Rohingya – Not to forget

“Let them walk also ashore.
On this mother earth of ours
They will grow more and more.
If we fail to ensure their return,
Let them spread on any shore.”
(Mohammad Nurul Huda, from “Rohingyas”)

Together with some Rohingya families. Penang. Malaysia, December 2017

I would like to talk about the Rohingya again. There are several reasons that lead me to do so.  

The first is that, for the first time in my life as a photographer, I decided to participate in a photo competition called “ASA Project – Stories of Resistance”, bringing as a project the story of the Rohingya families in Malaysia.

The second reason is that I began to know some Rohingya boys who live inside the refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, whom – in addition to keeping me updated on what is happening inside – have better told me about this epochal tragedy.

It seemed to me, the best choice is to show these stories in the competition, regardless of the results, because for me they really represent the “resistance”, indeed (R)existence, as I called the project. 

From the first meeting with those families, in 2017, a year before going to live in Penang, I felt the weight of those lives. It was the year in which there was a lot of talk about it. In 2018, a group reportage on the tragedy of the Rohingya exodus was also awarded in third place in the “Digital Storytelling Contest” category, in the World Press Photo. And photographer Patrick Brown was awarded first place in the “Photo of the Year” category with a terrible shot of the drowned bodies of the Rohingya who attempted an escape by sea to Cox's Bazar.

So reports the synopsis of that image.

“The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim minority group in Rakhine State, western Myanmar. They number around one million people, but laws passed in the 1980s effectively deprived them of Myanmar citizenship. Violence erupted in Myanmar on 25 August after a faction of Rohingya militants attacked police posts, killing 12 members of the Myanmar security forces. Myanmar authorities, in places supported by groups of Buddhists, launched a crackdown, attacking Rohingya villages and burning houses. According to the UNHCR, the number of Rohingya that subsequently fled Myanmar for Bangladesh reached 500,000 on 28 September.”

It was 2018.

The international community began to know the figures and the horror of this genocide, even before raising their voice in protest against the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, ex-head of the country, who has always kept silent about the drama of this ethnic group, since she was backed in power by the army that was the perpetrator of the extermination.

It must be said, however, that Shahidul Alam, the most famous photographer in Bangladesh, already in 2014 photographed the ships abandoned by the Rohingya on the beaches of Malaysia and the refugees in the Teknaf district of Cox's Bazar, in 2016, before being welcomed in the camp, as is testified in his latest book “The Tide Will Turn” (2019).

So, for me, it was very touching to get to know some of the Rohingya children who were hosted by the Penang Peace Learning Center founded by Dr. Kamarulzaman Askandar, professor of studies on Peace and Conflict (USM), and regional coordinator of the Southeast Asian Conflict Studies Network (SEACSN).

He gave me a long interview at the time when he clarified the aspects of the conflict in Myanmar and their existence in Malaysia.

This is what Dr. Askandar told me about the tragedy:

“I think all of the countries should have a greater role in trying to resolve the Rohingya issues in Myanmar, because it is not only an issue about the Rohingya; it is humanity, it is an issue about a group of people being basically cleansed from the area, it is a genocide issue, it is a crime against humanity issue. It is an issue that everybody from every country should be not just aware of but also to promote the resolution of the issue.

Malaysia is in a good position to make even greater contributions to the resolution of the topic because at the moment we have almost close to 90 thousand Rohingya refugees living in this country. They have been coming here for many years, and despite Malaysia not being a signatory of the convention on refugees, this country has accepted a big number of Rohingya refugees and has to deal with that on a humanitarian basis.

We have allowed the UNHCR people to register them and we have allowed them to live here on a humanitarian basis, but we still need to consider what needs to be done with this big number of Rohingya refugees in this country. And the problem is not only here in Malaysia but we have to look at the root cause of the problem which is in Myanmar. Because if we resolve the issue in Malaysia but the core issue in Myanmar is not resolved, we will keep having all these refugees, not only Rohingyas but there are also other ethnic groups that have come out of Myanmar because there is conflict over there.

So, Malaysia would have to do something to pressure the Myanmar government to deal with this situation in Myanmar, to treat them humanly, to give them the social and political lives that they really demand and they should have. But it is not only about Malaysians, it is not only about the Americans, but it should also be about all of us pressuring Myanmar to resolve the issue before it is too late, and to give the Rohingyas the rights that they truly deserve.” 

That day I met some of the children's families. They took me to visit their homes. I took the first pictures and listened to their stories.

A year later I returned to the same city, to live and work, from 2018 to the end of 2019.

I started looking for those families again, and others in different regions of Malaysia: Kedah, Kelantan. Wherever I went, in that area in northern Malaysia, I asked my friends where I could find Rohingya families.

A friendship was also born with some of them, I went back often to visit them and I brought them what they needed: clothes, medicines, food, notebooks for the children.

By now the Rohingya question had exploded, there was much talk of it, and protests against San Suu Kyi began, with petitions to request the annulment of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now it sounds ironic to see her dismissed in a coup by the criminal army that she has covered up for years.

The fact is that, like everything else, even the tragedy of these poor people swirls like a whirlwind of air on the sand and then disperses and disappears in a short time. Human beings hardly keep their attention on anything for long, unless the victim himself screams his drama, as is the case with the Jewish people.

Fortunately, the light on the Nazi genocide has never been extinguished, due to the vigor with which the Jews themselves have witnessed it, but other genocides have vanished into thin air with almost no echo.

