The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression.

  Whenever I come across words like bias, prejudice and oppression what comes into my mind is superiority/inferiority and discrimination/inequity. Even though I most have experienced so many unjust treatments that have to do with biases, prejudices and oppression there none compared to this particular one I have decided to share with you all.

In Myanmar south East Asia, there is a minority tribe called the Rohingya, according to the BBC, they” are one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups”, and are the little- publicized and largely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically driven out of their homeland by Myanmar’s military junta and subjected to widespread violence and total negation of their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.

This particular tribe has been suffering biases, prejudices and oppression even before most of them were born and the climax of it all is that when their women put to birth their new born babies were denied citizenship and as such they don’t register their birth and no birth certificate is issued to them. There is this particular story on the news of this Rohingya woman that just had a set of twins, her children were not recognized as citizens and she had no roof to lay her head under, it was so diminishing and frustrating as well. Though the Rohingya may be small in number at less than two million, the fact is that democracy can only succeed if there is inclusion of all people within a country’s borders. Every member of society regardless of race, religion, social economic statue and sexual orientation should and must be given their due rights as citizens.

This particular story of the Rohingya brought a feeling of total rejection, not good enough to be part of this society that is meant to be for them and other tribes and it also makes me feel so sorry for the Rohingya tribe in Myanmar because for no just cause they are being denied their rights of free existence in their land.

For this situation to be reversed, the Myanmar’s should be able to value every tribe in their region by practicing inclusion and acceptance of everybody irrespective of their religion, social economic statue, abilities. And I think human rights activists and United Nations should be able to assist the Rohingyas too.

Reference:

Al Jazeera.