There have been deaths, rapes, arsons, and burning of whole villages, setting off a huge exodus of Rohingya refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh. From the moment the Rohingya crisis erupted, “Islamic” solidarity erupted too with full vigour and it asked, without irony, the question: “Are Rohingya Muslims not human?”Such is the strength of this narrative that even Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina mentioned in the parliament the Muslim aspect of Rohingya. In such critical times, the Rohingya issue becomes a “Muslim” humanitarian issue and Erdogan becomes neo-Suleiman, the magnificent. In West Bengal, the Rohingya issue has had some play in public discourse. These are the kind of elements and characters that the Rohingya have in their support, and that do not help the Rohingya cause, but the utterly friendless Rohingya cannot practically do much about it, even if they wanted to.

Source: Dhaka Tribune October 19, 2017 12:33 UTC