M.D. Hafiz Afandi

We Must Protect The Rohingya

Before I write further, allow me to apologize.

Maybe there is a lot I don’t know. Maybe there’s a lot I don’t understand. Perhaps there is a lot of information that I don’t have about the real life of the Rohingya community in Malaysia.

Yet the more I think about this issue, the more I feel we need to ask ourselves an honest question.

Do we really understand their situation before we punish them?

Today, it’s undeniable that many Malaysians don’t like Rohingya.

Some say they are rude.

Some say they like asking for handouts.

Some say they are trading illegally.

Someone said they were dirty.

Some say they carry a bad culture.

Some say they were engaged in crime.

I’m not denying that some of this may be true.

But the bigger question is, why did that happen?

And who’s really to blame?

What I know, Rohingya in Malaysia are refugee under UNHCR.

They are not citizens.

They are not permanent residents.

They are not foreign workers with work permits.

They live in a very strange space.

They are not accepted as citizens.

But they can’t go back to their country of origin either.

They are right in the middle.

They are not given formal education like Malaysian children.

They are not given access to national schools like our children.

They don’t have legitimate job opportunities like everyone else.

They don’t have a clear future.

They grow up in poverty.

They grow up in uncertain circumstances.

They grew up in conditions no human being should ever go through.

Then we see them after ten or twenty years.

We see them children.

We see their new generation.

We see some of them getting rough.

We see some of them becoming uncivilized.

We see some of them do not respect the law.

We see some of them don’t have good morals.

Then we get mad.

But do we ever ask ourselves,

who raised that generation?

What do we expect to happen to a child who doesn’t get an education?

What do we expect to happen to a teenager who doesn’t have legitimate employment opportunities?

What do we expect to happen to a community that has lived in poverty for decades?

What do we expect to happen to human beings living without hope?

Did we really think they were going to be doctors?

To become an engineer ?

To be a professor?

Becoming a successful entrepreneur ?

How do they want to be all that when the road to that was never opened for them?

Once again I affirm.

I don’t defend crime.

I do not condone disrespect.

I dont condone violence.

I don’t defend anyone who breaks the law.

But I also cannot accept when an entire community is punished without us understanding the cause of the problem.

People often see a Rohingya asking for alms on the roadside.

But rarely do we ask how he got there.

People saw a Rohingya who can’t read.

But rarely do we ask who is preventing her from getting an education.

Society sees a Rohingya living in filth.

But rarely do we ask in what condition he was brought up.

We are seeing results.

But we refuse to see the cause.

The bitter truth is that human beings are not born criminals.

Humans are not born beggars.

Humans are not born uncivilized humans.

Life circumstances play a huge role in shaping who they are.

If we adopt a thousand Rohingya newborn babies today and raise them in stable families, give them good education, give them jobs, give them access to a dignified life, I believe most of them will become good human beings.

Because they are humans too.

They also have potential.

They also have ambitions.

They also have hearts.

They also have dreams.

So when we see the Rohingya problems today, I think we should be honest.

It’s not only Rohingya’s problem.

This is a bigger failure of humanity than that.

We can’t let a community live in the margins for decades, then be shocked when social problems begin to arise.

That’s not how society works.

That’s not how humans work.

And that’s not how history used to work.

Maybe we can’t solve all their problems.

Maybe Malaysia also has limitations.

Perhaps the government has its own security, economic and political considerations.

But at least, before we insult them, before we hate them, before we label them as useless human beings, try asking one simple question.

If I was born as a Rohingya, brought up without education, without a job, without a clear future, living in poverty for twenty years, will I be better than them?

Or maybe I will also become like them.

And probably, those are the most difficult questions for us to answer honestly.