“If the West wants to alleviate the suffering of the Rohingya, it has to stop looking for actors who will act against their own political interests. In other words, the West has to stop looking for heroes, for there are none.”
“The refusal by Aung San Suu Kyi to take a firm stance on the (Rohnigya) issue exasperated and baffled the UN rapporteur and Western observers alike. In fact, as the international pressure mounted on her, the few comments she made reflected the viewpoints of the Bamar people, the dominant ethnic group in Myanmar, instead. The question arises why did a prominent human rights icon refuse to condemn the army-sponsored abuse? How did we get to this situation? And what can we do about it?”
“…the difference in response to the virus between the two former Soviet republics can be attributed to the polarity between their idea of state identity.”
“…white guilt often originates from a sense of empathy, one that discerns racism as an experience outside of oneself, exclusive to people of colour. The word ‘ally’ accentuates the same detachment, envisioning the white liberal outside of an all-encompassing system. As if, they are oblivious to and unaffected by a society built on enslavement of racialised hopes, ambitions, desires and bodies. As if, all of this is not their problem. Rather, white liberals are almost convinced that they are the problem.”
