Law

Works Cited

Vizenor, G. (1999). Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. Lincoln: Nebraska

Notes

• The systematic violence faced by Rohingya continues despite the pandemic. August will mark three years since the “final clearance operations” that pushed more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees mainly into Bangladesh (and caused the loss of life of some 10,000 others).
• In a united, worldwide day of action, education and empowerment, organizations including the CRDI will be hosting their largest event in Canada to mark the beginning of Rohingya expulsion by the oppressive Burmese government and its brutal military regime.
• We appreciate the support from Canada and Canadians towards our cause. However, the genocide is still continuing and the international community has not only failed to take appropriate action but also refused to call it what it is — a genocide.