Rethinking Home from the Experience of Home[state]lessness:
The Discursive Exposé of Rohingya Narratives from Cox’s Bazar Camps
Niloy Ranjan Biswas1 Abstract
This paper intends to understand the meaning of ‘home’ for the Rohingyas. Legally they were non-citizens of Myanmar since the 1980s. However, they lived in Arakan in their houses and surroundings, which is shared by their family and neighbours—Rohingyas and Rakhines. The central question sought in their narratives is—has Myanmar ever turned into a ‘home’ for them?
Rakhines are the significant ‘others’, and they dishonoured Rohingyas. Rohingyas experienced severe ill-treatment to get what they are entitled to get as citizens of Myanmar. Authorities do not like Rohingyas, who disobeyed their instructions; they would have to pay a monetary fine or get beaten by uniformed security forces. Prayers, Azan—religious practices were also prohibited.
The physical oppression from the state and military and legal deprivation as citizens would have constructed their idea of ‘home’ in Myanmar. Dothey envisage their future homes in Myanmar, or canthey differentiate between ‘home’ and the ‘state’? The personal narratives of camp-based Rohingyas on their ideas of ‘home’ in Myanmar demonstrate the features of statelessness vis-à- vis homelessness and the treatments by the mighty state towards them. This paper includes fifty micro-narratives (or life stories) of Cox’s Bazaar camp-based Rohingyas to understand their ideas of ‘home’ and ‘state’. It observes multiple experiences of violence against the Rohingyas in Myanmar. In these life stories, the Rohingyas describe how the Myanmar military and the state deprive them of their rights and made them stateless legally, physically and emotionally. What do they think about their ‘home’ from where they were forcefully evicted, tortured and forced to flee to their make-shift ‘homes’ in Bangladesh. The paper argues that the legality of stateless is insufficient to understand the plight of the victims, and their narratives would offer a discursive portrayal of the process of homelessness vis-à-vis statelessness over the decades—which is worth a further examination.
1. Introduction
The February 2021 military coup in Myanmar arguably halted the return of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas to Myanmar, their ‘home’, for an uncertain period. This same military had been the most instrumental actor to suppress the Rohingyas for five decades. The Government of Myanmar had confiscated their citizenship rights through constitutional changes and displaced them several times through brutal, violent military operations. The United Nations, in recent times, identified the military crackdown and persecution of the Rohingyas as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’ with genocidal intent. However, the plight of Rohingyas in Myanmar was severely underreported in the international arena. Since 2017, about a million Rohingyas were forced to leave their homeland to neighbouring Bangladesh in a very short span of time that the world community came to recognise the gravity of atrocity. The subsequent UN investigations and legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) strengthened the case. After the 2017 mass killing and forced eviction, some serious academic studies emerged to recognise the claim’s global legitimacy. These works have uncovered various aspects of the Myanmar state and
1 Niloy Ranjan Biswas, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: [email protected]. With due permission, the empirical data for this paper is gathered from a project, conducted by Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka, under the research project “Rohingya Journeys of Violence and Resilience in Bangladesh and its Neighbours: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives”. The project was supported by the British Academy under the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) (Award Reference: SDP2\100094).
its treatment of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Now in the current context of the military coup, it is crucial to revisit the voice of Rohingyas on their plight—physical tortures and destructions of the conditions of lives leading to both homelessness and statelessness in Myanmar.
In Myanmar, the 1982 citizenship lawrecognised 135 ethnic groups and denied citizenship to the Rohingya population by not including them in the list of ethnic groups (Cheesman, 2017).
Scholars argued that the exclusionary process had started throughthe 1948 citizenship law and had extended and sustained through the 1982 citizenship law (Albert and Maizland, 2020). The lack of legal rights of citizenship disavowed other fundamental rights for Rohingyas.For example, they had lost their rights of ownership on theirpropertiesand their claim on their own dwelling places or homes (Human Rights Watch, 2013). The state has identified Rohingyas as ‘resident foreigners’ or ‘Bengalis’; and with no legal lineage to national races, they had become alien to their own lands (Guhathakurta, 2017). This legal dimension of statelessness had been translated into homelessness when they were forcefully evicted from their de-jure homes in Northern Rakhine in 2017. Had they lost their homes in their homeland?
After the mass exodus of Rohingyas in 2017, Bangladesh’s greater Cox’s Bazar areahas become one of the world’s most densely populated refugee camps in the world.International agencies and the government of Bangladesh had offered emergency and long-term support services –food, shelter and health to Rohingyas. Security is a prior concern along with the humanitarian needs;
hence, securitized perimeters of campshadrestrained the freedom of movement of Rohingyasand access to services, information, and limited access to a judicial system (Milko, 2019). Has the camps become the new homes for the Rohingyas?
Some of these abovementioned questions deserve an in-depth and contextualised probe within the broader literature of the idea of ‘home’ for the forced migrants and refugees. The idea of home and homeland isnot imaginations backed by static past of the victims of forced migration.
