Recently, the Indonesian media has been paying more attention to the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, an issue that has also been increasingly under the spotlight of the international media and human rights advocates. Considered one of the most oppressed minorities in the world, the Rohingya living in the township of Rakhine inside of Buddhist-majority Myanmar have faced an especially brutal crackdown from their government since early October in the wake of attacks on the security posts by Islamic militants, leading to numerous deaths and shocking accusations of human rights abuse.
No doubt a large reason that the Rohingya’s oppression is making headlines in Indonesia is the large amount of sympathy those in our Muslim-majority country have for followers of Islam being persecuted in other countries. The Indonesian government has also taken notice, pledging to push for a solution.
“Of course we are concerned with the developments that have occurred during the past few weeks. The government has been pushing for the government of Myanmar to immediately remedy the situation,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir through an official statement picked up by Merdeka on Monday.
The statement said that Indonesia supports the promotion of democratization, human rights and the principle of decentralization. It also mentioned that Indonesia has already helped establish schools for Muslims and non-Muslims in Myanmar through its education aid programs.
“We are ready to help if they want to learn from our experience about creating harmony between a multi-ethnic population. Bilaterally we will continue to cooperate with Myanmar,” Arrmanatha wrote.
While it is noble that the Indonesian government wants to help alleviate the plight of the Rohingya, many human rights advocates have noted in the past that Indonesia has not treated many of its own religious minorities very well. Attacks on Christian churches are not an irregular occurrence and followers of the Ahmadiyah sect have been particularly persecuted for their beliefs, having their faith criminalized by the country’s blasphemy laws and having their communities attacked with relatively few legal repercussions for the aggressors. The continued attacks on Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian-Chinese governor of Jakarta for his alleged blasphemy against the Qu’ran also suggest that Indonesians still have a ways to go before they should be offering to help other governments find solutions for persecution against minorities.
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