Pope Francis and the Rohingya

 Pope Francis and the Rohingya

In the book Let Us Dream (Simon & Schuster, 2020), based on interviews with Pope Francis, the pope says, “I think often of persecuted peoples…I have a particular affection for the Rohingya people. The Rohingya are the most persecuted group on earth right now; insofar as I can, I try to be close to them” (p. 12).

I was not aware of these people nor of the persecution they face. Pope Francis made me aware and Wikepedia helped clarify the situation. They are a people without a country even though they are indigenous to western Myanmar (Burma) but the government of Myanmar does not recognize them and has in fact driven most of them into neighboring Bangladesh. By 2017 an estimated 625,000 of them from Rakhine State in Myanmar sought safety in Bangladesh.

Pope Francis notes that he is especially moved by the generosity of the Bangladesh people toward these exiles and refugees. He says, “It’s a poor, densely populated nation; yet they opened their doors to 600,000 people Their prime minister at the time told me how the Bangladeshis give up a meal each day so the Rohingya can eat. When last year, in Abu Dhabi, I was given an award –it was a significant sum—I had it sent straight to the Rohingya: a recognition of Muslims by other Muslims” (ibid, p. 12).

An assessment in 2015  by the Yale Law School concluded that Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya could be classified genocide under international law. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees described the expulsion of the Rohingya as “ethnic cleansing.” Some who have looked into the treatment afforded the Rohingya have concluded that they are “one of the world’s least wanted minorities.”

The US House of Representatives in 2014 passed a resolution that called on the government of Myanmar to end the persecution and discrimination against the Rohingya, but clearly that resolution had no effect.

Pope Francis urges us to go to the periphery, to come to the aid of the poor and the persecuted. The Rohingya obviously qualify: poor, persecuted, and people on the periphery. When we look for the poor, the persecuted, the periphery we do not have to go far from home. Pope Francis is asking us to develop a servant mentality, which most of us can exercise and refine right here at home.