The Heartbreaking Humanitarian Crisis in Myanmar

Displaced Rohingya Muslims. Photograph by Seyyed Mahmoud Hosseini, Tasnim News Agency, CC 4.0.

By Andrew Quist

The Myanmar (Burma) government is carrying out a “textbook definition of ethnic cleansing” against the Muslim Rohingya minority in the Rakhine State. That’s the stark assessment from the UN human rights chief regarding the Burmese military campaign being carried out against the Rohingya. The conflict began a year ago when Rohingya militants attacked a Burmese border outpost. The government responded by sending the Myanmar military on a “clearance operation” that resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand civilians, the rape of Rohingya women, and the burning down of entire Rohingya villages.

The violence escalated in late August 2017 when, again in response to a militant attack on a Burmese military outpost, Burmese troops and mobs of Buddhist Rakhine civilians attacked Rohingya villages. Since August 25, over half a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar. The stories the Rohingya tell about the attacks are appalling and shocking, like the account in the New York Times in which a women describes her baby being torn out of her hands and thrown into a fire.

Aside from issuing declarations that “the violence must stop,” western countries and the UN Security Council have done nothing to get Myanmar to end the campaign against the Rohingya. There has been no threat of sanctions.

At the level of the populace, it is hard to find evidence that ordinary people are paying attention and care about this issue. There have been protests against Myanmar in the Muslim majority countries Pakistan and Bangladesh, but not in Western countries. Perhaps we are too gripped by the drama of the Trump administration to focus on international issues, but several psychological factors are also contributing to our apathy.

First, in-group/out-group thinking causes us to focus on our tribe. Witness the media storm that followed the Las Vegas shooting and how few details the media reported regarding the horrific truck bombs in Mogadishu, Somalia on October 14 that killed 327 innocent people and injured 400 others.

Second, psychic numbing prevents us from feeling empathy for large numbers of distant people who are suffering. The plight of the Rohingya does not move us as much as the suffering of one identified person.

Third, due to the phenomenon known as pseudoinefficacy, when we are confronted with the suffering of large numbers of people we may feel that there is nothing we can do that will make a difference. This is a false sense of inefficacy because helping even one person matters.

Right now, there are 720,000 children in refugee camps on the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar that are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. You can help them by making a contribution to the International Rescue Committee’s mission to help the Rohingya. Visit rescue.org to contribute.

Talking about this issue with others will help raise awareness. The Rohingya can be helped, through attention and action, but not if we remain incapable of responding to their suffering.