Canada has lifted its ban on Burma this year and is inviting the Burmese to Canada Day celebrations. Foreign Affairs has decided that Burma need no longer be considered a pariah state. Relations have been warming up these past few years. In 2013, Canada chose Mark McDowell, who had been in Canada’s embassy in China for its first-ever resident ambassador. Canada was ever hopeful that Burma’s burgeoning democracy would continue. Elections had taken place in 2010 for the first time in 20 years. And with Aung San Suu Kyi at the helm, hope was appropriate. But something has happened to desecrate that hope and we in Canada have chosen not to look-or pay attention.
What I call a sin of omission.
Burma is in the midst of genocide. The killing of its Muslims. The current conflict between Buddhists and Muslims began in 2012. A Buddhist woman was found raped and murdered in Rakhine, the home of the Rohingya, who were blamed and rioting began. Burma has been actively ethnically cleansing itself of Rohingya Muslims since that attack
My question is why were people so quick to accuse the Muslims, who have roots in Burma since the 15th century? What had been taking place in Burma that made it so easy for a few to whip so many into a frenzy of hate and vengeance? Hate mongering has been taking place. Hate mongering propaganda that has to be state sponsored if not state ignored. From the New York Times, May 2014 “State government officials recently allowed a radical Buddhist monk (Ashin Wirahtu) to preach for 10 days in the region, stirring up passions among Buddhists.”
And why does the state turn away? Ignorantia affectata? No. BUSINESS.
Canada has business ties. Yuen Pau Woo, President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada wrote in iPolitics.ca on September 12, 2012 that he was thrilled to be part of the delegation to Burma with Canada’s trade Minister who announced that a full-time trade commissioner would be coming to the embassy.
It seems that business makes countries reluctant to criticize the government. It is after all coming out of years of military dictatorship. So I guess that means we look away every once in a while from the starvation, rape, pillage, and destruction of the Rohingya so that business can grow and international leaders can scramble for Burma’s markets.
In May of this year the New York Times reported “Myanmar’s Buddhist-led government has increasingly deprived[the Muslims minority] of the most basic liberties and aid even as it trumpets its latest democratic reforms…local Buddhist officials began severely restricting other humanitarian aid to the camps and the rest of Rakhine State, where tuberculosis, waterborne illnesses and malnutrition are endemic.” These camps have been described as nothing more than open-air prisons. Nothing has changed since I wrote about this last August.
“There is a sense among nongovernmental organizations that at times the U.N. advocacy could have been more robust.” I read this in one of the many articles that are easily attainable by anyone who wants to know what is going on in Burma. I read that and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The UN not advocating for people who are truly suffering? Is it a fear of failure-the fear that the democratic government under the leadership of one of the world’s most famous women, Aung San Suu Kyi, is failing? Is it that we have decided collectively that Buddhists are peaceful and would never behave this way-or at least without good reason. And with what is happening today, the barbaric behaviour of too many Muslims, well-they are just Muslims. Right? Karma, perhaps.
There is now and never has been and never will be an excuse to abuse and mistreat human beings-Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu Sikh, Christians, Jews. Never. And we in the West are guilty of this extermination of a people because they are Muslim. My country has stood up against moral relativism in the Middle East. My country has stood courageously for the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish nation state. I want my country to continue to be a beacon of light unto the nations and stand up against the atrocities of the Buddhists in Burma. Business be damned.
