After last night's post, I slept fitfully. Because 13 May isn't the only abyss we cannot look into, as Malaysians. The other is the genocide happening right now on our doorstep. Never mind the manner in which we have consistently mistreated Burmese refugees, but what is happening in Burma today is nothing short of genocide. People are being targetted for cleansing on the grounds of their religion. They're being killed and raped and forcibly evicted, forced to deny their heritage, their ancestry and their names. The children who stand up to the killers are being killed.
The CHILDREN who stand up, the children who dare to be counted, who dare to say their names, to sing and shout in the face of oppression, the children are being killed.
Where does non-interference begin and end? Does it encompass the haze? And does it encompass compassion and humanity, that basic gut feeling that makes us feel a little ill, a little uneasy, a little nauseous, when we contemplate the Hutu man who said that they didn't bother torturing the babies, because the babies didn't understand what was happening to them, so there was no point. If it doesn't, then it isn't a policy worth having. If it means that we stand by and watch as our neighbour slaughters and rapes and maims, on any ground, but particularly on grounds of religion, or race, or gender, then it is not a policy worth having. And if it means that our leaders feel justified espousing maniac mantras of Islamic brotherhood while reaping in the profits of joint-venture mining and timber corporations with Burmese generals, then it is not a policy worth having.
When the Hutus murdered the Tutsis, we could blithely murmur that the West sat idly by, the West did not care, because these men, these women, these children, these babies, these Tutsis, they were black. And the West cares not for those who are black. What can we say when it is the Burmese who are doing the slaughtering and who are being slaughtered? When it is happening on our doorstep? Will we say it was not our business, that Burma is too far, too foreign, too difficult? That we have no mechanisms to aid, abet or influence? That these people are not our brethren, these people who live by our side, who have been living among us, these people are too foreign for us to care, when they are slaughtered, worse than sheep, worse than cattle?
On various occasions, over the years, I have read editorials condemning Malaysians, particularly Muslims, for ignoring the plight of the Rohingya refugees, particularly the children, who had fled the Burmese junta, been born on our shores but are stateless, unable to get an education. And we responded, we changed our laws, we helped make lives better. The situation now is incomparably worse. Is there really nothing we can make our leaders do?
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