When I was in Jakarta, a dear Chinese journalist friend of mine told me that between the end of 1965 and 1966 one of the worst massacres of the 20th century took place in Indonesia. Suharto's army murdered half a million Communist Party militants in a few months, millions of activists were arrested and spent decades in prison. The consequences were enormous but little is known in Europe about that massacre.

Those who have no voice to scream their pain quickly fall into disinterest.

Now there is much less talk of the Rohingya, and still, there are many people in Italy who do not really know who they are or what is happening to these people.

I also felt how the initial feeling of affection and compassion in Malaysia began to turn into impatience and hostility.

Welcoming is a good deed, but seeing them not evolve, improve their status, makes them subject to hostility, as happens for all refugee minorities around the world.

The problem is that, as the professor explained well, it's not their fault that these people can only limit themselves to illegal work, in shipyards or in ports, because as long as their citizenship is not recognized they can only not be arrested with the UNCHR card, but they will not be able to access schools, homes, public health. Nothing, like ghosts.

I have found some areas (or kampung, as I have already explained many times) in Penang or Kedah,  which is now almost inhabited only by Rohingya.

There is a traditional market in Penang, truly unique and now the only one left in Malaysia; they call it Pasar Bisik, or the “whispering market”, because those who bargain the price of fish at auction, freshly caught in the sea, do so by whispering the price in the ear.

This market is on the two banks of the river that leads to the sea towards Thailand, in two different regions: on one side Penang and on the other Kedah, both called Kampung Kuala Muda.

I have been on both sides, and in the Penang part, the old fishing village with wooden houses is now abandoned by the Malaysians and rented to the Rohingya families, whose men do the job of fishermen that the new Malaysian generations do not want to do anymore.

Rohingya Refugee Camp. Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh, February 2020

In February of last year, I had the opportunity to visit Cox's Bazar refugee camp, and I have written about this many times, including in my latest book. Here I also interview Dr. Sadia who works at a Health Post in one of the camps, who updated me on the conditions of the camp during the pandemic.

I can't stop thinking about these families.

As I said, lately some guys who live inside the camp have become my friends, they tell me their stories, they keep me updated. They are amateur photographers, video makers, poets, writers, journalists. The first time I entered the camp my friend told me that almost all of the Rohingya are illiterate.

Now I discover other truths. Even if with little means, there are many guys who dream of a future working out of the camp. Who loves art, poetry. It is thanks to them that I learned of a great fire that destroyed three camps at the end of March, with over 200 houses destroyed and many missing. Nobody talked about it, but they with the cameras of the phones witnessed every moment.

They told me that there is a network of Rohingya activists, journalists, and writers around the world.

Some of these boys were born in the camp, they have never seen Myanmar. We just started learning about this tragedy in 2017, but there are guys like Mainul Islam whose parents arrived in the camp in Bangladesh even in 1992: he was born inside the camp, now he is 26 years old and his father died when he was only 18 months, the mother died three years ago, both in the camp.

An entire existence without ever crossing the barbed fences of the field.

They told me that we have started to learn about the Rohingya only a few years back, but it is not true that their persecution only began in the eighties as is often reported, but already since 1784 the Burmese army began to kill the Rohingya, and not only them. The problem is not their Islamic faith but they are persecuted as an ethnic minority, and many others along with them – there are the Chin, the Kayah, the Mon, and so on.

Myanmar is a mysterious and tormented country, which has changed its name (from Burma to Myanmar in 1989) and three different colonizers, passing from the British to the Japanese to the military army.

For many of these kids, there is total disorientation. Born in a refugee camp, in a country that is not theirs, a language that is not theirs, with no easy prospects for the future and no link with their homeland.

Wherever they go they are ghosts.

And when someone goes too long on the level of the earth, he does not meet the gaze of those who are standing.

For this reason, I don't want to stop writing about them.

I am nobody. But I can't forget, and I don't want to.

All photos were taken in Penang and Kedah, on 3, 7, and16 December 2017

I leave you with a poem recited from inside the camp. His name is Nur Sadek, he lives in Camp 26 and is only 19 years old. He is a poet, photographer, and activist of his people.

The first time we spoke, he was impressed that I knew the Rohingya people.

He was from a rich family in Maung Daw in the Rakhine province where the Rohingya live, his father was a businessman, so Nur Sadek speaks excellent English and he is a lover of art and poetry.

A demonstration of how not all Rohingya are poor and without culture.

They were not a tribe that lived in the forests, but a people with their own dignity, history, and culture.

Or as Mayyu Khan, a young 20-year-old painter who lives in Balukhali Camp 20.

This is just a way to tell the events in a different light.

Even in difficulty, suffering and loneliness there are those who do not stop dreaming and creating.

To try to give a voice to those who have no voice...

Penang. June and May 2019

Poem of Nur Sadek:

Title: Ruáingya Kalaseki Raqs. 
Artist: Mayyu Khan
Size: A4
Colour: acrylic
“One of the elements of a nation is the art culture. The identity of the nation's prosperity through industrial culture is found. Each nation of the world has a varied culture. Likewise, Rohingyas also carry different cultures among them. But due to the cultural aggression of dictatorship, our culture stopped the driving force. On the other hand, due to some people of our superstition and opportunism, Rohingya culture is almost dead. However, our responsibility to recover our own culture. In this Artwork Rohingya's classical dance scene has been highlighted.” (Mayyu Khan)

“Brave Rohingya heroine in the shoreless sea”.

Title: The Eye of Refugee girl.
Artist: Mayyu Khan
Size: A4
Watercolor

About Shahidul Alam work:  https://shahidulnews.com/tag/rohingya/
Mohammad Nurul Huda: “Rohingya and other poems” (Journeyman Books, 2019)

Italian version