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A Year in Hunger of Justice 

By Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
August 25, 2018

“I wanted to end up my life 
Clawing grave with fingers myself 
Soon I had the soul inside 
And found myself waking”
Heartbeat of fallen body on ground 
Whilst she’s left raped and mutilated 

Slaughtering men in enclosed escort 
Burning a home of family alive in locked up 
Throwing kids into born fire in mother’s eyes 
Raping daughters in front of parents 
No longer scenes of Hollywood’s movies 
With, the horses voyage in finding justice 

The fastest exodus emerging ever 
And making the largest settlement 
Tears in gland dried up
Fatigued hands by beating up forehead and chest 
No hunger satiated yet 
How long human solidarity stands as ‘just a lie’?


(Photo: Focus Bangla)


People of Bengal for Rohingya

Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
June 16, 2018


What a humanity!
What the warm hands you people provide 
For those who escaped for lives 
Crossing the Naf in haste 
With the pierced-bullet in little bodies 
You people receive and link us accessing 
Through the gate of your hearts
Ah! What a thrill!

What a tenderness!
What the sweet smiles you bloom 
For those who're panic and traumatised
Behind the scenario of mass killing and gang rape 
You embrace us with required necessities 
Waiting nearby border in broad daylight 
Ah! What a compassion! 

What a morality! 
How generous you are! 
For those whose homes were burnt to ash 
And escaping the death 
You welcome us 
In your open arms and hearts 
And give refuge for a million
Ah! What a kindness! 

Your Bengal is its own needs 
But your hearts are enough huge 
Your nation is not enough rich 
But your contribution to humanity is unique
Though you people look different
In tongues and culture 
You make us feel comfortable. 
You make us feel physical safety. 
You're the example of humanity. 

In sense of everlasting resolution 
Your comrade and respect are 
To be the key solving this humanitarian crisis 
Your sincere integration is
To be the knot of our safe and dignified return 
We've been fled and back many times 
This time should be the last ever 
That's what we mean 
Coming into your kind bosoms 
In great humane neighbourly tie of 
Rohingya and people of Bengal

* On behalf of Rohingya community, a heartfelt thank from the poet, himself a Rohingya refugee to the people and government of Bangladesh who has been providing the refuge for a million of Rohingya refugees in their land.*

Rohingya refugees fleeing into Bangladesh in the middle of night. Photo: Kevin Frayer, Getty Images



Rohingya - The Wall of Darkness


 By Haikal Mansor
June 13, 2018





They had a world where they woke up in the sunshine.
They had a path on which they walked with pride and freedom in combine.
They had a family that loved, laughed and played together.
They had a home where they slept in peace and all-loving-weather.
They had a future which laid their children’s foundation like a hope-breather.

The presence of Rohingya is blighted by a deep, dark world,
one where the sun never shines;
the path paved with thorns and bones;
the family torn apart, few left in one;
the home with no peace;
the future found nowhere in piece.

Within the wall of darkness holds
the open Apartheid State controlled
by the men in uniforms uncontrolled,
the concentration camps in wield,
the mass killing fields,
the burned houses,
the bulldozed villages and mosques,
the charred babies,
the raped, burned women’s bodies,
the mutilated men’s bodies.

On the other side of the wall of darkness rests
the largest refugee camp where
a million Rohingya trapped in the horror,
haunted by the terror,
in the darkest world of error,
chased by disasters in many forms,
and rushed in sending back to the men in uniforms
where the ghosts of terror grow stronger;
the souls of victims weep louder;
the safety and justice is nowhere near
which they most fear.

No light to shine the path of darkness.
No sunshine emerges to break the wall of darkness. 

Nobody wills to Protect the Rohingya.
No one sets up the light of justice for the Rohingya.
Yet they crave for the hope of light
among those who hold the grain of kindness in bright
to break through the wall of darkness aright.

