Myanmar has been in the international news a lot the past couple of weeks, and it hasn’t been for the glorious stupa-dotted landscape of Bagan or the tranquil waters of Inle Lake. It’s been for the religious and ethnic persecution of the Muslim Rohingya minority of Rakhine State by the Burmese army and militia groups, and the response, or lack thereof, on the part of the Myanmar government.
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority that have been living in Rakhine State, part of modern-day Myanmar, for centuries. During British rule (1824-1948), there was a surge in Rohingya migration, labourers coming to Rakhine State from what is today’s India and Bangladesh. The living conditions of the Rohingya, who are mainly concentrated in western Rakhine State, are among the poorest in the world.
Since independence, the situation for the Rohingya has gone from bad to worse, starting with only limited access to identity cards, to legislation that has essentially rendered them stateless. The Burmese army and Buddhist supremacist militia have long sought to eradicate Myanmar of the Rohingya and have been exercising systematic violence akin to war crimes and ethnic cleansing with view to complete genocide.
It is approximated that 1 million Rohingya are currently living in Myanmar, while another one million more have fled to neighboring countries since the 1970s. The latest wave of intense violence started on 25 August 2017, when Rohingya militants belonging to a group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, resulting in 12 deaths. In retaliation, the Burmese army with the backing of Buddhist militia have launched a “clearance operation” that have razed villages to the ground, and raped and murdered over a thousand civilians – men, women and children. More than 300,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar in the past three weeks alone.
It is a humanitarian crisis that is being likened to the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, and I cannot express enough my complete and unequivocal condemnation of these war crimes, and my utter disappointment in the response of Aung San Suu Kyi and her government. But unlike many who have taken to social media to express their desire to never lay a foot (again) in the country, I am not going to join you in boycotting travel to Myanmar and here’s why.
The violence occurring in Rakhine State is not new
While much of the world is just learning of the persecution of the Muslim Rohingya occurring in Rakhine State, it is a situation that has been ongoing for decades. Of course, it is one that categorically and without question must stop. But, I ask you, is boycotting the country outright the solution?
Myanmar has only really opened up to tourism over the past several years, the lack of tourists nor their spending never stopped the slaughter of innocent people before, and unfortunately it won’t now either.
Change will only come if we engage
While a travel boycott may not do much in realistic terms to stem military violence, I know many of you want to make a stand from a moral perspective. I completely understand you, I really do. But as much as I make similar pledges to all kinds of causes, I’m not sure disengaging with an entire country will have the desired effect.
For one, let’s think about how we’ve come to know so much about this issue and others that are going on in Myanmar. It is through increased media access and people like you and I on the ground sharing what we see and hear. Cutting off this flow of information will not make the government or the military more accountable; it will only serve to allow them to fulfill their abhorrent agenda behind closed doors. We need to keep international attention on this and we can only do so through maintaining a dialogue.
Who will benefit from a boycott?
It certainly won’t be the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who rely on tourism for their livelihoods – the family-run guesthouses and restaurants, the guides or the local tour operators. As much as the Myanmar government profits from tourism, they will not be crippled by a boycott; it will be the people of Myanmar who are.
If Myanmar recedes back into its days of isolation, whether because the military quashes the quasi-democracy and reinstates martial law, or the world seeks a travel boycott, we lose the chance to make real change in Myanmar, and we take away the capacity of everyday citizens of the country to engage with the world, have their voices heard and to learn about issues such as human rights.
The people of Myanmar too want change
When we visited Myanmar in May this year, we spoke to many local people who held great hopes for the future. They know Myanmar faces many problems and they didn’t all end in November 2015 with the first democratically elected civilian government in 50 years. But they were riding high on the hope of change and already felt as if their lives were better off open to the world.
Cutting off the country from our tourism is more than just about economics; it’s about saying that Myanmar, and all its people, are on their own. And can we really say in the current state of global politics that the actions of our governments always represent the will of the people?
The fall from grace of Aung San Suu Kyi
One of the biggest stories coming out of Myanmar is not just of the atrocities in Rakhine State, but the response of the government to the military violence. State Counsellor, Foreign Affairs Minister and national figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi’s lack of condemnation of the military’s actions there, and blaming of Rohingya “terrorists”, has led to a public outcry and calls for her Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked. Her silence has been a slap in the face to those who fought so long and hard for her release from house arrest and a complete turnaround on the principles of human rights she has built her platform on, and it makes me fear for the country’s future.
Myanmar’s peace is volatile, and despite her lack of absolute power, I feel like Aung San Suu Kyi was a point of social cohesion. In a country full of ethnic tension, she was the one thing most people could agree on. Traveling around Myanmar, many people were happy to talk openly about politics and they beamed to know we had heard about “The Lady”. Even the mention of her name instilled a sense of pride. Wasn’t she supposed to be different?