This is rather ‘the continued existence of a unitary, true home’ (Taylor 2009, p. 10). The question of unitary ideas of home has however been debated by others. Multiple interpretations of home has been evident in the narratives of homeless victims, which connected home with varied imaginations as both physical, social and emotional spaces (Lefebvre, 1991;Malkki, 1992; Taylor, 2009). Therefore, home is a deconstructed imagination that often involves complex, dynamic andeven contrasting processes in multiple times and space. Moreover, it is important to note that
‘home’ and ‘homeland’ can be two distinct concepts, where ‘homeland’ denotes an extension of
‘home’, a potential component of the identity and belonging of the refugees or displaced persons (Chowdhory, 2018; Wolff, 2001).
Refugees may not be observed as anexclusive subject of investigation on the basis of the camp- based situation.They are heavily informed by their experiences of several home and host places as an active agent holding ties with multiple places (Al-Ali and Koser 2002, p.6). It is also observed that the refugees do not stop imagining about their homes—current and future homes within uncertainty and hopes or concerns for multiple relocations. In this circumstance, refugee narratives on the ideas of homes are the important source of understanding the evolving nature of violence, protection and their identity as homeless or stateless actors.
Against theconceptual construct, this paper intends to examinethe meaning of ‘home’ for the Rohingyas. Legally they are non-citizens of Myanmar since the 1980s. However, they lived in Arakan in their houses and surroundings, that are shared by their family and neighbours—
Rohingyas and Rakhines. The central question sought in their narratives is—has Myanmar ever turned into a ‘homeland’ for them? The physical oppression from the state and military and legal deprivation as citizens would have constructed their idea of ‘home’ in Myanmar. Did they
envisage their future homeland in Myanmar, or could they differentiate between ‘home’ and the
‘state’? The personal narratives of camp-based Rohingyas on their ideas of ‘home’ in Myanmar demonstrate the features of homelessness vis-à-vis statelessness and the treatments by the mighty state towards them.
This paper includes about fifty (50) micro-narratives (or life stories) of Cox’s Bazaar camp-based Rohingyas to understand their ideas of ‘home’ in Myanmar and Bangladeshi camps.The micro- narratives were collected from Rohingyas, living in camps in Ukhiya to develop a comprehensive understanding of home and dwelling process in Myanmar and Bangladesh. The study was undertaken in three periods: 2019 (October-December), 2020 (January-February) and 2021 (March).Two-thirds of the Rohingya story-tellers were men and the rest of them were women.
The researchers adopted purposive sampling approach to select storytellers from 11 camps that are geographically distributed in Ukhiya area in Cox’s Bazar. Thesewere 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19 no. camps adjacent to Kutupalong areas of Ukhiya. Eleven storytellers were aged more than sixty years old. The oldest storyteller was 82 years old who was Muaungdu, Arakan, Myanmar and was found in camp 13 in Ukhiya. The youngest storyteller was a 17-year-old boy from camp 14. The primary focus of the micro-narratives was to understand trends of violence experienced by Rohingyas and how that had shaped ideas of homes, rights, services in Myanmar.
Also, they discussed their experience on the journeys to Bangladesh and other experiences in camps in Bangladesh. The Micro-narratives were primarily drafted in Bengali by the enumerators and cross-checked by the author. Later on, these were translated into English. The respondents (story-tellers) remained pseudonymous as per the standard ethical guidelines of this study.
In legal connotations, statelessness is the lack of any nationality and an absence of legal connections between the self and the state (Chaudhury and Samaddar, 2018). In addition to the statist-legal interpretation, the moral and right-based understanding proposes that statelessness is the outcome of the failure of the moral obligation of the political communities—state, individuals and civil society—towards citizens (Chowdhory and Mohanty, 2020). In the life stories of this paper, Rohingyas described how the military, state and the majoritarian society had deprived them of their rights and made them stateless both legally, physically and emotionally.
Although they were lawfully stateless in Myanmar, they had learnt not to disown their homes in Arakan, Myanmar, until the state threatened their lives and living. What do they think about their
‘home’ from where they were forcefully evicted, tortured and forced to flee to their make-shift
‘homes’ in Bangladesh? The paper argues that the legality of stateless is insufficient to understand the plight of the victims, and their narratives would offer a discursive portrayal of the process of homelessness vis-à-vis statelessness over the decades.
