Francis Wade
Francis Wade is the author of Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other'.From the transcript of his NPR interview with Mary Louise Kelly:
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ... Tell me what you mean by other [in your title].--Marshal Zeringue
FRANCIS WADE: The current violence we've seen is the sort of latest iteration of a long campaign of persecution and violence towards Muslim minority in the west of the country. They go by the name of the Rohingya. And they are a stateless group. They number around 1 million in the state and a larger diaspora outside of the country.
KELLY: I'll just note here, you're saying Rohingya, I'm saying Rohingya. They're both acceptable pronunciations for the group?
WADE: They are.
KELLY: So are they integrated into society in Burma at all?
WADE: Not at all. They were after independence in 1948. There were Rohingya MPs, Rohingya were recognized as an ethnic group. Now they are utterly disenfranchised. They are denied citizenship. And since the first wave of violence in 2012, they have been confined to refugee camps, ghettos, villages from which they cannot move. They cannot access health care.
KELLY: Why? What changed?
WADE: Well, there's long been...[read on]
