Myanmar's Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech.

• Author: Balci, Onur

Myanmar's Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech

By Ronan Lee

I.B. Tauris, 2021, 308 pages, $90.16, ISBN: 9780755602483

The general narrative of this book is about the crimes against humanity (genocide) that the Rohingya people were subjected to in Myanmar by the rulers (the army and government) and nationalists. Throughout the book, the author deals with the historical process of the existence of the Rohingya in the region, the constitution and citizenship laws in Myanmar, and offers a comprehensive analysis of findings in the field and the current situation. The book consists of eight chapters.

The first chapter describes the process from the ancient origins of the Rohingya until the colonial period in the region. The author states that according to the Myanmar government, the military (Tatmadaw), and nationalists, the Rohingya are not one of Myanmar's indigenous communities, defined as taingyintha. According to them, the Rohingya have recently migrated from Bengal and are therefore people of different skin colors (darker skin tones). These claims are the main tool of the othering of the Rohingya by Myanmar's rule. It is said that the Muslim presence in Rakhine state cannot be explained simply by immigration, and that the Muslim population here is the result of commercial connections, migrations, and conversions. The political and geographical (mountain topography/range) factors of the racial differences between the people here and the arrival of Islam in these lands are explained.

Chapter 2 continues to address the historical roots of the Rohingya community in conjunction with the first. The author traces the Rohingya people through pre-colonial and colonial eras to strengthen the narrative of the Rohingya as an indigenous element of the region. In particular, language, population, and geographical pieces of evidence are revealed in the documents and studies (manuscripts, reports, and letters) of the East India Company in the late 18th century, drawing attention to the fact that the Rohingya people were an indigenous Muslim group in the precolonial period. This chapter also discusses the increasing xenophobia in the 1920s, the 1930s, and the 1940s and the impact of the Second World War on demographic changes in Rakhine which meant that these two communities became alienated over time. It seems that the author used a large amount of literature to present these claims and findings.

After revealing the findings in the first...