Recently in one of my religious studies courses we discussed the genocide currently going on in Myanmar against the Rohingya people. When we discussed racism, prejudice, and discrimination in sociology the Rohingya immediately came to my mind. As a society we don’t really like to concern ourselves with problems that do not immediately affect us; but racism does. Racism affects everyone somehow, whether unknowingly being racist or having been a victim of racism; and that is why we should talk about it. Being able to point out racism globally helps us better understand ourselves and the world around us.

In this chapter for sociology we have been studying racism and discrimination. Racism can be defined as “a set of beliefs about the claimed superiority of one racial or ethnic group; used to justify inequality and often rooted in the assumption that differences among groups are genetic” (Ferris and Stein 224). Discrimination is defined on the same page as “unequal treatment of individuals based on their membership in a social group; usually motivated by prejudice”.

Although it is not blatantly stated in the video, the Myanmar Buddhists do believe they are ethnically superior; this can be seen in their denial of the historical citizenship of the Rohingya people and the laws passed to help drive them out by any means necessary. The “clean and beautiful nation” act implied this presumed ethnic superiority because only a group of people that truly believe they are better than another, could try to exterminate an entire group of people. The Rohingya’s also have different Asian features to them physically, more closely resembling people from Bangladesh, which sets them apart from the rest of the country’s citizens and has sparked the untrue ideas that they are illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Therefore, this ethnic cleansing is a racist act.

The discrimination is a lot more evident in the video: the burning of Muslim villages, forcing out the Rohingya’s, putting land mines on the border to ensure that they do not return, and the mass killings of innocent people- are just a few examples. The Rohingya people can trace their heritage back many generations in Myanmar, but the government does not even recognize their citizenship because they do not identify with the nation’s Buddhist identity. This is a clear example of discrimination because the Rohingya are literally being forced out of their homes, losing entire villages, because they are Muslim, not Buddhist. They have become a stateless people at the hands of their government.

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