Muslims in Myanmar - Research Paper Example

Subsequently, it analyzes and proves the existence of religious and ethnic cleansing and explores its impacts on the stability of and democracy in Myanmar. Moreover, it considers counter-arguments against helping minority Muslims and provides responses to apathy and lack of international solidarity against human rights abuses all over the world. The paper argues that Muslims in Myanmar are experiencing oppression because of ethnic and religious discrimination from Burmese Buddhists that results to continuous violence that rocks national stability and challenges national democracy.

While Buddhists are traditionally known for their peaceful nature, a radical, violent face of Buddhism in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) indicates how it can be used as a political platform for marginalizing and conducting widespread religious and ethnic cleansing against minority Muslims.1 The Myanmar government and several radical Burmese Buddhists have had a long history of human rights violations against the Burmese Muslim minority. The Islamic Human Rights Commission (ISHR) commissioned humanitarian aid worker, Rianne Ten Veen, to give testimony and to bring international attention to the ethnic and racial cleansing of Muslims in Myanmar in the report, Myanmar’s Muslims: The Oppressed of the Oppressed.

2 The report used data compiled in 2004 regarding the abuses against Muslims. Ten Veen asserts that the history of Muslim oppression “is believed to have started in 1784 when Burman Buddhists invaded Arakan.”3 She demonstrates through evidence gathered in her report that though ethnic and religious minorities suffer in general under the repressive regime of the government, “it seems to be the Muslims of Arakan who have borne the brunt of the resentment.”4 Arakan Muslims consist of Rohingya Muslims, among other ethnic Muslim groups, and the latter has continuously experienced various forms and degrees of prejudice and discrimination, at times,