The Outsiders
covering burma and southeast asia
Thursday, March 28, 2024
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The Outsiders


By Harry Priestley/Rangoon JANUARY, 2006 - VOLUME 14 NO.1


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Their only point of reference is “that lady” [Aung San Suu Kyi] or the place where bogus monks throw stones at mosques.”

With the denial of citizenship, restrictions on religious practice, professional discrimination and a growing sense of alienation, one might expect Burmese Muslims to be easy prey for extremist groups operating in the region.

Separatist clashes in Indonesia’s Aceh province and the southern Philippines, together with continuing violence in Thailand’s Deep South have thrown Islam into the Southeast Asian spotlight as never before. Paramilitary groups such as the Malaysian Mujahideen Group (KMM) and the pan-Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah—whose latest series of suicide bombings left at least 19 dead in Bali—have been linked with Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda network and are believed to be laying foundations for a hardline Islamic state, comprising parts of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

For now, though, disaffected young Muslims are more likely to flee the cities and join ethnic resistance groups. The All Burma Muslim Union, which the government routinely brands “Muslim terrorist insurgents,” actually operates alongside the largely secular Karen National Union and, despite a swelling of its ranks following anti-Muslim riots in the eighties, remains a very minor force. Extremist Muslim groups simply do not appear to exist in Burma.

But many feel it is only a matter of time. “If the persecution continues,” says Ahmed, “Burma could become a breeding ground for terrorists.”

Burma’s Muslim Hero

By Yeni

The honor roll of Burmese “martyrs” assassinated alongside Gen Aung San in 1947 includes a Muslim name: Abdul Razak, elected chairman of the Burma Muslim Congress.

Razak was just 50 when he was gunned down with his comrades on the fateful July day that has since become “Martyr’s Day.” He studied at Rangoon University, took part in the anti-British student demonstrations in 1920 and then demonstratively switched to a Bachelor of Arts course with the alternative Council of National Education established by Burmese nationalists. Though a Muslim, the young Razak became highly proficient in Buddhist studies and the Pali language.

For 20 years—from 1922-42—he worked as superintendent of the Central National High School in Mandalay, and insisted on cultivating national spirit among his students. A staunch nationalist, he once declared that for every civil servant turned out by British colonial places of learning, his school produced “10 revolutionaries.”

Razak encouraged his pupils to form a student union and to participate fully in social activities, particularly sport. He employed a former Indian boxing champion to train his students, some of whom went on to represent Burma at the Olympic Games.

During World War II he was detained, along with other Burmese nationalists, by Japanese police. Gen Aung San organized a rescue plan, but Razak rejected it because it did not include his comrades. “He didn’t want to be free alone,” a retired colonel recalled.

British troops freed him from Mandalay prison, and Razak became a prominent leader of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League of Upper Burma. He also organized the Muslims throughout Burma under the AFPFL flag, in preparation for the approaching struggle for independence.

Razak rejected the idea of a separated Muslim country when Pakistan initiated its separation from India. In May, 1946, he used the press to call upon Muslims not to show any sympathy toward Pakistan and urging them to be a strong and respected community in Burma, without weighing down the national development. He was appointed minister of education and national planning in Burma’s pre-independence government—the start of a political career brought brutally to an end by assassins’ bullets on July 19, 1948.

“For us, he is a great leader, like Gen Aung San,” said the editor of a Rangoon journal. Not, however, for the Rangoon regime—who have effectively removed his name from Burma’s pantheon by suppressing his biography.



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