Francis Wade, "Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other'" (Zed Books, 2017)
In 2017, Myanmar's military launched a campaign of widespread targeted violence against its Rohingya minority. The horrific atrocities was later described by\xa0United Nations experts as genocide. This had been building since 2012, when earlier ethnic\xa0violence erupted between Buddhists and Muslims in Western Myanmar. These very grave incidents leading to the deaths and also the flight of thousands of Rohingya\xa0to neighbouring Bangladesh was the most concentrated exodus of people since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. In\xa0Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of the Muslim 'Other'\xa0(Zed Books, 2017, 2019), Francis Wade identifies the underlying causes which flamed division, segregation\xa0and resulted in a\xa0horrific loss of life and violence. Wade explores how the manipulations by a ruling elite turned prompted\xa0neighbours to take up arms\xa0against neighbour, by politicising ethnic identity.\xa0\nThe crisis is contextualised\xa0in the legacy of British colonialism which calcified\xa0the previously fluid dynamics of cultural groups across the country.The military junta is shown to have\xa0exploited these divisions in its campaign which targeted the Rohingya minority. In the period of extreme violence,\xa0Wade draws out how the U.N.,\xa0and more broadly,\xa0how Western backers of the apparent\xa0political transition to democratisation contemporaneously ignored the unfolding situation. Through his on-the-ground accounts,\xa0Wade explores how citizens experiencing rights and\xa0freedoms unseen for half a century, under a much lauded civilian leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, became complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe.\xa0\nFrancis Wade\xa0is a journalist specialising in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. He began reporting on Myanmar in 2009 and went on to cover in-depth the transition from military rule and the violence which accompanied it. He has reported for\xa0The Guardian, The London Review of Books, TIME, New York Review of Books\xa0and more.\xa0\nJane Richards\xa0is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law