(Photo: AFP)

To the Bosom of My State 

Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
April 3, 2018

The world I knew is gone
The people I loved were displaced, Missing, incarcerated and dead
My home is completely gone 
And my life is smashed to nothing

I had to escape to another's hands
Now I survive by aids in the world's largest settlement 
Here I'm quite subjected 
As the prey of the earth nature 
And the the victim of creature misbehave 

Oh! You my state! 
So many things despite, I yearn in you
Perhaps, the bond I have for you is still intact
How my heart beats to dwell in your bosom 
It doesn't only mean I can't live without you. 
It so means none other closer than you for me

In my eyes, it is dream for you
On mind, full thought of changes 
In heart, a bunch of desires 
I can stay away from you.
Never I can be without thinking of you 
I can be exiled from you. 
Can nothing remove you from my heart 

Other's love for you could be in heart
What love I have for you is in my blood 
I love you in any circumstance
I love you, my motherland 
I love you, my Myanmar!



The Bang of Immorality 

By Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
January 11, 2018

Quite ablazer than the flame
Sharper than a chisel
A blow of outbreaking mortality
Beyond the rise of immorality

Immorality roams in human mind
Smashes out our conscience
And defeats the virtues ultimately
The last nerve of love then, roars up

Cynicism comes by, ruffling the souls
Insanity upon kinship and friendship
The sign out of mercy and kindness
Hence, immeasurable wretchedness loads in life

In the middle of the bang
The plight of hunger and thirst for new generation
A hive of ignominy for women nature
So the eclipse of human future

The voyage of inaptitude strides up
No eyes can see the truth
Mouth can't speak of injustice
Hands can't save innocent lives

AP Photo/Dar Yasin


The Doctors in Hell

By Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
December 13, 2017

We are a Muslim people, a minority
Once boasting of our tradition and history
But the structure of our house
Where we have resided for generations
Groans beneath the weight of race and religion
And the chauvinism of our junta’s oppression 

It was 1978 in Burma
When the state-sponsored virus infected us
Our symptoms were undeniable
Their cause identifiable
But doctors ignored our suffering
The infection flared with time

In 1992's Myanmar
The disease ravaged our people
And one quarter million forced to leave 
Physicians at last turned their heads
But dismissed, upon examination
Our ongoing extermination
The doctors thought of virus's otherness 
But not the dying patients' goodness 

Our disease progressed to a second stage
In 2012 a heart-stopping crisis
At last a diagnosis was pronounced:
“Systematic killing and racial hatred”
The doctors saw us in our cage
But chose again to disengage
Neither the defense to virus yet
Nor the arrangement of ICU for us

The more the time lagged on
The more the virus spread
From citizenship denied
To killings they tried to hide
Again and again the cycle worsened
While doctors turned their eyes blind
From crimes against humanity
We moved to ethnic cleansing
We are a “text-book example”
Yet the text prescribes no treatment

August 25 delivered us to the final stage
The virus consumes our bodies
And invades out our souls
From hidden killings to genocide
We have progressed without treatment
While doctors avert their gaze

About the poem: The metaphors in this poem portray the inaction of global leaders for Myanmar's genocidal operations against Rohingya people. The poet, himself a Rohingya, feels that the atrocities on Rohingya have been happening in open eyes of the world without required intervention.




Myanmar, Moderate Your Genocide!

By Dr Maung Zarni
RB Poem
September 9, 2017

My country is committing pogroms 
Pogroms against Rohingyas.

I knew this day would come.  And it did come sooner!

Wait!,  Rohingyas don't exist. 

The victims didn't exist.  They don't exist. 
And they will not exist - as who they say they are. 

For the perpetrators, the victims never exist - not as humans.

We are proud Myanmar.   We don't care about your pressure.

We have Security Council on our side.

Yes, Blanket Impunity. 

Our Commander-in-Chief says, "finish the unfinished business" from 1942.
General Min Aung Hlaing wants the land, but not the inhabitants. 

