Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities Islam, Buddhism, and Citizenship in Myanmar by Imtiyaz Yusuf

Abstract

For centuries, the Rohingya have been living within the borders of the country
established in 1948 as Burma/Myanmar. Today left stateless, having been
gradually stripped of their citizenship rights, they are described by the
United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. In
order to understand the complexity of this conflict, one must consider how
Burma is politically transitioning from military to democratic rule, a process
that is open (much as was Afghanistan) to competition for resources by international
and regional players such as the United States, China, India, Israel,
Japan, and Australia.1 To be fair, the record of Southeast Asian Muslim
countries with Buddhist minorities is also not outstanding. Buddhist minorities
identified as ethnic groups have faced great discrimination in, among
others, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei ...