Intersection of Political, Physical, and Cultural Techniques of Genocide of the Rohingyas of Myanmar: A Lecture by Dr. Afroza Anwary, Distinguished Faculty Scholar

Wednesday, April 16, 2025
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
ML SW Corner

Based on face-to-face interviews with Rohingya refugees in shelters in Bangladesh, this presentation examines the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar. The voices of the respondents illustrate how by destroying religious institutions and prohibiting religious rituals, the government destroyed the social vitality of the Rohingya. Population control laws also contributed to the physical destruction of the community by controlling the future of the Rohingya population. The article concludes that the key to understanding genocide is threefold: political, physical and cultural. Refugee narratives demonstrate that the perpetrators are perceived as fearing that the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, pose a political threat that would transform Buddhist Myanmar into a Muslim nation.