WHERE AND WITH WHOM AM I?

WHERE AM I?

I can no longer call myself 'a journalist'. I don't have my columns anymore.

However, looking from that kind of view licks my wounds. Staying in this camp with the vocational perspective. 

Common toilet.

Common bathroom.

Common kitchen.

Thirty-five families, each one from different country.

From Syria,

From Afghanistan,

From Iraq,

From Somalia,

From Nigeria, all makes thirty-five stories.

Women, gave their children birth on their own in this country.  Whom came from Nigeria, whom came from Somalia... They are alone like I am. Their spouses are in Italy. 

Whom from Afghanistan, a huge family with ten children...

A place that breaking apart from tactlessness makes me question my intention.

Everywhere is dingy. So muddy!

I have no one to call 'my dear friend' around me, except my prayers.

Sometimes, even when I talk or text to people I get impertinent... Sometimes I take offense, sometimes I misunderstand, sometimes I get into unnecessary talks. As a conclusion, I withdraw into my shell.

Time, is time for obligatory retirement.

My feet are stable but my mouth is dumb.

Take root, giant plane tree.

Take root!

Rohingya

The information pollution about Arakan made me feel a necessity to find a source which tells ‘truth’. An amazing person of us made me shocked with his writing. I selected the most crucial parts of a very long article. Tonight, I didn’t sleep for Arakan again...


Link to the article for the curious ones (article is in Turkish, you can use Google Translate for English version):

http://t24.com.tr/haber/6-soruda-arakan-tarihi-etnik-ve-dini-kiyimin-dunu-bugunu,429735

Important parts of the replies by the journalist-author Ibrahim SERDIYANI gave to T24’s questions via e-mail:


‘Rohingya’ is a Kurdish name means ‘the country sun rises’

>>The historians and geographers from the West and the East WROTE that Kurdish merchants ‘Islamized’ the Arakan geography, Kurdish people came from Kurdistan to this land found the country ‘Rohingya’ as it means ‘country of East’ which indicates it’s the place the Kurdish people had ever gone so far to the East. Moreover, Kurdish people called this land ‘Rewsheng/Rusheng’ which means ‘luminous lands’ in order to give this paradise geography a compliment by its natural beauty.


‘’Rohingyas are the most aggrieved population of this world.’’

Muslim Rohingyas, are officially inscribed by the United Nations itself as ‘the most aggrieved population’.

>>The population of Myanmar (Burma) is 54 million which includes 68% Bamar (Burmese), 9% Shan, 7% Kayin, 3,5% Raxine, 2,5% Chinese, 2% Mon, 1,9% Rohingya, 1,5% Kachin, 1,25% Indian and 0,75% Kayah. It’s a multi-faith, multi-language and multi-ethnicity country.

>>There are 64 ethnic origins in this country, more than 200 languages and dialects. Among these, Shans, Kayins and Rohingyas are discriminated and excluded by the government and even their right to have citizenship is taken from them.

>>With the ‘New Citizenship Law’ introduced in 1982, people of Rohingya are expelled from ‘national components’ (Myanmar nationality) category and considered as foreigners in their homeland. Their right to be a ‘natural born citizen’ is taken away from them.

>>Rohingyas receive a special white ID card writes ‘for foreigners’ on it. This ID is only for information, doesn’t have any legal validity.

>>Fundamental human rights such as ‘education in mother language’ and ‘defense in mother language’ are not valid for Rohingyas. It’s forbidden for Muslim Rohingyas to go to university. They can only have the education until high school.

>>Myanmar (Burma) government military forces the minorities in the country to labor and makes religious and national abasement pressure.

>>It’s forbidden to build concrete building/house for Rohingyas. They are obliged to build their houses by wood. Furthermore, these houses belong to the government and in case of any accident happens to house, such as firing, the living in the house get condemned as ‘they have burned the government’s house ‘ and carry a penalty of imprisonment.

>>A Muslim Rohingya cannot start a business. Just if a Rohingya goes into partnership with a Buddhist, it’s allowed. But in that case, the Buddhist has the 50% of the business without paying a cent.

>>Rohingyas have to pay an imperial tax every year for the animals they have. Muslim Rohingyas cannot work at any civil or public office. Today, there is no any Rohingya official in Myanmar government.

