從緬甸重要人士之觀點探討羅興亞危機

Abstract

Discrimination of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as has been an issue for decades. Contrary to the hopes, the country’s democratic transition did not commence a comprehensive ethnic reconciliation. On the contrary, it laid the foundation for a large-scale campaign of purposeful displacement of Rohingya in 2017. This thesis focuses on the framework of symbolic politics to assess the underlying drivers of Rohingya repressions since the country’s democratic transition. It assumes that goal –driven elites exploit ethnic cleavages in their favour. Under references to a myth-symbol complex, they deepen ethnic aversions to a point where a presumably hostile “other” has to be fended off for the sake of the prevalence of the in-group. Democratisation facilitates this process, as it creates an environment for unregulated competition, where actors expect benefits from ethnic outbidding. Based on public expressions made by key societal and political actors in Myanmar after the country’s democratisation, this thesis shows that indeed elites are responsible for creating an anti-Muslim narrative. Brought up by religious actors in Rakhine State and impelled by local ethno nationalist parties, this narrative increasingly defined the image of Muslims as a threat to Myanmar. As the central government under USDP rule first allied with chauvinist forces, and under the NLD turned a blind eye, the depiction of Rohingya transformed from “illegal immigrants” to a “terrorist threat”. Accordingly, measures to repress Muslims got more severe and eventually Rohingya were expelled without significant popular opposition. Thus, a direct connection between actors advancing Islamophobia and actual acts of ethnic violence can be infered

緬甸若開邦的羅興亞穆斯林遭受了數十年的歧視待遇，並未因該國邁向民主過渡而有所轉變，甚至在2017年，更成為大規模族群仇恨運動的目標。本文的研究重點在探討緬甸自民主轉型以來，驅動仇視羅興亞人的根本因素與政治論述，其假設為政治菁英因其自私利益，操作族群槓桿，利用種種神話與政治符號所交織的語境，加深了主流社會族群對於「他者」的厭惡與「他者威脅」的想像。而「民主化」更激化了上述過程，因為它為不受管制的競爭創造了有利環境，在此各方行為者莫不期望從族群鬥爭中受益（如獲取選票）。本文以緬甸民主化後，中央政府、地方政府、與社會三層面的主要政治行為者的公開言論為研究基礎，並發現這些政治菁英們確實需為其創造了反穆斯林的敘事與氛圍負責。直言之，反穆斯林言論起初是由若開邦的激進僧侶提出，並受到當地民族主義政黨的推動，而使得越來越多當地居民相信穆斯林對緬甸造成威脅。在鞏發黨（USDP）統治下的中央政府，由於選舉考量，首先與沙文主義勢力結盟，而其後繼之的全國民主聯盟（NLD）政府並未改變此路線，甚至因為情勢惡化而進一步對羅興亞穆斯林從「非法移民」轉定義為「恐怖主義份子」。因此，鎮壓穆斯林的措施變得更加激烈，最終羅興亞穆斯林便在沒有受到民眾強烈反對的情況下被驅逐與清洗。總之，本文認為推動仇視伊斯蘭教的行為者，以及具體族群暴力行為，兩者間具有直接的相關性。