Of course, we have no idea what might be going on behind the scenes or what kind of threats may have been made against her. Instead of a democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi has become more of a puppet to the military regime her party supposedly overthrew, and it seems highly likely that someone is pulling those strings. Yet her lack of condemnation, at the very least, hasn’t sat well with those who placed such faith in her as the moral compass Myanmar’s leadership so desperately needed.
Without Aung San Suu Kyi in the hearts of the people, where does that leave a country emerging into the global spotlight after decades of isolation and in a state of such political fragility?
I have read reports, however, and I’d love to hear from the people of Myanmar about this, that the persecution of the Rohingya has actually been a rallying point for the nation. That the ethnic Burmese majority is, in fact, largely in support of the military’s actions towards the Rohingya and Aung San Suu Kyi’s response. If this is indeed true, then maintaining contact with the people of Myanmar has never been more vital.
Where we might end up
What many tourists don’t know is that the Rohingya are not the only minority to be persecuted by the Burmese military. There are civil conflicts going on in various regions and some ceasefires only dangle by a thread. And while the Rohingya crisis requires urgent action, if we truly stand for human rights, the very rights we so vocally want to claim for the Rohingya, then we can’t be selective about which segments of the Myanmar populace are deserving of them. Saying ‘Screw Myanmar!’ because of military, Buddhist militia and government actions may send Myanmar back to the days of full-on military dictatorship and into a phase of ethnic and religious conflict that will set the country back decades.
While I don’t think boycotting tourism to the nation outright is a solution, I do believe we can use our tourist dollars in more strategic ways that don't threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands and cutting Myanmar off from the world again. Our visits should focus on veering as much of our spending away from government hands and into locally-run businesses, and keeping an open dialogue with the people of Myanmar, sending a clear message to those inciting violence that the world is watching, and assuring those trying to fight it that we are fighting right there along with them.
What's your opinion on the Rohingya crisis and the idea of a travel boycott?
For those interested in further reading about travel boycotts, I recommend this post by World Nomads, Controversial Destinations: To Boycott or Not?
I welcome discussion in the comments, however, please keep the conversation civil. Any comments deemed to go against the constructive community space we have created here, will be deleted.
Woe to your ignorance. Women and children are being killed and raped as I write this– simply because they are part of a (muslim) minority in Myanmar. If and when you visit Myanmar, you will pay taxes which support the military junta which perpetrates this violence. De facto, your money is supporting rape and murder. There is no simple way around this fact. There is blood on your hands by spending money. You have a choice, but you’re just choosing to believe your money (coupled with wishful thinking) will somehow change the fact of this genocide. In developmental psychology we call this “magical thinking.” It typifies the thinking of small children.
Here is one of your respondents: “They probably are the illegal immigrants who seek place to live and survive… But the current crisis in Myanmar is purely a terrorism and we cannot let Terrorists inhumane act. ” Here we have
a mash-up of Trump and Bush’s Neo-Cons. Now, do you see how the rhetoric of Bush’s pre-emptive War on Terror is being replicated across the globe, now to condone genocide? The first step in committing genocide? Make the minority group into sub-humans (illegal immigrants, terrorists). Read the history of the genocide in Rwanda for details.
Now, while I recognize your well-intentioned pleas, based in a lot of faulty assumptions about how nations change their behaviors, let’s have a reality check. Anyone can write twenty-paragraph justifications of the “good people of Myanmar.” Let’s imagine an American in the 1930s doing business with the “wonderful Germans.” Oh, right, western nations did that. American companies supported the Nazi regime. 6 million Jews lost their lives. And it is a woeful stain on America.
Boycotts are the only way to change the behaviors of large multinational corporations and nation-states alike. Look at every successful nonviolent campaign, from the Dolphin-Safe Tuna campaigns of the 90s to Gandhi’s nonviolent boycott of services taxed by the British in India. By your logic, we’d be “hurting the nice people in Myanmar by not giving them our valuable Dollars or Euros. This illustrates a major failing of progressive neo-liberal thinking: A) We are going to “help” the world by our money, our tourism, our “development. and B) We have no moral standing to judge the behaviors of others.
Someday you will understand these factors are precisely why the American experiment and its western vassal-states are fast becoming so reviled throughout the world.
