This love story of a Rohingya Muslim-Buddhist couple is like no other
In her dreams, Setara
walks hand in hand with her Muslim husband through the streets of the seaside
Myanmar town they grew up in. They visit old friends, share a meal with family,
dip their toes into the warm surf of the Bay of Bengal. But in the hate-filled
reality of the world they live in, Setara can only do these things alone — when
she takes off her Islamic veil and crosses through a pair of checkpoints into
the predominantly Buddhist state capital, where her government will not allow
the love of her life to set foot. That’s because
Setara’s husband is an ethnic Rohingya Muslim, a group the United Nations has
called one of the most persecuted on the planet. Setara, meanwhile, was born a
Buddhist and part of the ethnic Rakhine, who despise the Rohingya and see them
as foreign invaders from Bangladesh.
Marriage between the
two communities is extraordinarily rare. It’s also risky in a nation where
security forces have driven more than 730,000 Rohingya into exile since 2016,
carried out large-scale massacres and burned hundreds of villages in a campaign
the UN and human rights groups have described as “ethnic cleansing.” In Sittwe, Setara
tells no one she is married to a Rohingya. Because “if they knew, they would
kill me right away. So I’m always careful.”
The 24-year-old’s
fears are not exaggerated. Even Rohingya who have ventured into Sittwe on rare
trips escorted by police in recent months have been attacked by mobs and
killed. Hard-line Buddhists regularly march through the city’s crumbling
streets, past ruined mosques that have been closed since June 2012, when the
Rakhine burned most Rohingya homes and drove more than 120,000 into camps for
the displaced. Setara, then a widow,
met her husband, Mohammad, about eight months later at a market on the edge of
a Rohingya village where she had come to sell vegetables. Rakhine traders, who
can travel freely, regularly sell goods to Rohingya at marked-up prices.
They exchanged phone
numbers and she began visiting him at a pharmacy he ran nearby. Mohammad, 32,
bought her small gifts, teased her to make her laugh and took her for rides on
his motorbike. He was amazed to meet a Rakhine woman who didn’t treat a
Rohingya any differently than her own. He told her he loved her. Setara felt the same
way. She thought he was the kindest man she had ever known.
But when she told her
family - after much reluctance - that she was dating a Rohingya man, they
became enraged. Her brother beat her severely. They told her she could not go
back. Then, her family kicked her out. The move pushed her
closer to Mohammad. In late 2013, she converted to Islam and they married in a
small Islamic ceremony held before local religious leaders. No one from
Setara’s family attended. In the years since,
Setara has reconciled with her three sisters. But she has never been able to
return home. Her parents passed away when she was young, and the brother who
helped raise them all still refuses to speak to her. Residents of her old
neighborhood have also made clear she is no longer welcome; they call her a
“Kalar’s wife.” Kalar is a derogatory word for Muslims that is frequently used
in Myanmar.
Mohammad characterizes
their relationship in much the same way his wife does. “She sees me as a human
being and I see her as a human being, and it’s that simple,” he said, when
asked how they had overcome the huge societal obstacles to marry. Mohammad is a quiet
man with a calm manner; Setara is more outspoken. They are a couple clearly in
love, glancing at each other and smiling as they talk. The AP is identifying
them by their first names only for their protection. They live in a
Rohingya village adjacent to a network of Muslim displaced camps, with Setara’s
2-year-old niece and her 9-year-old daughter from her first marriage. Setara
says the Rohingya have welcomed her warmly, as one of their own. But she misses
her old friends and her old life. While Mohammad, like
all Rohingya, is not permitted by the government to travel, Setara makes
regular trips to Sittwe, about half an hour away, to buy supplies for the small
pharmacy and shop they run beside their home.
Before going, though,
she smears a pale cosmetic paste on her cheeks called “thanaka,” which is
commonly used by Buddhists in Myanmar. She takes off her veil and puts on a
blouse. And she never forgets to bring her national identification card, which
includes a critical line indicating she is Buddhist. Without it, she could
never cross the checkpoints — one manned by police, the other by soldiers — to
town. The contrast between
the two worlds is startling. The Rohingya side is dry and dusty, devoid of
trees and filled with despair, with little to do. The Buddhist side is lush,
with schools and a university, paved roads, a karaoke bar and restaurants that
serve wine by the sea.
In Sittwe’s main
market, Setara visits friends and sometimes her sisters. But she also overhears
Rakhine gossiping about the latest news, and cursing the Rohingya. Sometimes she goes to
the beach, where teens hang out at seaside cafes on plastic chairs, and watches
the sun go down. But when she thinks about her husband — the fact that he
cannot be there — her thoughts turn dark, and she wonders “if our lives will just
end like this.” “I always wish I could
go out with my husband and go to the fun places in town ... especially when I
see other couples going around,” Setara said. “I just want to cry sometimes.”
Mohammad imagines the
same, impossible trips. But he also worries each time she goes. “I worry
something might happen, that someone might find out she’s a Muslim, that she’s
married to me,” he said. Both said they want
children of their own because they love each other. But they know it would not
be easy for a child, who would be half Rohingya and not recognized as a Burmese
citizen. The marriage has given
Setara a profound insight into life in the camps for the Rohingya displaced. “It’s just like hell,”
she said. “They have no hope. They have no medical treatment. People are more
and more scared.”
Since Rohingya
insurgents staged dozens of attacks in the northern half of Rakhine state that
triggered a major backlash by security forces in late August, life in the
south, where Setara and her husband live, has stayed calm but only gotten
harder. International aid for
displaced camps has been held up by authorities, and humanitarian workers have
been forced to scale back visits. Hussein said the government has also stopped
Rohingya from fishing, a critical source of income, until they accept “national
verification cards” which identify them as “Bengalis.” Many have resisted
because they insist on being identified as Rohingya, a term the government does
not recognize.
In her despair, Setara
sometimes tells her husband she is going to leave. When he begs her to “stop
saying that,” she tells him she doesn’t mean it. “It doesn’t mean that
I don’t love him. I just don’t like the way we have to live here,” she said. “I
keep telling myself every day that I need to be strong .... but sometimes I
just want to fly away.” Still, she says, that
is something she will never do. “The future for the Rohingya is bad,” she said.
“But I will never leave ... it is my destiny to be here, to be with my
husband.”
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/it-is-my-destiny-a-love-story-of-a-rohingya-muslim-buddhist-couple-is-like-no-other/story-HX0y9ZQIxruCVtok1ObvFO.html