On May 13 1939 the SS St Louis, a German ocean liner, set sail from Hamburg. On board were 915 Jewish refugees hoping to escape gathering oppression in Europe. There were dances and concerts aboard the luxury vessel and the indulgent captain permitted passengers to throw a tablecloth over an offending bust of Adolf Hitler. Two weeks later, the ship dropped anchor in Havana, pending what passengers, who had purchased Cuban visas, fully expected to be a warm reception. It was not to be. The Cuban authorities turned them away as, subsequently, did those of the US and Canada. The St Louis was obliged to return to Europe. An estimated quarter of its passengers ended up perishing in Nazi concentration camps.
The St Louis story is served up as a shameful indictment of our forefathers. Yet 75 years later, something just as grotesque is playing out on the azure waters of the Andaman Sea (not to mention the Mediterranean). In the past few weeks, at least 6,000 refugees have been cut adrift in the ocean, refused entry by Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Some 300 have died this year, according to the UN. Dehydrated, emaciated and desperate, unless the situation changes rapidly, many more lives will be lost.
For the Rohingya, the bulk of the refugees, there are echoes of the treatment of Jews in Europe. Many are fleeing refugee centres that have been compared to concentration camps. They are a Muslim minority in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In March the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide sent a mission to Myanmar, where up to 1m Rohingya live in Rakhine state. It found they had been “subject to dehumanisation through rampant hate speech, the denial of citizenship, and restrictions on freedom of movement”. Its report concluded that the Rohingya, at least 170 of whom died in mob violence in 2012, were at “grave risk of additional mass atrocities and even genocide”.
This conclusion may be premature. As Richard Horsey, a political analyst, points out, an organisation whose raison d’être is the prevention of genocide will tend to see things through that lens. Still, the conditions of the Rohingya — most of whom are denied citizenship by both Myanmar and Bangladesh — are deplorable and getting worse.
Who are the Rohingya? Like any ethnically charged question, that is fiercely disputed. To the Buddhists who are the majority in Rakhine state, the dark-skinned Rohingya are interlopers from Bangladesh, referred to pejoratively as “Bengalis”. The Rakhine, who have a proud history of independence, are themselves a persecuted minority. Rohingya trace their origins in Rakhine back to the 15th century. Many others arrived in the British colonial period from 1825 when both Rakhine and Bengal were part of British India. In the second world war, the Rohingya fought with the British, while the Rakhine supported the Japanese who were fleetingly regarded as liberators. Bitterness from that period has lasted until this day.
Anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim sentiment more generally has hardened since 2010, when the generals who had run Myanmar for decades slowly lifted their oppressive boot. More free speech has meant more hate speech, much of it directed at Muslims. In April, the government withdrew temporary identity cards after a backlash from Buddhists who did not want the Rohingya to vote. Now, without an official identity, most Rohingya are even more exposed to arbitrary arrest and curbs on movement that imperil their ability to make a living. The sense of hopelessness has pushed increasing numbers to flee.
The boats on which the Rohingya have escaped offer no dances or on-board entertainment. Now, cut adrift at sea, like the Jews on board the St Louis, the Rohingya have been refused entry to potential safe havens — although Malaysia and Indonesia have announced an offer of temporary shelter. With smuggling routes cut off — at least for the time being — it ought to be a relatively simple matter to rescue the 6,000 or so refugees still at sea and to find them a home.
That, of course, leaves the more intractable problem of whether Myanmar can reverse its blatantly discriminatory policies. When even Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s democratic icon, hesitates to use the term Rohingya for fear of offending her Buddhist constituents, there seems little prospect of that. Yet if nothing is done to alleviate the suffering of this blighted minority, comparisons with the Jews of 1930s Europe will look evermore apt.
