FRIDAY 26 | In the Western media, the word ‘Myanmar’ rarely appears far from the phrase ‘former military dictatorship’ and barely a day goes by but we aren’t privy to a picture of President Thein Sein, peace prize nomination in back pocket, glad-handing with Washington big-wigs and signing Chinese free-trade agreements with a flourish. It’s as if the ’88 revolution, the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and 60 years of military dictatorship were generally things which, for the incumbent Burmese leader, were unpleasant little hiccups which happened to other people. Some of those unfortunate other people are the Rohingya. Members of Muslim minority resident in Myanmar for almost two centuries, the Rohingya are nonetheless denied Burmese statehood and are subject to a campaign of government-sanctioned hostility so intense it has been described by Human Rights Watch as ‘ethnic cleansing’. Tens of thousands have fled to the border region to escape the violence only to find themselves adrift and alone, corralled in no-man’s land. Myanmar’s forgotten minority, they are exiles to nowhere, as documented in Al Jazeera’s new report The Hidden Genocide and the film Rohingyas In Exile, both screening tonight.
WHO: The culturally inquisitive
WHAT: The Hidden Genocide and Rohingyas In Exile screenings
WHERE: Meta House, Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7pm July 26
WHY: The Rohingya may be exiled, but they’re not forgotten