by Rick Heizman
EXPOSING THE LIES AND MANIPULATION in ‘THE HIDDEN GENOCIDE’ FROM AL JAZEERA
amazing deception, distortion, and dishonesty
should be called: ‘THE HIDDEN AGENDA TO FALSELY CHARGE GENOCIDE’
People who know very little about the issue might take a film like this as fact.
But, people who do know about the history and complexities can easily see that every minute of this film is meant to fool people into believing a huge manipulative agenda that tries to condemn and vilify the Rakhine Buddhist people, Aung San Suu Kyi, and even Buddhism, Buddhist monks, and Buddhist thought.
(the terms Rakhine and Buddhist are interchangeable.
The terms Rohingya, Muslim, Bengali, Bengali Muslim are interchangeable.
The State may be called Rakhine State or Arakan.)
(to coordinate the timing, the narration starts at :28 seconds)
:45 Film says ‘what happened next was hidden’
What happened next was NOT hidden, but due to chaos and bad and broken communication systems, it was difficult tot get information – about either the Rakhine or the Rohinyga. But what WAS hidden was the plan and intent of the Rohingya to be seen as the victims, when in fact they were killing and chasing Buddhist Rakhine people out of the land the Muslims wanted for themselves, and themselves only.
1:05 the video shows a mob of people on the street violently throwing rocks through windows of homes – in the video context it is designed to make people think that it is Buddhists attacking Muslims – but that video clip is ACTUALLY MUSLIMS ATTACKING BUDDHISTS! in Maungdaw, June 8, 2012.
1:35 The film says, ‘the Rohingya Muslims were being driven out of the land they were born in’. However, many many of the Rohingya were actually born in Bangladesh, or their parents were. The population of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathaydaung went from largely Buddhist to almost all Muslim in 60 years. Those Muslims were part of the massive and still on-going flow of Muslims into Arakan.
2:00 The film says ‘some believe it is an attempt to end the existence of the Rohingya, as a people’ Outrageously inflammatory nonsense. More than half the Rohinyga live OUTSIDE Burma – in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and more. That kind of statement implies that the goal of the Buddhists is to eliminate Rohingya around the world.
2:10 The word GENOCIDE is used, also, to inflame opinion. Okay, let’s talk about GENOCIDE. The film purposely doesn’t mention the REAL GENOCIDES that are historical and well documented – in 1942 the minority Bengali Muslims (the word Rohingya was not used at that time) were armed by the British to fight the advancing Japanese in World War II, but as soon as the British retreated the Bengalis used the weapons – not against the Japanese – but to launch a GENOCIDE against the Buddhists, burning down over 400 Buddhist villages, and slaughtering 30,000 Rakhine people. Since then Rohingya have formed Mujahid (holy warrior fighting for Islam) groups to engage in Jihad (holy war) and declared their goals, numerous times, of a Muslim-only separate state. The talk of many of the leaders and imams of the Rohingya is of eliminating the Buddhist population, and THAT IS ENCOURAGING THEM TO COMMIT GENOCIDE. Example: In 1985, Ahmed Shah, the Chairman of RLO – Rohingya Liberation Organization – freely distributed many copies of his recorded cassette tape urging the Bengalis in the Maungdaw District to drive all non-Muslims out of the District. He was basically calling for the GENOCIDE OF RAKHINE BUDDHISTS and all other non-Muslims of Maungdaw District.
3:10 The film says the population of Rakhine State is about one million (1,000,000) Buddhist and 800,000 Muslims. Very far from the truth, there are about THREE MILLION Buddhist and 800,000 Muslims, and it is the Muslim population that has grown so quickly with massive migration across the border from Bangladesh.
The film tries to make people think that the Muslims and the Buddhist have nearly the same numbers in Arakan, and that Arakan is the Rohingya homeland and birthplace just as it is for the Rakhine Buddhist.