2. Genealogy of Home in Refugee Narratives
The experience of home for the displaced and refugees lies at the heart of the very meaning of lifeand processes of displacement (Arendt, 1966). Displaced persons’ loss of home, as Agamben (1998) denotes, gives new meanings to their ideas of home and their lives overall.Al-Ali and Koser (2002, p.6) suggest, ‘concepts of home are not static but dynamic processes,involving the acts of imagining, creating, unmaking, changing, losing and moving “homes”’. This study investigates the idea of home in its broadest possible senses. The movements, often forceful eviction and perilous journeys towards uncertainty, reshape the conceptions of home of their past and the future homes. It somewhat reflects a connection with the idea of homeland or state;
nevertheless, the idea of home is broad and vast and cannot only be confined through legal, spatial and national narratives. Home, therefore, is an intersection of space, time and social relations (Cieraad 2010, p.93; Kabachnik et al., 2010,p.317; Koraç, 2009,p.26; Zetter,
1998,p.310). It is also intimately connected to our identity and an emotional sense of belonging (Christou, 2013,p.295; Sirriyeh, 2013,p.5).
Transnationalism and intra-state crisis have resulted in forceful evictions in the twentieth century and produced refugees in various contexts. This has also resulted in the potentiality of refugees’
deep, emotional attachment to the lost home, while at the same time making a new home in the country of exile, or indeed in another country altogether (Taylor, 2015). It is influenced by the plight dynamics—violence and protection faced by them. Therefore, the home has become a relational journey of violence, oppression, hopes, protection services, and the like beyond its physical and spatial terms. The idea of home is also profoundly informed by the concepts of identity, citizenship and territoriality (Ranger, 1994; Stepputat, 1994; Malkki, 1992). The process of belongingness for the refugees or displaced persons in the home and host places is complicated. In particular, in the host places after the distressful journeys, the imagination and narrations of home strongly persist, which may be exclusive of any basis of territoriality or national identity. Malkki (1992, 1995) reasserts such a claim of the existence of homes and homelands through the memories of refugees. Scholars extended this construction of the ideas of homes ‘as a continuous process and renegotiation’ as ‘[t]he individual is permanently in the process of transition from his/her primary home to an ideal future home’ (Kabachnik et al., 2010, p.317).
Further, home denotes an individual’s entire social texture, which offers a narrative of his/her life (Arendt 1966). This is not just the material home in the geographical terrain—a place of origin or shelter or a dwelling place. Subsequently, when an individual is displaced, this is beyond the loss of a material or physical home; it results in losing one’s meaningful place in the world (Arendt 1966). More importantly, the plight of displacement may not end with a makeshift home for the refugees in the camps or elsewhere in the host places; it is more with the regain of the social fabric with a sense of the home.
This study considers the framework of Helen Taylor (2009, 2013, 2015) and contextualisefour
‘views’ of home. In the imagination of refugees, homes can be inclusive of spatial, temporal, material and relational notions to depict different perspectives on the basis of the lived experiences of violence and protection in the home and host places. Refugees often discuss the space—landscapes, cityscapes and the make-shift environment of the places where they had lived in their homeland. This is not only about one’s own home infrastructure. It is more about the environmental space, such as neighboring houses, fields, worship, schools, roads and water bodiesthat had shaped the idea of home (Appadurai 1996, p.180–182; Taylor, 2009, 2013).
There is a temporal perspective in understanding home, which is built on memories of an active agent about their past experiences on homes. In addition, the contemporary experience on the present home and dreams of future homes get a space in the narration and these altogether shape the idea of homes for the refugees (Cieraad 2010,p.93; Morton, 2007, p.159; Tolia-Kelly 2010, p.88). Somecyclical events, suchas religious festivals and cultivation and registration processalso remind them past experiences regarding home.
The material home is perceived by the embodied and sensoryexperience of food,natural scents, trees, fuel and fruit and the soil in which food is grown and ancestorsare buried, all of which engage the senses to produce the taste, smelland texture of home (Sutton, 2001,p.3; Tolia-Kelly, 2010,p.74–75).
Home may have been imagined without an abstract perspective.The human (and animal)elements, the complex webs of individuals constitute the idea of home. The
relationalhome refers to the close bonds with family and friends as wellas the weak ties with wider social networks, all of whom engenderemotional affect and produce social and cultural capital that enableslives to run smoothly and productively (Granovetter, 1973; Koraç, 2009,p.38;
Loizos, 1981,p.176).
In this study, the Rohingya narratives has demonstrated on spatial, temporal, material and relational aspects as a combination of discursive ideas of homes. The discussions highlight several elements associated with their memories of homes in Myanmar as memory devicesand mayindicate a desire to return home. The experience of displacement and violence had offered new meanings of home for refugees.Inspired by Taylor (2009, 2013, 2015), this study unpacks Rohingyas’ ideas of homes as complex, multiple and continuous construction processes.
