Understanding the Rohingya Crisis: Race, Religion, and Violence in Burma

The Rohingya, a Muslim minority of Burma of approximately two million people, are enduring a protracted and ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign. In September alone the Myanmar military burned hundreds of villages and forced nearly half a million to flee to Bangladesh. Journalist Francis Wade, the author of Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim ‘Other' (2017), joins James C. Scott, Kyaw Hsan Hlaing, and Myo Win in an panel moderated by Elliott Prasse-Freeman to explore the deep roots of these events, examining how violent prejudices were nurtured by the military and activated during the democratic transition and what potential there is for peace and security in Burma not only for the Rohingya but for the country's other minorities.