A letter of love from a Rohingya to the people of Malaysia

Dear brothers and sisters of Malaysia,

With due respect, I thank you from the bottom of my heart with lots of love and prayers. I hope you and your family are in good health.

During this movement control period (MCO), everyone is uneasy somewhere for some reason and having difficulties. By being Rohingya I want to write you this love letter to better understand the suffering of Rohingyas and to take the Rohingyas positively to love us, not because we are refugees but because we are human first.

I, as a Rohingya, am also worried but with no one to hear me. You have a country, and you have the government to tell your problems to, but we as Rohingya have no one to hear and share our pain.

Alhamdulillah, still we are grateful to the people of Malaysia and the government for giving us a place to stay. It means a lot to us.

Please let me describe to you a bit about why we became refugees. We did so because our own government persecuted us for many decades and was systematically killing us for being Rohingya Muslim.

In the beginning, we didn’t want to flee Myanmar because we had our properties, land, home, and business, just like Malaysians. But slowly, we came to realise that the government of Myanmar had a plan to completely eradicate us from our birthplace in Arakan state.

They started killing Rohingyas, especially educated people who had to take refuge in other countries. The refugee life was first experienced mostly by our educated.

Nobody wanted to leave their birthplace and properties and businesses. But the government of Myanmar didn’t stop there and started killing, raping, burning, and destroying Rohingyas properties and we were forced to become refugees to survive rather than choosing suicide.

Every Rohingyas have a story behind their journey – a story which is filled with bloodshed, pain, and sorrows – no one chose to become a refugee until they were attacked and their family members killed by the government of Myanmar.

We carry lots of pain with us, especially the memory of bloodshed and the destruction of our livelihood back in Myanmar.

We also dreamed of becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and scientists, like you do. But we didn't succeed in achieving all our dreams not because we didn’t strive our best but because the government of Myanmar didn’t allow us access to education. The Myanmar government destroyed us educationally, economically, socially, and politically.

I hope you won’t mind me writing a bit about the journey of our refugees above. When I write the stories about the genocide of my people I can't control my tears because every Rohingya refugee has a story that is filled with bloodshed and the loss of their family and loved ones.

We, refugees, are both alive and dead because we can never meet our family, parents, and relatives back in Myanmar while holding a UNHCR card. A refugee is not allowed to travel while holding refugee status.

Dear brothers and sisters, somehow you seem to see refugees differently these few days – hating us and scolding us.

If you are disturbed or hurt by our action please help us understand you but don’t hate us. Being refugees, we can die at any moment. We don’t know if we can ever meet our parents again, we miss our family and loved ones and relatives but we still want to smile. We get to keep our dreams after seeing people like you who helped us and stood side by side with our people and supporting our causes.

We just want to survive in Malaysia, we don’t want anything else. All we want is to ask international governments to help us go back to Myanmar by giving back our birthrights – a right that every citizen deserves.

My dear brothers and sisters, please accept us with an open heart. We are a traumatised nation, every one of us has a story. We have seen so much bloodshed, our family members including babies, relatives were killed in front of our eyes by the Myanmar government.

If there is anything we are doing wrong, please help us understand. We will listen to you. We have no right to argue with you. You are the owner of this land and we are just refugees.

When we see people hate us and abuse us we feel like dying. We are already carrying so much pain and wipe our tears silently with no one to share.

We shall never forget the love and hospitality of the government and the people of Malaysia showered on us with an open heart. Even if we can’t give you anything in return, we can still pray to Allah to give his blessing upon the people of Malaysian and its government.

The prayers of Mujahereen are never denied by Allah. He accepts their prayers without any obstacle. We will always remain grateful to the people of Malaysia and its government.

We also thank the doctors, nurses, and all the government staff, police, and army for being there to save our lives during this Covid-19 pandemic.

I Love you Malaysia and the people of Malaysia.

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The writer, Amir is a Rohingya refugee. - Mkini