3. The State of Home(less)ness ofthe Rohingyas in Myanmar
Many Rohingyas fled their home for the first time in 1978 after their registration as citizens were barred in the Nagamin census in 1977 (Ullah, 2011). Later on, the Myanmar military conducted the Dragon King operation, an oppressive campaign, to forcibly evict more than 200,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh (Amnesty International, 2004). Most of them had returned within a few years; however, it had become their de factohomes in three significant townships of Rakhine:
Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung. In the census of 1983 and 2014, Rohingyas were consecutively identified as the ‘foreign race’ in Myanmar (Immigration and Manpower Department, 1986). The legal exclusion was followed by the Myanmar government’s physical and psychological oppression of Rohingya people. They were forced to identify themselves as
‘Bengalis’, and those who failed to do so were forcefully sent to refugee camps after confiscating any remaining identification cards (Ibrahim, 2016). Since then, becoming homeless and being in makeshift shelter homes in camps have become fait accompli for Rohingyas.
Abdus Shukur (pseudonymous), a mid-40s Rohingya male, narrates his experience with the author of how he had lost his identity forcibly; nevertheless, he stayed back for a long time.
In 2010, the Myanmar government confiscated all Rohingya cards, papers and knives from their homes. They say these are being done to evict the Rohingya. Then in 2012, some people from Jamaat came to Akyab from Rangoon. When the congregation was over, they were slaughtered and killed. From then on, the trouble started in Akyab. The Rakhines killed hundredsof Rohingya Muslims. The bodies were dumped in the river in sacks. The two villages of Maungdaw and Bhumidong are primarily Muslim, so they started persecuting them. They did not let the villagers out of the house. Nasaka forces would come every night, enter the house, and take the villagers away. The army beat us with false charges (Interview with R-036, 2020).
Cross-border movements due to forceful eviction, violence and oppression by the Myanmar government inform Rohingyas' idea of homes. Even after that, some of them stayed back in Northern Rakhine. Nurul Kabir (pseudonymous), a middle-aged Rohingya from a camp in Cox’s Bazar, shared his experience.
My elder brother came to Bangladesh in 1978 after being tortured by the Myanmar Army. He is currently living in Moricha, Cox’s Bazar. During that period, the army physically abused all-male members of our family. However, we did not leave our homeland even after being subject to various types of tortures at that time. We thought that the Myanmar Government would eventually accept us. We were concerned about our home and the neighbourhood. We knew we had no legal supports from the administration as they were the perpetrator (Interview with R-001, 2019).
Other than the regular census, the authorities in Northern Rakhine State conducted oppression through discriminatory registration policies and restrictions. For example, since mid-2002, pregnant Rohingya women have had to register themselves by going to the nearest NaSaKa camp, where often they had to show their faces and abdominals. Likewise, in Northern Rakhine State, since 1992, the Rohingyas had to ask for permission to get married. Such restriction was only applied to the Muslim population in the area, not people from the other ethnic or religious groups in the region (Amnesty International, 2004).
Despite the fear of repression, Rohingyas lived in their homes in Myanmar and returned to homes from abroad, and they had extended their families. Selim (pseudonymous) told the author, 'One year later, my second elder brother returned home from abroad after failing to improve his conditions there. After returning home, he got married. He started his marital life.
Soon after, we got our two sisters married off’ (Interview with R-003, 2019). Even though the persistent fear of persecution and deprivations, homes and homeland offered meanings to live and extend the sense of family for many Rohingyas.
Sur Alam (pseudonymous), another Rohingya in his mid-twenties, observed his life experience with the author from the camp. His home is all about his family experience, marriage, livelihood plans and sharing family responsibilities. He said:
After returning home, I reopened my small business of the paan (beetle leaves) shop.
After resuming the business, my parents started looking for a bride for me again. When my mother asked for my approval this time, I replied affirmatively. I got married in February 2007. My father had sold another cow out of the three cows we had for cultivation to bear my marriage expenses. After the marriage, I had to take on a lot more family responsibilities than ever before (Interview with R-004, 2019).
Exploitation is a consistent experience for Rohingyas in Myanmar. They were used to pay bribes and extortions from the local administration. They were well aware of the challenges in the homeland that had exploited them totally and did not offer a way out. Jaber (pseudonymous) from the camp told us about their homes and affluence before the military started oppressing them. He said:
We had 15 cows and 20 buffaloes. Although we did not have much land of our own, vegetables of excellent quality were grown in the lands that we had. The expenses of my sister’s wedding totalled around 10 lakh taka (in Myanmar’s currency). We had to give three lakhs to the Myanmar government, and they spent the rest (7 lakhs) on other expenses.
Often home for the refugees may be a combination of their imagination and past direct experiences in the homeland. It may not be violent for one reason; however, everyday hardships come to the forefront while narrating the incident. Mohammad Amin (pseudonymous) described his story to explain the relational perspective of the home:
My father used to cultivate grains in other peoples’ lands. He was agricultural labour.
And he also used to rear ducks, hens, cows, and at home. He owned some lands of his own. He had only the house and few grounds for cultivations. My father used to maintain our family through hardship. I was the eldest son in the family, and I did not get an opportunity to study. I had to help my father with cultivating works to mitigate the scarcity in the family. My father wanted me to continue my study. But my father couldn’t manage the costs of my education amid the impoverishment of the family (Interview with R-17, 2020).