Every time the film mentions population it is severely wrong, and calling Arakan the Rohingya ‘homeland’ and the ‘land they were born in’ many times does not make it true. That is deliberate manipulation to make falsehoods become facts over time. Simple question: what language do Rohingya speak? What language do Bangladeshis speak? Answer: Bengali. It’s called Bengali because it comes from Bengal part of India and Bangladesh. And so do they.
3:45 The film says ‘the Rakhine Buddhist prefer to call the Rohingya ‘Bengalis, or Bengali Muslims’, implying that is it wrong to call them Bengali Muslims. But it is correct! That is what they were know as, by the British, and even by themselves. They didn’t have the word ‘Rohingya’ yet, and they were from Bengal, and spoke Bengali, and ate Bengali food, and ‘Bengali Muslim’ made it clear who they were, what language they spoke, and what religion they were. Later, some of them realized that ‘Bengali Muslim’ pointed to their place of origin, and that is why they came up with ‘Rohingya’, and a new fabricated history.
5:00 The woman implies that Rakhine people, even children, throw rocks at the Muslims every time they see them. Completely false. That comment is meant to demonize the Rakhine Buddhists. In all my time in Arakan and other parts of Burma (about 2 years) doing projects in rural areas, I never saw that happen, and I never heard of that happening. What she said cannot be believed without any corroboration.
5:45 The film mentions ‘a Rakhine Nationalist Party’ and again many times in the film, and the narrator says the word ‘Nationalist’ in an ugly spiteful tone, in order to demonize the Rakhine for even daring to recognize and be proud of their identity, language and culture. The film SHOULD mention the Rohingya Super Nationalist Parties, such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF). These groups were sending members to Pakistan and Afghanistan for heavy weapons and explosives training with Al-Qeada Hizb-e-Islami Mujahideen and the Taliban. In March 2011, between 80 to 100 Rohingya were captured after training in combat and bomb making deep in the jungles of northern Maungdaw.
11:25 The film show a mob of muslims surging down the streets of downtown Maungdaw attacking and breaking windows, and the narrator says it’s not sure if this scene happened before or after police fired warning shots in the air. Al Jazeera was deliberately evasive with this so people would think it was all started by Rakhine police.
The police only fired warning shots in the air AFTER THE MUSLIMS STARTED KILLING BUDDHIST PEOPLE ON THE STREET, BURNING HOMES AND SHOPS, AND GOING ON A RAMPAGE. And just before this the men came streaming out of their ‘holy’ mosques, armed with long heavy wooden clubs, instructed by the ‘holy’ imams to kill all the Buddhists, burn their homes and shops, and do this for Allah and we will have our own pure muslim land here.
14:40 A woman says she was raped by 20 men. But something seems very fake about her. I would normally tend to believe a woman like this, but this one is not convincing to me at all. She seems way too well, has no emotion,
and looks like an actress playing a part in a deceptive film. And then, they say she died in Bangladesh? So, no one can interview her now.
20:10 A woman says, ‘A brother went out and was immediately attacked by a monk from the monastery, and cut to pieces.’ That is extremely hard to believe without any sort of corroboration, and with my experience in Burma and in Arakan I have never seen anything that would lend credibility to this situation happening.
——————————————–
Rohingya talk about killing Rakhine Buddhist,
not about reconciliation, peace, and learning to live together, with respect.
18:50 A young girl says, ‘If I was older, I would have killed those Rakhine’.
20:35 A man talks about he and his brothers killed 4 or 5 Burmese security men.
20:40 A mother talks, proudly, about her young son who insisted on going out (during the evening of June 8 in Maungdaw) to fight Rakhine, and he killed two Rakhine (she looks proud) and then he was caught and killed.
I suppose they tried, but could not find any Rakhine Buddhist to say something like that.
——————————————-
I can keep going , there’s more, but I think this is enough to show you the slant of this film.
