{"id":855,"date":"2018-06-11T21:16:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T21:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freerohingyacoalition.org\/en\/?p=855"},"modified":"2018-06-13T21:19:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T21:19:59","slug":"taking-a-stand-for-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freerohingyacoalition.org\/en\/taking-a-stand-for-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Stand, for a Name"},"content":{"rendered":"By Jay Nordlinger | Published by National Review<\/a> on June 11, 2018\r\n\r\nSince October 2017, a network in Burma has been carrying programming from Radio Free Asia. RFA is an American news service. Now the Burmese government has told the network that it must stop carrying RFA programming, if RFA insists on using the word \u201cRohingya.\u201d It does, so RFA programming will no longer be carried by the network.\r\n\r\nThe Rohingyas, as you know, are the people from western Burma who have been persecuted in the most horrific ways. I wrote about it in February (here<\/a>). Let me give a relevant excerpt:\r\n
They are even denied their very name. The government wants you to call them \u201cBengalis,\u201d not \u201cRohingyas.\u201d The government views them as immigrants and squatters from Bangladesh.\r\n\r\nAt the end of November, Pope Francis went to Burma and carefully avoided the word \u201cRohingya.\u201d This pained many of his supporters because he had freely spoken of the Rohingyas before. But things were different in Bangladesh, his next stop, where he talked with Rohingya refugees. \u201cWe won\u2019t close our hearts or look away,\u201d he said. \u201cThe presence of God today is also called \u2018Rohingya.\u2019\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\nThe president of Radio Free Asia, Libby Liu, made a statement (and bear in mind that Burma is also called \u201cMyanmar\u201d): \u201cBy forbidding the use of the word \u2018Rohingya,\u2019 Myanmar\u2019s government is taking an Orwellian step in seeking to erase the identity of a people whose existence it would like to deny.\u201d\r\n\r\n