So now we slaughter these half-starved creatures,
who insist on calling themselves Rohingyas

Wave after wave,
Killers come,
Arsonists come,
Rapists come,
Soldiers come,
Police come,
Rakhines come.

Then they slit girls' throat, 
They rape women, some barely teens.
They slaughter pregnant mothers, 
They execute husbands,
They burn old men alive, who can barely walk.
Spare infants? Who would look after these poor creatures.
Send them to Allah. 

So tell the survivors. 

Not just one, two, three, .....
Thousands of survivors who tell eyewitness tales,
Tales of horror, tales of inhumanity

The crimes of barbarity

No, No, We Myanmar are engaged in 'self-defence'.

This is all about  "national security".
Against these extremists.
Against these terrorists.

And repeat pattern of killing, arson, rape, expulsion - by the thousands
Decade after decade, they calibrate the rate, the rate of their kills
The perpetrators tell tales - "illegal immigration" "communal violence" "colonial-unfinished-business" "neo-Balkan transitional issue", ....

Myanmar's narratives keep changing
Don't you worry, people. 
The world will come around. 

Pogroms keep on coming - arson, rape, pillage, exodus, etc.

Decade after decade, four to be exact.

The World's governments  have known this for decades.
The United Nations have known this for decades.

They all hold their noses
 as they smell the blood of the slaughtered.

They all hear nothing
as toddlers cry, raped mothers scream, old men beg for mercy.

They look, but they don't see
Charred babies, debilitated men, mutilated corpses in Rakhine mud

Without a prick on their conscience, men and women of power
they stand up and observe a moment of silence, in Live cast ceremonies - from New York, Geneva, Paris, Washington,

How sad the victims of past pogroms have perished
200 million in 100 years. 

Stand up! Say one more time!
NEVER AGAIN!

Well, Rohingyas are a different case, potential "security concerns",

This ain't Auschwitz.  
This ain't Rwanda.  
This ain't Srebrenica.

Most are Fake News, anyway.

Moderation, Buddhist Leaders.
Restraints in genocide, the World Leaders must advise.
Just don't accelerate Myanmar pogroms
Lest you invite "Muslim terror".

Carry on with your "unfinished business" of the slow genocide.
Call it what you will, communal or self-defence.

But just don't speed  it up. 
270,000 fleeing in 2 weeks is too fast
for UN to ignore.   

ZARNI, 8 September 2017

Rohingya boys at Maungdaw School (Photo: Andrew Marshall)


The Rohingya Aid Workers 

Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
June 13, 2017

Being the victims for themselves 
Surviving in a modern Ghetto 
They those who support others 
Braving tremendous dangers 
At risk in greater orders 

Whoever the needy is, 
Their hands never discriminate. 
And never give up even for 
The hurdle of capital-based promotions 
They work hard for the well-being of their entire multicultural community 
For their least-developed Northern Rakhine State 
In the offices, 
They work together with diverse colleagues 
But nothing fades away their team spirits. 
Having the sense of 'One Humanity' 

An expert sits in front of the car 
And some of them with other colleagues 
Take seats in the middle 
And at the back, some tools of their activities 
And they head to field 
To distribute the aids to victims 
They often have to hold an extra identity 
It's called Form-4 by term locally. 

The driver stops the car reluctantly. 
They have to get off the car 
To be under the check up of authority 
In out posts of the security 

"Why is my body checked? 
Even it has a heart to save many lives! 
Why my back-bag is checked? 
Even it has tools to cure many lives!" 
And they get on again 
Having the approval of entry 
For soon, they turn to their philosophy. 
Then the expert see them back 
With a round of empathy 
"Are you okay?" by saying! 

Then they come back to their conscience. 
And bear a hard smile for their off faces 
And ever continue their humanitarian journey 
In a very strong sense of commitment 
Just rebuilding others' lives and dignities 


The poet is a Rohingya. He depicts, in his poetry the feeling of Rohingya humanitarian workers how they face difficulties and restrictions in out posts of the security forces in Northern Rakhine State.


    • Rohingya Exodus