Matters India reporter
Vienna: Father Joseph Maung Win is among the delegates from Myanmar attending the Inter-religious meeting discussing coexistence and common citizenship in Vienna.
The secretary, Office for Ecumenism in Myanmar shared with Matters India his reflections on the recent refugee crisis of Rohingya Muslims in his country during the February26-27 meet.
“It is really very important for us to have co-existence and common citizenship. We the religious leaders from all the religions tried our best to have co-existence and common citizenship in Myanmar,” says Fr Maung Win, a veteran ecumenism activist.
He did not hesitate to add, “Though intolerance has been growing for the past three years, now in Myanmar, we are trying our level best to overcome it. We can say that we have been successful in many parts of our country.”
Fr. Maung Win happily states, “Christian Leaders [in Myanmar] are also taking a great role by uniting all [Christian] denominations without any prejudice to one another. Now we can say we are one. With the one mind of the Christian, we could approach other religious leaders without difficulties.”
“As a pro-active Inter religious effort,” Fr Maung Win believes, “Christian leadership in Myanmar could engage not only uniting and understanding among the Christian Churches but also approaching to other religious leaders without any difficulties for the Inter religious coexistence and common citizenship in Myanmar.”
On a positive note Fr Maung Win hopes, “To carry out the conference statement and decision, we the Religious leaders will dedicate ourselves for these commitment for coexistence and common citizenship in Myanmar.”
The restive Arakan state in northwest of Myanmar has been historically a boiling pot of ethnic conflict. Provoked by a militant attack on August 25, 2015, that killed Myanmar border guards and police and civilians, the backlash resulted in nearly 4,00,000 Rohingya Muslims including 2,30,000 children fleeing to the nearby Bangladesh.
While images of ‘Islamic terrorism’ haunted the minds of ordinary Myanmar citizen and smothered their compassion, the world was shocked by the huge human tragedy. A UN official called the events “a text book case of ethnic cleansing.” Bangladesh foreign minister called it “genocide”.
Around 1,000 people were killed and 147 villages are totally empty. The conflict also displaced nearly 30,000 Arakan Buddhists and number of Hindus. Unknown number Myanmar police and government officials were killed in Rakhine state – the theater of that human tragedy.