Dr. Abid Bahar
(Reply to Aye Kyaw’s recent article "The Rohingyas and Rakhing")
Arakan, once a beautiful kingdom in the Bay of Bengal, rose to its fame when it looked to West for help from the Sultan of Bengal. Sultan Jalaluddin’s army reestablished the exiled Arakanese king and helped to establish its historic city Mrohaung. Unlike its Burmese rivals of the time, Arakan’s glorious kings had learnt to develop civilization not as a matter of creating terror through destroying human habitat, raping women, using human beings in forced labor but by knowing the art of civilization; how to be kind to it subjects, encouraging tolerance among communities, be just and to encourage the development of art and literature. In Arakan however, with this beauty was also born a beast.
