The “Rohingya”, who are they? The origin of the name “Rohingya”
Dr. Abid Bahar is a teacher and human rights activist, trained by the Canadian Foundation for Human Right in Canada.
Abid Bahar:
It is unfortunate that after the invasion of Arakan by the Burmese army in 1784, turning Arakan forever into a tiny province of Burma, Arakan continued to sink in to the level of a place that is pumped up in prejudice and now is famous only for producing refugees. Such is the sign of degradation, evident in its xenophobic site www.Rakhapura.com , its famous historians like Aye Chan and now U Khin Maung Saw (Berlin).
What surprised me is to see how prejudice can blind people's eyes. U Khin Maung Saw wrote an article with the following title "THE "ROHINGYAS" WHO ARE THEY? THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME "ROHINGYA." This gentleman lives in the West, and surprisingly even says jokes like a village joker but pretends like a historian. In the following I will explain how:
U Khin Maung Saw (Berlin) says:
"In the year 1991 the name "Rohingyas" often appeared in newspapers. According to "Free Press" journalists and the "free-wheeling" so-called journalists and self proclaimed "Burma Specialists", the "Rohingyas" are the descendants of Arabic Seafarers and the real natives of Arakan (the Rakhine State of Burma) and they are now expelled by the present military government of Burma known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) because the "Rohingyas" are Muslims and the Buddhist dominated nation (Burma) discriminates against Muslims.1" In the footnote "1. The Muslims mercenaries, who served in the Kingdom of Mrauk U are called "Kamans" meaning Archers 12 and their descendants still live peacefully in Arakan (the Rakhine State of the Union of Myanmar) with Buddhist Burmese and Arakanese."
Abid Bahar:
Please read more about the history of the Rohingyas to know who are the "Kamans". The Muslims mercenaries, who served in the Kingdom of Mrauk U are not the "Kamans". Your reading of history is wrong. You have to read more to defend your prejudiced ideas. Please write only when you are ready. You have to do more home work on this, perhaps Aye Chan, the co authored of the book "Influx Viruses" can help you to improve in your qualifications in this type of persuit.
U Khin Maung Saw (Berlin) says:
In the meantime the "Rohigyas", in their desire to establish themselves, not only by inventing fabricated and fanciful histories such as that the Kingdom of Mrauk U in Arakan was established by them and all kings in that dynasty were Muslims but they also attack all people who do not support their movement and dishonest claims.2" (In the footnote (2) the author wrote) "There is a very famous proverb in the Burmese language as well as in Arakanese dialect (they gyin de kyar taw pyaun de) which can be roughly translated into "the tiger who is sick of life goes to the strange forest". Normally tigers know their own forest very well so they can hunt there properly and easily protect themselves from enemies but if they start living in a new forest which is strange to them they cannot hunt well and protect themselves properly and finally they will be killed by their enemies. So when we consider the case of the "Rohingyas" and using the Burmese term "tiger from the old village" (which means coming to a new village) and in the light of the proverb mentioned aboved it would mean that they are seeking their own death. How funny!!
Abid Bahar:
Mr U Khin Maung Saw, you are a joker when you call the Rohingyas as tigers. If they were tigers, like the Burmese in 1784, they would be the one that would kill the Moghs (Rakines), but it is the other way around,Rohingyas are the ones that are now being killed. They live in refugee camps around the globe. How funny your joke is, ha ha !!
U Khin Maung Saw (Berlin) says:
"The undersigned, as a born Arakanese (Rakhine), is therefore obligated to write the true story of the so-called "Rohingyas" and wrote a paper with the title " On the evolution of Muslim problems in Rakhine state ". In that paper I pointed out that most of the statements of the so-called "Rohingyas" and their supporting "journalists" are wrong.
Abid Bahar:
Are you sure you are a born Arakanese? I agree with you that you are a joker and a story teller. So you wrote a story “On the evolution of Muslim problems in Rakhine state ". Good! Good! But we are interested in history, not a joke or a story!
Ofcourse, the Moghs (authentic Rakines) working with the military are going to be happy with your story to carry out further genocide of Rohingyas. So your story is good for them but not for us. However, can you send us a copy of your great story you wrote as a born Arakani? Are you learning some tricks from the born Germans in Berlin to effectively deny the Rohingyas their birth rights?? Hitler was a joker too. He joked about the jews.
U Khin Maung Saw says:
The name "Rohingya" is neither a Burmese nor a Bengali word. Whenever I asked a Burmese or an Arakanese (Rakhine) I got the answer "We don't know, it is not our word. Ask the Kalas 3, may be it is their word." Whenever I asked an Indian or a Bengali they answered me back that they had never heard of that word and it might be either a Burmese or an Arakanese word. So I have tried to trace it in all literature and enclyclopaedias but all in vain. Even a well-known author and scholar, Maurice Collis 4, who wrote many articles and books about Arakan, never mentioned the word "Rohingya". Also none of the British Colonial Officers' contributions about Burma and India mentioned that word "Rohingya".In fact that there has never been a "Rohingya" race in Burma is quite evident. There is no such name as "Rohingya" in the Census of India, 1921 (Burma) compiled by G.G.Granthan, I.C.S., Superintendent of Census Operations Burma, or in the Burma Gazetteer, Akyab District compiled by R.B. Smart. Since these were written for administrative purposes, needles to say they were objective.
