[wvns] Burma's Muslims Flee to China
Huddled masses, yearning to be free and going to China
Myanmar's Muslims - Unlikely Sanctuary
JINGHONG
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9409267
AT FIRST glance, Yunnan would seem the sort of place a pious Muslim
should avoid. AIDS is rampant in this province in south-western China
and Beijing's efforts have failed to curb the drugs and prostitution
that spread the disease. Moreover China has an appalling record of
suppressing religious freedom, including that of Muslims. In its
western region of Xinjiang some have taken up arms.
Yet Muslims from neighbouring Myanmar flock to Yunnan. In cities such
as Jinghong and Liuku, they sell Burmese gems in shops decorated with
Arabic calligraphy and pictures of Mecca. A jeweller in Jinghong, who
has lived here for six years, says that in Myanmar "the Buddhists
fight us Muslims and don't let us work. The government is very evil.
Here in China you can work in peace."
No one knows how many Burmese live in Yunnan. Many enter illegally.
Official statistics suggest that Muslims make up about 4% of Myanmar's
population of around 47m, but that is almost certainly an
underestimate. The ruling junta has a history of discrimination
against Muslims, particularly the Rohingya ethnic group, more than
250,000 of whom fled from Arakan province into neighbouring Bangladesh
in the early 1990s.
Mosques and schools in Myanmar are shut down arbitrarily. Many Muslims
find their movements restricted unless they pay hefty bribes; others
languish in detention after officially instigated clashes with
Buddhists. It does not help that their political sympathies often lie
with the democratic opposition, whose leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,
remains in detention.
In China, in contrast, the Burmese find that, as long as they make no
trouble, their faith is immaterial. Compared with other countries of
refuge, such as Bangladesh, China offers relative stability. Even
America is not as enticing a prospect. The jeweller frets that, as a
Muslim, he would risk jail there. Business in China is booming, too;
jewellers can make as much as 30,000 yuan ($3,900) per month.
The local population gives them a mixed reception. The
Hui—ethnic-Chinese Muslims many of whom have family in Myanmar—are
friendly to their co-religionists. Burmese men here boast of taking
Hui mistresses and wives. But Yunnan, like much of China, remains
plagued by vast income inequality; the wealthy jewellers live beside
subsistence farmers. Some resent the better-educated, wealthier
Burmese immigrants. Undercurrents of racism do exist, as do reports of
Burmese trafficking guns and drugs.
If the resentment flares into violence, many Chinese Hui might side
with the Burmese. As heroin and AIDS have already shown, Myanmar's
internal affairs are not just internal. Despite this, China helps prop
up its repellent regime even as it offers some of its victims sanctuary.
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