A Conference That Ended In Chaos
M.S. Anwar
RB Analysis
March 10, 2013
On 9th March 2013, a conference was held at Mahidol University, Bangkok, led by Dr. Aye Chan with the help of Rakhines living in Thailand in an attempt to rewrite the history of Arakan. Neither any eminent Rohingya leaders nor any member of Rohingya community was invited to the so-called International Conference on the History of Arakan. The reason behind not inviting any Rohingya member to the conference might be to easily distort history to suit their agenda and reject Rohingyas outright. However, having realized this, a few eminent Rohingyas including Mr. Htay Lwin Oo attended the conference that hindered Dr. Aye Chan from further falsifying the history.
First speaker in the conference was J. Leider, a French Historian, and he avoided stating that would cause conflicts. And the second was Stephen van Galen, a Dutch Scholar and he, too, avoided mentioning anything that would result in conflicts. And the last one to give speech in the conference was Dr. Aye Chan. In his talks about “From Rakhine cross-border settlement to ethnic violence,” he followed their traditional make-belief fictional story that there is no Rohingya in the history of Arakan and the term “Rohingya” was the creation of Mr. Gaffar in 1951.
As he bluffed on so and so increase of cross-border settlements of Chittagong people in Arakan from 1826 to 1975 to become the majority in Maungdaw and Buthedaung townships, he forgot to mention the cross-border settlement of his own father, Kala Chand, a Bangladeshi Barua, in 1950s. It was not really surprising to see such a bigot falsifying the history as such and inversing the scenario of how Rohingyas became majority in Maung Daw and Buthidaung Townships (Mayu Region). Before 1942 Massacre of Rohingyas, Rohingyas were more or less equally scattered in Arakan than Rakhines were. As the aftermaths of the massacre, most of the Rohingyas from interior Arakan were pushed towards the Mayu region. Never were they able to return home and so settled in the region. This is the truth what Dr. Aye Chan was trying to distort in the conference.
In the question and answer session, Mr. Htay Lwin Oo asked “Sir, you are a historian. Didn’t you know that the term “Rohingya” existed in Arakan before 1800 CE? If you don’t know, please read this (page)… of this (book)….” Mr. Htay Lwin Oo handed over a photocopy of the book. Upon that, Dr. Aye Chan answered “Rohingya was a name used to call us, Rakhines.” When Mr. Htay Lwin Oo rebutted that the term “Rohingya” was not a term used to call Rakhines because the terms for “Sun, Moon and Earth” mentioned in the section of Rohingya language are not same to that in the section of Rakhine languages, Dr. Aye Chan was at his wit’s end and rather hurried to end the session saying “it is enough.” Please read French Researcher and Medical Doctor Francis Buchanan’s “A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in Burma Empire, Page 55” written in 1799 CE (http://bit.ly/TFJ4JJ). You will find the words used by Rohingyas today, not by Rakhines, under the “Rooinga” language section. And you will find totally different words under the language section of “Yakain.” Besides, in that, it is mentioned that Mohammedans used to call themselves “Rooinga” or “Rovingaw.” Now you tell us “was the term ‘Rohingya’ used to call Rakhines?
Therefore, it is pretty obvious for even someone with a zero-knowledge on history to identify that Dr. Aye Chan was living in Rakhine’s father-to-son myths and beating around the bush. On one hand, they say there is no term such as “Rohingya” in the history of Arakan and on the other hand, it was a name used to call Rakhines. After all, how many names did Rakhines have? Rakkha, Rakkhita, Arakan, Rakuain and Rakhine, Roshang, Rohang and now Rohingya? The Sino-Tibetan tribe of Mongoloid stock hijacked the land of the forefathers of Rohingyas in 957 CE and now, they are trying to hijack even their name. Cruel and shameless invaders indeed!!
Disgracefully, Burmese domestic media such as Eleven Media Group, Rakhine Media Groups and their Social Networking Sites are rather spreading made-up information about the conference and wrong propaganda. They are spreading adverse information: Mr. Htay Lwin Oo ran away being unable to face off with Dr. Aye Chan, which was other-way-round in the reality. The truths will prevail soon as the videos of the conference are coming up. And disgustingly, Eleven Media reported ‘International Scholars Say No Rohingya in Myanmar’ (something they have never said) taking advantage of their silence but only to fool the naïve Burmese people. Maybe these international scholars were supposed and brought to the conference to be silent upon any statements by the bigotry Rakhine scholars.
References:
M.S. Anwar is an activist and student in Malaysia.
Aye Chan has been trying to create a new history of Arakan by hiding the actual history. But he should know that " A TRUTH NEEDS NO SUPPORT, IT CAN STAND ALONE "