If for one hour the U.S. were to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rohingya Muslim population of Myanmar, CAN YOU IMAGINE the good-will that this would engender throughout the Muslim world? Surely a progressively-minded young woman like yourself can see the possibility. But no, you’d rather “play nice” and not offend anyone. If you stand for nothing you fall for anything. I’m sorry to inform you (and anyone reading this pathetic blog) you’ve fallen for absolutely uninformed, sophomoric tripe. Grow a spine. And for God’s sake, think of the women and children being tortured and dying en masse. The only way to reason with dictators and tyrants is to hit them where they can feel it — in their pocketbooks. Everything else is wishful thinking… Good luck
Dear Jessica,
Insightful and showed so much concerns to so called Rohingya. Myanmar is not against the minorities. We have freedom in Religion and religious beliefs as long as you don’t offend to other religion and the communities. Religious tension between communities happened long ago. We cannot take side. I think in every countries it will be the same. We cannot say all the bengalis who fled during these days belong to Myanmar. They probably are the illegal immigrants who seek place to live and survive. Moreover, International organizations and many people from all over the world show concern only to the so called Rohingya. You can take side who you think are vulnerable. But This is a huge misguiding to those who live peacefully together long ago. For us, we come from a family who has different religious beliefs. We respect other religions and the views. We will not fight or side when concern with religion as this is only the belief and no one sees God in person in this life. But the current crisis in Myanmar is purely a terrorism and we cannot let Terrorists inhumane act. Each country has it’s own immigration law and our imminent leader is trying hard for the sake of over 50 Millions people. Weakness in rule of law which is still on going process to correct them. Please have sympathy to 50 Millions population. Thank you.
I was about to write to you and ask for your point of view on the subject. not necessarily on boycotting travel to Myanmar, as I was not aware of the proposition, but on traveling to Myanmar right now at all. The trip I will take part in next November is with an organized tour and I cannot change anything. I’m not the one who chose the travel agency and, even though I know they might not work completely local, there’s not much I can do… We will travel with a local guide who speaks French and I hope to be able to have deep conversations and insight on the situation and the feeling of the people while we’re there discovering the country.
Like you, I don’t believe that boycotting traveling to a country actually could change a situation such as this one. As you mention, the persecution of the Rohingya has been going on for years and no-one was even aware of it until much recently; that is the main shame that we should feel about. Media coverage always choose “the story that sells most” and none of the current media is independent and neutral enough as to provide us with the truth of what’s happening everywhere in the world.
I hope by going to Myanmar soon to not be contributing in too many government-controlled/owned enterprises (unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the agency might not have chosen only local partners) and that I will be able to make the difference between the former and the latter.
I will be reading your posts and watching your videos again in order to get better informed of what’s to come.
Thank you always for your insight, for being tactful in your comments, for choosing what’s right for everyone and always trying to make this world a better place.
Jul’
Thank you for such a thoughtful and kind comment, Jul’. You are exactly the kind of conscientious traveler who can make a real difference, especially at a critical time like this.
Unfortunately, it is hard to distinguish between hotels and restaurants and so on that are government owned and those which are not. You really have to do your research and this information isn’t always easy to find. Some establishments also have connections with the military, which you are unlikely to know about unless it is well documented or if someone tells you. Even the most responsible travelers who have tried to do their research, can inadvertently support such enterprises.
I know that in your case you can’t change the arrangements that have been made for you. But you can make positive change in a whole range of ways. In addition to garnering lots of insight and creating dialogue with the locals you meet, if you find that the businesses you are engaging with aren’t independently or community run, you can use the opportunity to explain to the guide/tour organizer why this is important. If they can understand that there is demand for responsible tourism and that, in fact, this is what tourists want to see when they book a tour, they may be more inclined to make better choices for future tour groups. Community-based tourism is a small but growing trend in Myanmar, and if we make it clear this is what we want to see more of, then hopefully more tour providers will follow suit.
With all the amazing work you do for a plastic free environment, you can also educate people on an environmental front. This doesn’t assist with the Rohingya crisis per se, but it is another way to have positive impact. Myanmar loves their plastic straws. Knowledge that alternatives exist can only be positive in bringing about more environmental awareness.
I know that you will do your very best to create as much positive impact as possible. Your tour group will be lucky to have you. Wishing you a very fruitful and rewarding trip.
I will do my best. You’re right in stating that every traveler’s spirit can have repercutions on how others may travel. We have to tell the travel agent what we feel like about alternative local partners that truly support the local economy and help the people instead of helping already greedy firms and governments.
As long as we can do something, even though a little and on a smaller scale, we’re showing why we visit the country and the people and what is most appreciated.
I hope I can put another stone in the path of awareness by sharing your article and making my thoughts known – if and when needed – when we are in Myanmar.
I appreciate your point-of-view, Jessica. It’s so easy to make knee-jerk responses that may not ultimately have the effect we think it will. More thought often needs to go into boycotting places and products and the sometimes unexpected outcomes (loss of jobs, income, etc.) that may result.
Thank you, Julie. Whatever each individual decides to do about traveling to Myanmar, I do hope that this post gives some food for thought about how we might be able to most effectively enact change.