Abid Bahar:
Can a blind men claim to have seen an elephant? The answer is no. How can you see the existance of the Rohingyas when you are blinded by your prejudice? It is absolutely impossible.
Let me use your same logic, if you ask a Bengali of Chittagong whether they have ever heard the name Rakine, they will more likely say no, never. After you explain them that they are the Arakani Buddhist, they will say, of course, the Moghs, you mean?
For your information, the name Rohingya was there in both Arakan and in Chittagong. There are villages in Arakan with the name Rohingya. In Chittagong, there are old Burmese Arakani refugee settlements in Southern Chittagong called "Roai Para" In Arakan, like the Rakines, the Arakani Muslims also took the generic name Rohingya.
The name Rakine is also adopted recently as a generic name to replace the historic name Mogh. The Arakani Buddhists known as the Moghs, sea pirates,to clear up their notorious historic role as pirates took the name Rakine. Now with the new name they pretend like Rakine gentleman, which most Arakani Moghs are. But some are pumped up in prejudice and like Aye Chan become racially allergic to the name "Rohingya." So they say stories but not any history.
Like you asked about the Rohingyas, show me a single place where until the Burmese occupation, Arakani Buddhists were shown as Rakines? As always they were called the Moghs, the sea pirates. The name Rakine is assumed recently by the Buddhists a pali word they think also exported from Bengal/ India. Even Buddhism is imported from India.
U Khin Maung Saw (Berlin) says:
"Some stories presented by their instant historians are ridiculous. For example they say that their Arab ancestors became settled in Arakan after a shipwreck near the Ramree Island off the Arakan coast in the eight century. 9 Maurice Collis, however, wrote in his paper "Arakan's Place in the Civilization of the Bay" that Bengal was absorbed into this Polity [i.e., Islam] in A.D. 1203. But it was its extreme eastern limit. It never passed into Indo-China; and its influence from its arrival in 1203 till 1430 was negligible upon Arakan."
"There are some stories about the origin of "Rohingya", which I cannot accept because those stories are like tales, but some writers used those stories in their publications. I consider those stories as fabricated and fanciful histories and their explanation of the word "Rohingya" as forced Burmanisation....Therefore, they were given a nick name " Rwahaung gaja kala " which can be roughly translated as " the so-called Rwahaung gaja Kalas ". Later this word diviated in colloquial."
According to that “tale" after the shipwreck the Arab seafarers served as Muslim mercenaries in the court of Arakan and they were favoured by the king of Arakan because they were honest, (but the king's name was not mentioned in that "story". So the king gave them the name " Ro wan hnya " the short form of " Ro thar pri mimi athaik a wan hnint ne tat rwe hnyar tar tatthu myar " which can be roughly translated into " the people who are honest, kind and live in their own society ". 14 There is no historical evidence for this “Arabian Nights " tale, so I have to consider this story as a created one and nonsense.
Abid Bahar:
Did you read the following? Collins says that during the medieval period, "Arabs made the Indian ocean an Arab lake" with their continued contact with the East. They extended their trade from the Red sea to China. Not all the Arabs who settled in Arakan did so by choice; because of ship wracks some were forced to seek refuse on the shore and remained there to settle. Such shipwracks were recorded at about the time when Arakani Chandra king Mahat-Sendaya ascended the throne in 788 A.D.
In his reign several ships were wrecked on Ramree island and the crews, said to have been Mohammedans, were sent to Arakan proper and settled in villages (Smart, 1957, 17).
The Arab presence in Arakan continued up to the seventeenth century, when European traders sailed to the Eastern seas. The Arabs developed a port city in Arakan known as Akyab. The Arabic version Ak-Ab means "place of a river meeting the sea'’.
Abid Bahar:
Why do you think the xenophobic Moghs recently had to change the name Akyab into Sittwe? Please find out.
By the way, your story of the Rohingya origin, from the word "Rohing piaja" meaning Rohingya village into the name Rohingya is something definitely you made it up.
In Bengali people use the word para for village, not piaja. Rohinga villages are called "Roai para." Your use of the pure Arabic word "piaja" makes me doubt that you are not a "pure Arakani Mogh." Piaja is most probably an Arabic word perhaps taught by one of your forefathers perhaps from Arab background? Did you know that Hitler had jewish blood but he killed 6 million jews?
It is laughable as well pathetic to see the degree of degredation of Arakani Mogh intellectuality reflected in your and other contemporary Arakani works. In the context of contemporary Arakan, I am sure your story is going to be considered as the authentic history of the Rohingyas for the Mogh hoodlums of Arakan. It will help them to deny the Rohingya's their birth rights and force them out, but it will not be worth reading by historians, except to find out if you the story teller is indirectly involved with the act of genocide now taking place in Arakan.
My earnest wish is that in future Arakan will produce some historians for democracy and peace to come but not the jokers or story tellers.
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