Rohingya Crisis Is Nothing New

It's been a few weeks since I last posted here, a longer gap than usual. Events on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border have created a fraught context for writing on the country's past; it has become imperative for historical work to address the bleak humanitarian crisis facing the Rohingya. Returning to my research with the escalating exodus of refugees in the background has given me a renewed sensitivity to the implicit racial positions adopted in the primary sources that I have been looking at. At the same time it has prompted perennial questions about the purpose and relevance of my research at this current historical conjuncture. As a result, the present is perhaps inflecting my analysis more strongly at this current moment. Either way, this 1920 article from the Burmese nationalist newspaper Th?riya has provoked some thoughts on the defensive responses to the crisis which I have seen online that claim that the Rohingya, and not the Burmese military, pose the real threat.