Rick Heizman, San Francisco, Dec 16, 2012
See more of my papers about Arakan and the Monywa Copper Mine here:
issuu.com/rickheizman They can be printed, read, and shared.
http://issuu.com/rickheizman
EXPOSING THE LIES AND MANIPULATION in ‘THE HIDDEN GENOCIDE’ FROM AL JAZEERA
amazing deception, distortion, and dishonesty
should be called: ‘THE HIDDEN AGENDA TO FALSELY CHARGE GENOCIDE’
People who know very little about the issue might take a film like this as fact.
But, people who do know about the history and complexities can easily see that every minute of this film is meant to fool people into believing a huge manipulative agenda that tries to condemn and vilify the Rakhine Buddhist people, Aung San Suu Kyi, and even Buddhism, Buddhist monks, and Buddhist thought.
(the terms Rakhine and Buddhist are interchangeable.
The terms Rohingya, Muslim, Bengali, Bengali Muslim are interchangeable.
The State may be called Rakhine State or Arakan.)
(to coordinate the timing, the narration starts at :28 seconds)
:45 Film says ‘what happened next was hidden’
What happened next was NOT hidden, but due to chaos and bad and broken communication systems, it was difficult tot get information – about either the Rakhine or the Rohinyga. But what WAS hidden was the plan and intent of the Rohingya to be seen as the victims, when in fact they were killing and chasing Buddhist Rakhine people out of the land the Muslims wanted for themselves, and themselves only.
1:05 the video shows a mob of people on the street violently throwing rocks through windows of homes – in the video context it is designed to make people think that it is Buddhists attacking Muslims – but that video clip is ACTUALLY MUSLIMS ATTACKING BUDDHISTS! in Maungdaw, June 8, 2012.
1:35 The film says, ‘the Rohingya Muslims were being driven out of the land they were born in’. However, many many of the Rohingya were actually born in Bangladesh, or their parents were. The population of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathaydaung went from largely Buddhist to almost all Muslim in 60 years. Those Muslims were part of the massive and still on-going flow of Muslims into Arakan.
2:00 The film says ‘some believe it is an attempt to end the existence of the Rohingya, as a people’ Outrageously inflammatory nonsense. More than half the Rohinyga live OUTSIDE Burma – in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and more. That kind of statement implies that the goal of the Buddhists is to eliminate Rohingya around the world.
2:10 The word GENOCIDE is used, also, to inflame opinion. Okay, let’s talk about GENOCIDE. The film purposely doesn’t mention the REAL GENOCIDES that are historical and well documented – in 1942 the minority Bengali Muslims (the word Rohingya was not used at that time) were armed by the British to fight the advancing Japanese in World War II, but as soon as the British retreated the Bengalis used the weapons – not against the Japanese – but to launch a GENOCIDE against the Buddhists, burning down over 400 Buddhist villages, and slaughtering 30,000 Rakhine people. Since then Rohingya have formed Mujahid (holy warrior fighting for Islam) groups to engage in Jihad (holy war) and declared their goals, numerous times, of a Muslim-only separate state. The talk of many of the leaders and imams of the Rohingya is of eliminating the Buddhist population, and THAT IS ENCOURAGING THEM TO COMMIT GENOCIDE. Example: In 1985, Ahmed Shah, the Chairman of RLO – Rohingya Liberation Organization – freely distributed many copies of his recorded cassette tape urging the Bengalis in the Maungdaw District to drive all non-Muslims out of the District. He was basically calling for the GENOCIDE OF RAKHINE BUDDHISTS and all other non-Muslims of Maungdaw District.
3:10 The film says the population of Rakhine State is about one million (1,000,000) Buddhist and 800,000 Muslims. Very far from the truth, there are about THREE MILLION Buddhist and 800,000 Muslims, and it is the Muslim population that has grown so quickly with massive migration across the border from Bangladesh.
The film tries to make people think that the Muslims and the Buddhist have nearly the same numbers in Arakan, and that Arakan is the Rohingya homeland and birthplace just as it is for the Rakhine Buddhist.
