I went to the Rohingya refugee camps twice, and the first time I went, I was very struck with this particular boy. He was helping the security personnel on the camps to distribute rations, keeping a watch to make sure nothing is mislaid and just generally engaging with the community. He couldn’t have been more than 11 years old.
I later found out that his mother had been burned alive in front of him, two of his sisters were violated or killed, and they also broke his father’s legs in front of him. When I got the chance to talk to him later, I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up, and he said “I want to become a military man.”
My first impression was maybe he wanted to continue to help the people at the camps as part of the military or security personnel. However, when I asked him why, he said - “I want to hurt the people who killed my family.”
This is the sort of sentiment that is shared by hundreds of young people at the refugee camps. Now I am not saying at all that these children will hold on to and internalise these negative emotions – far from it. But it is time for us to recognise that there is a whole generation that is being raised at the refugee camps with a lot of bitter memories, and how they deal with it really depends on how the host country treats them.
When you move towards conflict resolution and want to build a peaceful society, the experience of refugees in host countries can be very important. If the child refugees who are coming to Bangladesh are treated well, I personally believe they will carry that with them.
The refugee experience is so important because of how it impacts and builds up your social memories, which cannot be disconnected from the political in any way. Part of my research involved studying poems written by Rohingya refugee children who had arrived in Bangladesh in the earlier influxes and were attending schools at the camps – and it was very interesting that they all spoke of their yearning to go back. These are school children but they had very clear ideas of how their rights were being taken away in their motherland, but they had not lost the hope of going back one day.
In one of the camps, I also asked the children to draw something, and most of them drew men with guns or men in uniform – this is the primary thing in their memories. When we talk about sustainable solutions to the problem, we mainly focus on the camps and the relief being given there. While that is of course necessary as a first response for refugees, we must also focus on their social spaces where they can get therapy, counselling, and preserve their memories as a people.
Physical security is of course necessary, but the world needs to awake to the fact that these people need psychological and social support. This is not an administrative problem, but a political one. We fought our Liberation War based on our identity, so we should be even more responsive to helping the Rohingya preserve their identities and their memories as a people.
We have to remember that what is happening in Myanmar is genocide. This is not just about territory, but about identities and wiping out a people. While the focus is now on infrastructure and repatriation, we need to immediately start thinking about how to re-build their social fabric and bring about social cohesion. Without this, there can be no sustainable solution.
Dr Amena Mohsin is Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka
