Rohingya: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes

My reminiscences of Cox’s Bazar are deeply rooted in my childhood during family vacations taken with my parents and three siblings - horse rides on the beach, sunsets against the widest horizon, charcoal barbecues by nightfall, and copious amounts of seafood throughout our stays. My recent trip to Cox’s Bazar, some 20 odd years later, however, was starkly contrasting in that the circumstance was dire, one which continues to sit steep in my mind.

- Nahar Khan

Rohingya may have become a very familiar term to us recently, as international media outlets continue to pour into the small coastal town of Teknaf, in hopes to unfold the horrific stories behind the exodus of the minority Muslim population from Myanmar into Bangladesh. However, this term seemingly remains unacknowledged there, while being substituted first with its more-inferior term “Kala”, to an inaccurate term currently, “Bengali”. This in turn insinuates that the Rohingya are also unacknowledged as individuals belonging to Myanmar where, regardless of their original migration, they settled for generations.

Now, Bangladesh is not a rich country. Yes, we have one of the longest, uninterrupted sea beach, the largest mangrove forest, fertile land, lush vegetation, vast tea gardens, and ranked amongst the top 10 happiest nations of the world (Happy Planet Index 2016, NEF) - in that sense, we are very rich. But as a nation, we remain as one of the poorest and most populous of the world. Still, our doors have remained open to an influx of at least 507,000 Rohingya refugees and counting. We are not prepared for this influx, and many may say, nor are we responsible. But as the nation and the world have witnessed thus far, our Premier is not one to take up arguments regarding human lives.