The Myanmar government posed Rohingyas as a security threat to the state of their origin (Islam, 2019). That had resulted in the restrictions on their civil and political rights imposed by the government. Furthermore, their ideas of home are informed by various patterns of limitations on personal experiences, such as marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. The government labelled Rohingyas as illegal Bengali Muslim immigrants in 2006. Based on the claim that Rohingyas are foreigners, it was easier to deny their civil rights and oppress them (Ludden, 2019). Therefore, a combination of legal and extra-legal measures to renounce citizenship has made it difficult for Rohingyas to live their life in Myanmar (Cheesman, 2017).
Kala Mia (pseudonymous) discussed the neighbourhood and the lack of trust between Rakhines and Rohingyas. Rohingyas were violated by both the security administration and the local Rakhine community. In his story, he elaborated how their homes were affected:
Even our houses were demolished, and Rakhine people from different areas were resettled into our region. After the Rakhines came, local police had become more repressive. They would take away our livestock. And when we went to look for them, they used to beat us again and again. Military forces would break into our homes, and when we asked them where we would go, they would point to the sky and tell us to go to heaven (Interview with R-22, 2020).
Threats were common, and security risks were inherent for the Rohingya women in Myanmar.
Shakina (pseudonymous), a young Rohingya woman in her early 30s, narrates her life story on home, family and repression.
I was very ill when the military started the assault in our area. I could not walk then.
Everyone left me alone at home. I was scared to go out of the house to save my life. I saw my husband fleeing with my children to Bangladesh, leaving her home. Then a group of soldiers came and shot my husband and two children in front of my eyes. Seeing this, I gathered some strength to run and hide in a nearby paddy field. Many Muslim women were physically and mentally abused in front of my eyes. I was afraid and did not leave the paddy field for the whole night. In the morning, I moved to Bangladesh with some neighbours (Interview with R-23, 2020).
The homeland never offered a peaceful life with fundamental rights such as education, employment and treatment. Rohingyas had died in their homes without getting essential treatment in Myanmar. Jamal Uddin (pseudonymous), a mid-30s young Rohingya male, told the author:
There is no count of how many more people, such as my father, had died due to lack of treatment. If someone needed good treatment, he would not get it. And the hospital that was there did not have enough medicine or doctors. So no one wanted to go there because everyone knew that going there for treatment was the same thing as not going, so if someone were sick, he would stay at home (Interview with R-041, 2020).
Another young Rohingya male, Riaz, expressed his anger while discussing how they had been deprived of higher education and jobs in Myanmar. He said, ‘We did not have any opportunities to apply for the government jobs in Burma. Some of us had worked in the NGOs in our villages.
But most of us did farming, harvesting, fishing and running general stores or tea stalls. Most of us did essential labour works. Some of us would migrate to another country without a passport.
This is how we could manage our jobs and stay close to our homes (Interview with R-041, 2020).
The Myanmar government’s denial of citizenship and restrictions on Rohingya people block them from accessing other fundamental rights such as health care. The chronic discrimination
against the Rohingya people in accessing medical has raised the high morbidity and mortality of the Rohingya people (Ives, 2016). After the 2012 violence, most of the Rohingya population were sent to IDP camps in Myanmar, and in those camps, 90 per cent of people do not have access to any medical treatment (Al Jazeera English, 2017).Among all the other restrictions imposed on Rohingyas, the limitation on movement caused the most trouble in accessing medical treatment in emergencies (Amnesty International, 2004). They were forcefully evicted and relocated to new homes in IDP camps within their ‘homeland’.
The pain of losing home was concordant with losing loved and dear ones for many Rohingya.
This has been vibrant in their narrations. It seems like they were more devastated losing the home than the citizenship or the state. Kamal Hossain (pseudonymous), a nearly 50 years old Rohingya man, had shared his sad stories with the author.
The atrocities inflicted on my family in 2017 will never be compensated. All of my home assets were burned at stake. The day our village was set on fire, I fled with my family.
Then the police fired at us. We ran as fast as we could. I did not understand when my daughter was shot in the midst of all this. After moving far away, I saw that my daughter was not with us. I thought maybe she was hiding in the woods. After looking around, when I saw my daughter’s frozen body, I saw that she had been shot in the chest. She could not speak. After a while, she died at my hands. After burying her there, we moved to Bangladesh, thinking of the rest of our children. I still can’t sleep thinking about my sweetheart (Interview with R-042, 2020).
