Me, Myself as an Australian Rohingya Burmese, By Pan Sandar Myint
Image: Courtesy of Pan Sandar Myint
Whenever we watch news on TV, we never miss any news about “Rohingyas” entering into countries such as Malaysia or Indonesia by boat. Yes “Rohingyas” known as the most prosecuted minority in the whole world by United Nations. And I am a Rohingya but I am fortunate to be a lucky one with full Myanmar Citizenship right.
This is due to my paternal Grandfather “Habibullah” for being the first Rohingya advocate who saved the first Rohingya’s extermination program by General Ne Win in 1958. Due to his diligent advocacy, he persuaded his university friend East Pakistan Governor “Zakir Hossain” to make an agreement with Myanmar Government by bringing 20,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh in 1959. However, the Burmese military government carried its genocide propaganda again on 1978 with Rohingya exodus of 207,172 refugees to Bangladesh. After four years later (1982), it deprived Rohingya Burmese not only from Burmese citizenship right but also from equal education and other human rights in Myanmar. This act mainly practiced on Rohingyas who were living in Rakhine State whilst a small number of Rohingyas living in metropolitan cities (Yangon & Mandalay) were not obliged to this act.
This led my family & me to be fortunate of living peacefully with full Myanmar citizenship rights. Even though I was able to study in Myanmar with full citizenship right, my life in Myanmar is like a rose filled with so much thorns. And I have never imagined that I will be struggling not to lose my self-respect in school because of extreme discrimination from my Buddhist Burmese teachers & friends. They called me “Bengali” when I introduced myself as a “Rohingya Burmese”. I still vividly remembered that I busted into tears while they were laughing on me. They also made me to clean classroom in early morning while they were praying to their God “Buddha”. I was astonished for experiencing such a harsh discrimination first time ever. I was desperately waiting for the school’s finishing time. So, I quickly ran out of class to reach my mother. I explained to her my shocking discrimination experience. She calmed me down and took me to home. After reaching home, she discussed it with my father. Then, they took this matter seriously to the principle next day.
The principal explained it to my parents that there was nothing wrong for such experience. At the end of the day, you Muslims are “Kalars” or “Bengali” in Myanmar. My father got frustrated from the principal’s response and he took this matter to his business partners who were Myanmar General Leaders’ sons. Then, the matter got resolved. My parents sent me to this top school known as Bishop school to seek best education but I was struggling to revoke the majority who were not accepting my identity. From that moment, I did realize that I was living in a country where a girl like me was treated as an “Alien” for having different physical features and cultural background. Therefore, I did learn to become adaptable from this severe hatred society to become stronger and resilient. I did study hard to pursue tertiary abroad education to settle down in a country where all cultural backgrounds were treated fairly with respect. That’s how I had reached to Sydney on 2009.
I still reminisced the first breeze of Sydney when I came out of airport and beautiful gardens on my way to accommodation. In my first day of college, all my Australian friends and teachers greeted me respectfully with my name. They didn’t mock at me when I introduced them as a Rohingya Burmese. This led me to decide settling down in Australia and bringing my family after a year. After a decade, I have never imagined that I will be presenting Australia as Ms World Australia Universal National Finalist for 2021. I am advocating of equal human rights of my Rohingya people in this beauty pageantry platform. I do strongly courage my humanitarian faith to bring a change for my Rohingya community for equal human rights in the world. Lastly, me myself declare as a humble “Australian Rohingya Burmese” and I am not a “Bengali” or “Kalar Ma”.
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Reference:
http://www.netipr.org/policy/downloads/20100101_timeline-of-rohingyahistory.pdf