>>Rohingyas have no right to have telephone, cell phone, computer or motor vehicle. They’re all forbidden to all Rohingyas.

>>Myanmar (Burma) even inhibits Muslim Rohingyas to get married. For a Rohingya man and a Rohingya woman, it’s so hard to get married that, it’s almost impossible.

>>Rohingyas have to get permission from the government to get married. The government takes high taxes from couples that want to get married (separately, not from both of them). Couples who cannot pay the tax cannot get married. Even if they’re able to pay the tax, they have to wait at least 2 or 3 years. Sometimes, even if they pay the tax fully, the government rejects the petition. It means, even they have already paid the marriage tax; there is no permission for the couples’ marriage. Moreover, the money they paid never comes back to them. Many young Rohingya live in Arakan run to Bangladesh in order to get married.

>>Rohingya families in Arakan have to hand their family photo, includes every family member in it, to the government. For every newborn and every dead member, they have to pay extra tax.

The government of Myanmar (Burma) even forbids Muslim Rohingyas ‘domestic travel’. They have no freedom of travel between two cities. It’s forbidden for Rohingyas to get out of Arakan area and travel to the other areas of Myanmar. They need to have ‘travel card’ to travel, however, the government finds pretexts and doesn’t give this card to any Rohingyas. It’s forbidden for them to see the capital city of the country.

>>Myanmar forbids Muslim Rohingyas to pray with the community and make their Qurban prayers (sacrifice a cattle or small cattle for God). People who pray with a community get arrested and tortured in prison. The Myanmar government never gives permission to build a mosque. If they detect anyone to commit an offense (!) such as praying with the community or making religious speeches in the mosques, which already were built, they destroy the mosque and build pagodas (Buddhist shrines) on its place.

>>Another prohibition is to maintenance and repair of the mosques and madrassahs. For the inspection of this prohibition, mosques and madrassahs have to be photographed habitual three times a year. Punishment of maintenance and repair without permission is imprisonment, changes between 6 months and 6 years. In last 20 years, there couldn’t be any new built mosque and couldn’t repair the ones there already are.

>>Actualizing the assimilation politics, the Myanmar government is changing village and city names in Arakan which are in Rohingya language, into official Burma language which makes them trumped up.

>>The Myanmar government keeps the same pressure and oppression of religion and conscience freedom on the Christians and even the Buddhists who don’t accept the government’s racist-chauvinist political structure to the minorities. There are 300 Bonzes (Buddhist priest) imprisoned in Myanmar just because they advocated justice and opposed to the government because of the oppression it kept on Muslim and Christian communities.


‘’ More than half of the population are refugees.’’

>>Rohingya people immigrate to the neighbor countries or lands in order to survive periodically. They are 2.5 million as a total; 1,5 million are away from their motherland, living as refugees.

>>Most of the Rohingya refugees ‘live’ in refugee camps in Bangladesh. There are two legal (under the UN supervision) and two illegal refugee camps in Bangladesh land. All four of them are close to each other and in the borders of Chittagong, which is also known as ‘Bangladesh’s Arakan’, close to Myanmar.

>>People eat leaves and feed their children with earth in there. They have nothing! And they’re afraid of everyone, every stranger they see. While I was trying to talk to them, they were looking into my eyes with fear. They were so terrified of us; words cannot define what I want to say. Because until that day, they only have seen bad things from the people not from them. Every people, who aren’t like them, were only willing to get closer to burn them, cut them into pieces with an axe and kill them.

Today in Bangladesh, there are 700 thousand Rohingya refugees. 28 thousand of them are in the legal camps which are under the UN supervision and 71 thousand are in illegal camps. Rohingya refugees in camps are 99 thousand. Rohingya refugees not in camps are 601 thousand.

The refugee population of 1,5 million is separated, about half of them in Bangladesh and the rest of them in the other countries nearby.


‘’This problem can only be solved at the government level’’

Non-governmental organizations cannot do anything as it is an issue that governments can solve. The issue going on in Arakan or the ‘Arakan Issue’ is not a kind of issue that communities such as humanitarian aid committees or journalists can give an end. Governments and international forces must take initiative and put an effort to cease the slanders and cruelties going on for Rohingya people and make them have their natural human rights.