Pope Francis was advised to not say the name of “the Rohingya” in the context of his trip to Myanmar lest it result in retaliation against the Catholic minority there. The other side of the coin of course, was in the context of his belief about their treatment there is a moral imperative to speak out.
So he’s split the difference. Didn’t bring it up there, alluded to it as he touched in Bangladesh, and now says the name there.
The broader more abstract question is what to do when one believes that there is a moral imperative to speak up but your speaking up will potentially cause harm to others, not you directly, either in retaliation or otherwise as a consequence.
The narrower question is how well does the pope’s solution, avoiding the subject while in the country but saying the name and bringing up the plight once in a country sympathetic to the issue, solve that dilemma.
A key missing factor is that we don’t know what is being said, quietly and privately, to Aung San Suu Kyi or the Myanmar government. “Please be advised that, for now, we will keep things as cordial as possible. However, we do need you to clean up your act and to develop a more humane policy towards this group. That policy needs to be <insert proper demands here>. Should you fail to accomplish this in a reasonable amount of time, we will no longer honor that policy of cordiality and will ratchet up the rhetoric and/or sanctions appropriately. Most of the civilized world is appalled by the situation here, and to the extent you want to be a part of that world, you must act like you are part of it.” If something like that is being said, then I think the actions taken by the Pope, or another head of state in the same position, is more justifiable. If not, then it’s appeasement.
Recently had a conversation with a friend involved in negotiations, (human rights attorney many years with the UN). He told me if anyone at the table, regardless of the nature of the meeting or negotiation, says the word Rohingya, the entire Myanmar delegation immediately gets up and walks out.
What’s more important, to achieve progress in a horrific situation, or to be heard by the world saying the word? It’s not an easy choice. For anyone trying to effect change.
The Myanmar government specifically wants to avoid the use of the name because it interferes with the othering of the population as not as a long time minority group of Myanmar but rather “migrants from Bangladesh”. They are forbidden from becoming citizens no matter how many generations the families have been there.
Denying the identity, keeping them as completely other, as not Myanmar, is key to the mindset that justifies their treatment.
Does allowing them to force others to use the same language that implies that other status, or perhaps more precisely to avoid language that does not accept it, further a goal of achieving progress?
A poor analogy to make here and I hope one that does not make a hijack, but imagine if the Palestinians refused to sit at the table if any at the table stated they accepted Israel’s right to exist, or the Israelis refused to sit if the word “Palestinian” was used. Not that progress is great there now but …
In any case the stated reason for the pope’s reticence to use the word was not to achieve progress and it was not to try to do more behind the scenes. It was to avoid retribution against his fellow Catholics, also a minority in Myanmar. Now they are coming for the Rohingya, from the POV of that country’s Catholics, if the pope speaks up maybe they will come for me. It was looking out for them. At least according to all reports and I think we can for the sake of this thread assume those reports are not fake news.
Does avoiding speaking up while there soften it enough that the risk of such retribution is reduced enough? Does it soften its impact if it ever was to have any in the first place? Is the risk that a perceived bully might beat up my little brothers too if I even say something about them beating up my second cousins to their face an ethical cause to stay quiet?
Honestly I do not know and am looking to be convinced of a position.
I suspect, if your ability to get aid to people suffering horrors relied on NOT saying the word, while still striving for dialogue, you’d be inclined to abide to save lives.
Even knowing that not acknowledging them is fundamental to the problem.
People are suffering and dying as you meet with them, by the hundreds daily. Glad I don’t have to make these choices and glad there are people with the temperament to do so.
College campuses are rife with organizations such as National Students for Justice in Palestine, author of the movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. The mass media, with alarming regularity publishes serious criticisms of Israel. The European Union, the successor to countries where six million Jews went up smokestacks has a partial boycott of Israel. All of it stems, allegedly, from the “Occupied Territories.” When pressed these people will concede that they consider pre-1967 War Israel to be “occupied” as well. What exactly is Israel’s crime; retaliating for deadly knifings, car rammings and other suicide attacks.
Travel 3/4 of the way east on the Asia continent to Myanmar, formerly Burma. The Rohingyas (link) are the subject of repeated massacres and rapes at the hand of the Buddhist population. Has anyone heard of this? UN Watch (link) has but nothing mainstream. Where are the campus demonstrations against Myanmar’s atrocities? The Rohingyas are ever bit as Muslim as the Palestinians, perhaps more so.
Could the selective outrage in the West be anti-Judaism in new bottles? I think so.
That could be some of it, but I think it’s more just that the whole Palestinian situation is better known than the Rohingya situation. I don’t know that people think that much about Southeast Asia at all, really.
OK. However Reese is still providing a personal opinion and not actually issuing an official declaration of the church.
If the pope’s secretary had said that Francis was going to abide by the Myanmar government in order to protect Christians, I might consider that the reason. However, the trip was set up as a diplomatic mission before the Rohingya crisis broke out. While some bishops in the one article may have urged silence to protect their own congregations, Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, who also asked that the pope refrain from using the word, has, himself, used it and condemned the regime for the persecution of Muslims. Reading the multiple articles on the visit, it was suggested in several that refraining from using the word in public, as recommended by the cardinal, was an effort to avoid breaking the diplomatic contacts that the visit was set up to establish. When Pope Francis left Myanmar to visit Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, he addressed the Rohingyas, directly and named them is such statements as "The presence of God today is also called ‘Rohingya.’ "