Every time the film mentions population it is severely wrong, and calling Arakan the Rohingya ‘homeland’ and the ‘land they were born in’ many times does not make it true. That is deliberate manipulation to make falsehoods become facts over time. Simple question: what language do Rohingya speak? What language do Bangladeshis speak? Answer: Bengali. It’s called Bengali because it comes from Bengal part of India and Bangladesh. And so do they.
3:45 The film says ‘the Rakhine Buddhist prefer to call the Rohingya ‘Bengalis, or Bengali Muslims’, implying that is it wrong to call them Bengali Muslims. But it is correct! That is what they were know as, by the British, and even by themselves. They didn’t have the word ‘Rohingya’ yet, and they were from Bengal, and spoke Bengali, and ate Bengali food, and ‘Bengali Muslim’ made it clear who they were, what language they spoke, and what religion they were. Later, some of them realized that ‘Bengali Muslim’ pointed to their place of origin, and that is why they came up with ‘Rohingya’, and a new fabricated history.
5:00 The woman implies that Rakhine people, even children, throw rocks at the Muslims every time they see them. Completely false. That comment is meant to demonize the Rakhine Buddhists. In all my time in Arakan and other parts of Burma (about 2 years) doing projects in rural areas, I never saw that happen, and I never heard of that happening. What she said cannot be believed without any corroboration.
5:45 The film mentions ‘a Rakhine Nationalist Party’ and again many times in the film, and the narrator says the word ‘Nationalist’ in an ugly spiteful tone, in order to demonize the Rakhine for even daring to recognize and be proud of their identity, language and culture. The film SHOULD mention the Rohingya Super Nationalist Parties, such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF). These groups were sending members to Pakistan and Afghanistan for heavy weapons and explosives training with Al-Qeada Hizb-e-Islami Mujahideen and the Taliban. In March 2011, between 80 to 100 Rohingya were captured after training in combat and bomb making deep in the jungles of northern Maungdaw.
11:25 The film show a mob of muslims surging down the streets of downtown Maungdaw attacking and breaking windows, and the narrator says it’s not sure if this scene happened before or after police fired warning shots in the air. Al Jazeera was deliberately evasive with this so people would think it was all started by Rakhine police.
The police only fired warning shots in the air AFTER THE MUSLIMS STARTED KILLING BUDDHIST PEOPLE ON THE STREET, BURNING HOMES AND SHOPS, AND GOING ON A RAMPAGE. And just before this the men came streaming out of their ‘holy’ mosques, armed with long heavy wooden clubs, instructed by the ‘holy’ imams to kill all the Buddhists, burn their homes and shops, and do this for Allah and we will have our own pure muslim land here.
14:40 A woman says she was raped by 20 men. But something seems very fake about her. I would normally tend to believe a woman like this, but this one is not convincing to me at all. She seems way too well, has no emotion,
and looks like an actress playing a part in a deceptive film. And then, they say she died in Bangladesh? So, no one can interview her now.
20:10 A woman says, ‘A brother went out and was immediately attacked by a monk from the monastery, and cut to pieces.’ That is extremely hard to believe without any sort of corroboration, and with my experience in Burma and in Arakan I have never seen anything that would lend credibility to this situation happening.
——————————————–
Rohingya talk about killing Rakhine Buddhist,
not about reconciliation, peace, and learning to live together, with respect.
18:50 A young girl says, ‘If I was older, I would have killed those Rakhine’.
20:35 A man talks about he and his brothers killed 4 or 5 Burmese security men.
20:40 A mother talks, proudly, about her young son who insisted on going out (during the evening of June 8 in Maungdaw) to fight Rakhine, and he killed two Rakhine (she looks proud) and then he was caught and killed.
I suppose they tried, but could not find any Rakhine Buddhist to say something like that.
——————————————-
I can keep going , there’s more, but I think this is enough to show you the slant of this film.
Rick Heizman, San Francisco, Dec 16, 2012
See more of my papers about Arakan and the Monywa Copper Mine here:
issuu.com/rickheizman They can be printed, read, and shared.
http://issuu.com/rickheizman
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