They have seen so many deaths and casualties in their entire lives in Myanmar. Trauma, perhaps, has become an essential component in their ideas of home. Juhar Ali (pseudonymous), in his narratives, shared how he had been traumatized by the violent incidents of 2017. He did not think of leaving his home till the last moment. Saving family and staying at home had become two opposing options for him. He said:
One evening when I was returning home after the prayers, I heard the sound of gunfire and saw the Imam of the mosque laying on the floor in front of me. Seeing all this, I could not move my hands and feet for fear. However, somehow we managed to bury him there. After returning home, I saw that everyone was numb with fear. The screams of the people of the next village wasclearly heard by all of us. When I went outside, I saw a fire blazing all around. Everyone is running around in fear. Tears came to my eyes when I saw all this. (Interview with R-033, 2020)
Widespread violence against the Rohingya population has been a regular phenomenon in Myanmar which reached its peak in every decade passed, such as in 1978, 1991-2, 2012, 2016, and most acutely, in August 2017 (Haar et al., 2019). During these waves of persecutions by Myanmar's security forces and local Buddhist vigilantes, atrocities against the Rohingya population include mass arrests, forced relocation, rape and other forms of sexual violence, summary executions, torture, unlawful killings, preplanned targeted and widespread burning and demolishing Rohingya villages, homes, mosques and other structures, enforced disappearance, food and water deprivation, humiliating treatment and many more (Doctors Without Borders, 2020; International Crisis Group, 2017; Amnesty International, 2018).
Rizwan (pseudonymous) was an imam of his village. The military observed him not to perform his religious duties in the village. He was not even allowed to come home. Somehow he had to go home during the night and left home after taking meals. He had to spend the day and night in the hills and paddy fields for two years. After that, the torture stopped for a year, and he got permission to stay at home. Although they have always been under the control of others, he did not think it was a problem because Myanmar is their homeland. That’s why they lived there,
accepting everything (Interview with R-037, 2020).Home in Myanmar existed for the stateless Rohingyas. The home was relational, aligning with the experience of repression and displacement, love and affections from the family members, and the uncertain future of the next generations. There were temporal and spatial experiences of home; however, the relational experience with violence and oppression un-shape and re-shape their memories of homes continuously.
4. Reimagining New Homes: Resettlement or Repatriation?
Rohingyas made an arduous journey to Bangladesh to escape the Myanmar junta’s persecution.
They had just lost their homes, and they were uncertain whether or not they would have any shelter to save their lives. According to Human Rights Watch (2017) report, the journey towards Bangladesh for Rohingya has met with injuries from bullets and fire, hunger, exhaustion, death and the journey through rivers and dense vegetation. Furthermore, the soldiers raped and sexually assaulted Rohingya women while fleeing to Bangladesh. They were violated in their homes, and their loss of home was intertwined with their loss of ‘honour’. The desperate journey to find safety did not end for Rohingyas once they crossed the border of Bangladesh.
They were stranded in the rice fields and prohibited from continuing their journey to refugee camps by the Bangladeshi border patrol security force (Saman and Rohde, 2017). For Rohingyas, arriving in Bangladesh after leaving their homes in Myanmar to escape violence and discrimination was just one part of their long journey. They had lost the material homes there;
however, their memories of the home did not fade away. How did their trauma and horror help them define their new and temporal homes in Bangladesh? Do they still imagine a future home and where?
Bodiur (pseudonymous), a 24-year old Rohingya man, in his story highlighted the plight of his family’s journey to Ukhiya. They were on the roadside for three days, and the locals provided food. Many local Bangladeshis had offered them shelters in their homes. He was happy as they were welcomed in Bangladesh. He still had that in his mind that he had lost his home and life would be uncertain in the new place (Interview with R-007, 2019).
Md. Mosa (pseudonymous), another Rohingya man, exposedhisanxiety levels and their sacrifices to get a temporary home in Bangladesh. He kept on saying:
We came to Bangladesh by boat. I did not have any money to pay for the boat ride. But I had some gold with me, and I gave two bhori gold to the majhi (leader) as payment for the boat ride. The majhi took me to his home. He took not only me but also 5/6 more people to his house. He gave us clothes, food and even provided shelter to stay at night.
Although the majhi (leader) was not wealthy, he was as open-hearted as the sky. It was a place named Waikong. After staying there one night, I found my family members. And later, I, along with my family, got a place to stay in a camp provided by the Bangladeshi authorities (Interview with R-018, 2020).
Rohingyas have experienced various transformative stages of healing and settling down in Ukhiya and Teknaf areas while fixing a temporary place of dwelling in camps. Many had lived out of the centres dodging security forces. Hosne Ara (pseudonymous), a young Rohingya female storyteller, narrated finding a home in the camps.
I used to rent 3,000 takas for the house in Hnila, outside of the camps. After six months, I ran out of money. Then I went to the house of a relative in Palangkhali. After going to their homes, news started coming around not to shelter Rohingyas. Whoever gives the place will be punished. Hearing this, we moved to Bhalukhali the next day. There were many houses then. I was shown a house and told to pay 4,000 takas to stay here. After six months, we got a WFP card. Now we get everything through it. My son, who was in
Bangladesh, came to us. And the son I lost in Burma, I got the news that he has gone to India. Even today, I haven’t found my other son (Interview with R-035, 2020).
Rohingyas are stateless in Myanmar, and they have not been recognized by-laws as refugees in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention (the Refugee Convention); therefore, it is not bound to provide refugee status to the Rohingyas. However, the constitution of Bangladesh provides certain fundamental rights to the refugees. Camps in Cox’s Bazar have become new homes for the Rohingyas. They received various facilities from the government and international development partners. The camp authority has issued ‘refugee ration books and travel passes, permission to file a police case, marriage and divorce’ (Azad, 2016 p. 4). Imams and Majhis (local Rohingya leaders) are the ideal options for the first line of communication for Rohingyas living in the camps.
Abdus Shukur (pseudonymous) shared his ideas of peace, tranquility and security in Bangladesh in his narratives to the author. He felt that they were at peace in Bangladesh. He further stated:
In Myanmar, we could hardly sleep at night with peace. The Myanmar army used to torture their mothers and sisters at home. We have fled to Bangladesh only for fear of oppression. Now I am no longer afraid of the army. My daughter works as a volunteer at BRAC. I had never allowed my daughters to leave my home in Myanmar for fear of the military and the Rakhines. Now I am no longer afraid. My daughter now works for a living. I could not send my daughters to school in Myanmar. But here, one of my two sons goes to school. They have food, books, notebooks and pens from school every day (Interview with R-036, 2020).
Rohingya storytellers expressed their deep satisfaction and gratitude for the support that they had received in Bangladesh. Home is equated with peace and opportunities for the respondent and his/her family members. Rizwan (pseudonymous), another middle-aged Rohingya man, told his story:
In Bangladesh, we are safe and at peace, but what will we do here in the long run? This thought always haunts me. I want to go back, but only if I am sure of my life’s safety.
Here I can give my children the opportunity to study in schools, but he does not know if they will get such opportunities later (Interview with R-037, 2020).
Rizwan told the author that he had no troubleswith his life. He only cared for her children. What would they do, where would they go in future? These questions had haunted him constantly.
They had no country. He thought his children could not ever be sure about their homeland—
Myanmar or Bangladesh. Rizwan also said, ‘I wish I could die; I would have been freed from all worries’ (Interview with R-037, 2020). Although they were satisfied with the services and opportunities in Bangladesh, their current state of dwelling in Bangladeshi camps does not ensure their future—which is their state and which state will accommodate Rohingyas as citizens?
A young Rohingya woman, Hasina (pseudonymous), raised the same concerns in her narratives;
she was unsure whether to think optimistic about any future homes in Myanmar. ‘When I sleep, I forget where I am sleeping. When I wake up in the morning, I feel I am alive because Allah had mercy on me’ (Interview with R-038, 2020). Hasina further lamented that she could sleep at night in Bangladesh without any worries or fear, and there was nothing to worry about for her as it was in Myanmar. They are very safe in the camps of Bangladesh. Hasina also mentioned that now they could live independently in Bangladesh, they were no longer treated as slaves as such in Myanmar (Interview with R-038, 2020).
Salam (pseudonymous), on the other hand, is still enthusiastic about returning to his home in Myanmar. He said, ‘My family and I had always wanted to return to my country. But we also know that the military will kill us if we return to our homeland. If the Myanmar government returns our possessions with nationality status, then we will return for sure’ (Interview with R- 043, 2020).
There are some issues regarding the dwelling of Rohingyas in camps. For example, a Rohingya storyteller, Nur Alam (pseudonymous), discussed some problems in the camps.
Our residences are beside the hills; therefore, we feel anxiety during the rainy season.
Many houses collapsed this year due to this reason. We know that the government of Bangladesh and NGOs have done so much for us. We will always be grateful to them for their support. The NGOs are working relentlessly on this hill with us. We need to bring our water far from our home (Interview with R-045, 2020).
Another Rohingya middle-aged man, Anwar Ali (pseudonymous), expressed his satisfaction about the safety and security in camps. ‘We are living here peacefully. However, the house we live in is not big enough for a family like us. Besides, we face many difficulties during the rainy seasons. Sometimes, we also face a shortage of freshwater. Apart from these difficulties, there is no problem in camp life’ (Interview with R-049, 2020).
Dil Bahar (pseudonymous), a senior Rohingya woman, expressed her deep feelings about her homeland, i.e., Myanmar. She has long experience of living in both places. Still, ‘home’ is where she would like to enjoy freedom. She lamented:
A woman would not even get a doctor’s help in her own home country when giving birth to a child. Many of them died while giving birth at home. And many children also died.
But, various NGOs and government officials in Bangladesh are always engaged to take care of the mothers and their newborns. After all these opportunities, I often become emotional, thinking about my motherland. If I get the chance one day to go back to my village, my home in Burma, I might not look back and think about the past. But we want our total freedom when we return to our country. We do not wish to live captive anymore. We want the opportunity for girls to study and to get jobs (Interview with R- 016, 2019).
For Dil Bahar, home equates with freedom and represents a living place without persist captivity.
Cox’s Bazar captive camp conditions may have encouraged her to imagine a future home where she will enjoy total freedom and honour as a human being. In addition, for many, home equates with recognition as a citizen and rights on lands and properties. In his story, Habib (pseudonymous), a mid-50s Rohingya male, highlighted the significance of conflict resolution and their recognition as citizens. His home lies with his memory of respect for his late father’s memory in Muangdu, Myanmar. He said, ‘I always want to return to my motherland. The grave of my father is there. But if I return to my home in this turbulent situation, they will kill all of us.
If the Myanmar government grants proper recognition and citizenship, we would only like to return to our home’ (Interview with R-046, 2020).
Fayezuddin (pseudonymous), another senior camp-living Rohingya, strives for recognition and respect, and he told in his narrative:
If Myanmar Government accepts us warmly with due care and honour, I would like to return to my home. If they promise not to repeat their repressive acts on us and return all our belongings, I would surely want to replace my homeland (Interview with R-046, 2020).
Home is always in the imagination of the camp-based Rohingyas. This demonstrates different notions of the home, which include peace, security and safety in post-conflict times. It is again a relational home for them which ensures emergency supplies of food and shelter, confined space of the camps, and hope or/and uncertainties about their future generations. Respondents’
narratives of their future homes are informed by their previous experience as home(less)ness.They, therefore, are striving for recognitions from Myanmar and Bangladesh, an identity that may ensure the safety of their future homes.
5. Concluding Remarks
The life stories of Rohingyas narrated in this paper highlight multiple complex features of the home(s) for the refugees. It reinstates the idea of home(s) drawn from the multipronged imagination of the refugees who had been through traumatic experiences of violence, evictions, long-journey, and protections in different places and camps. In grasping the variety of the understanding of homes, this study was inspired by Helen Taylor’s (2009, 2015) conceptualisation of homes—spatial, temporal, material and relational. In this paper, the narratives depict all four types of homes; however, they elaborate on relational perspectives of homes in the imagination of Rohingyas. The space of homes is broad and relational for Rohingyas in Myanmar as it was primarily informed by their experiences of their lives with the surroundings. These are village terrains, neighbourhood experience with Rakhines, cultivable lands, and the like. The absence of educational and health support infrastructures also shapes their dwelling space in the towns of Northern Rakhine.
For many Rohingyas, memories of continuous repression and violence constitute the ideas of temporal homes in Myanmar. There had been a constant ‘othering’ process, designed and implemented by the state security forces and the Rakhine neighbours. It was so prominent for Rohingyas that they might not even need a reminder that they were not officially a citizen of the state. The discursive patterns of their experience as the victims of violence in Myanmar surpasses the legality of statelessness. Snatching the citizenship status in 1982 and the following events of exclusion from the census are critical moments for the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
Nevertheless, many young Rohingyas have become so used to this statelessness that they have constructed an idea of homes and neighbourhood for themselves within such a suppressed condition, both spatial, temporal, and material. In the context of the relational home for Rohingyas in Myanmar, security forces exist prominently. Continuous securitization of the dwelling places in the rural neighbourhood in Northern Rakhine is strongly evident in their narratives.
In Cox’s Bazar camps, Rohingyas have experienced several protection regimes from Bangladesh and other international agencies. Some elders among the Rohingyas had previous experiences of shelters in a camp-based environment. However, a significant majority of the young Rohingyas may have been accustomed to these new ‘homes’ for the first time. Being in a confined camp- like situation with various life-saving amenities, such as health, education, religious practices, and relatively calm conditions, Rohingyas had reflected on their past experiences, present needs and future expectations of homes. The hopes for repatriation exists in their narratives. However, uncertainty on life and living in Myanmar might have restricted their imagination for a future home.
The ideas of home, homeland and motherland are vibrantly present in the narratives of the migrants and refugees. Unlike Taylor’s (2015) interpretation of the non-existence of politics in the imagination of homes for refugees, this study demonstrates a strong link between political, emotional, and social constructions of the ideas of homes in the context of Rohingya refugees. It further strengthens the complexity in (or loss of) identity and its implications on their understanding of homeland vis-à-vis home. This connectivity between the political construct of home or motherland and the emotional construct of a home may deserve an advance investigation.
Finally, the discussion in this paper highlights that the idea of home cannot be conceptualized in a static form and cannot be reduced to a linear understanding that may produce a single definition of home for the refugees. Furthermore, there are multiple and discursive connections between the memories of the past/lost homes, existing make-shift homes and future hopes for permanent dwelling places in an unknown location. A continuous deconstruction process informs this connectivity in the context of the patterns of migration, protection and settlement in home and host places.
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