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It has been a busy news cycle in North America the past few years. However, over the past twelve months, the relative disinterest of the largest national newspapers on the developments and status of the Rohingya Crisis leaves much to be desired for the Canadian reader. More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees fled the country for neighbouring Bangladesh after the Myanmar military destroyed their villages in 2017. Those refugees now live in a sprawling refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh. Others fled by boat for Malaysia and Thailand, and still more are internally displaced. The Canadian mainstream media seems to have forgotten that these people still haven’t received justice.
The most significant development of the Rohingya Crisis over the past year was in January. At that time, a panel of 17 judges at the International Court of Justice ruled unanimously that Myanmar had violated its obligations as a signatory of the Convention on Genocide. This ruling was especially shocking because Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s head of state, personally travelled to the Hague to argue in her country’s defense.
Unfortunately for the worldly-minded Canadian, you wouldn’t know much about the International Court of Justice ruling or the refugee camp from casual observance of the opinions sections of the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Post and Toronto Star. A proquest search of Canadian newspapers reveals 418 news articles since October 2019 in broadsheets featuring the term ‘Rohingya refugees,’ but nearly 2,233 for ‘Syrian refugees.’ The Canadian public takes great pride in being a world-leader in refugee sponsorship, but the media is paying comparatively minimal attention to this case.
Why has the mainstream media been quieter on the Rohingya crisis than on the Syrian refugee crisis? On this, we can only speculate. The conflict in Myanmar might not have the international sex appeal of the proxy war and refugee crisis in Syria because it has limited foreign-policy implications and international alliances, which the Syrian crisis has in unfortunate abundance. The Canadian media might be paying less attention because the Rohingya-Canadian population is smaller than the Syrian-Canadian population was before the Syrian conflict. It might be because Myanmar blocked journalistic access to the Rakhine state where the ethnic cleansing took place.
Whatever the reason, if Canada continues to claim itself as a world-wide advocate for refugee issues, the lack of coverage of the Rohingya crisis must be addressed. It is not enough to report on one issue for as long as it's popular. Reporting on refugee crises - much like solving them - requires sustained interest and dedication. If we cannot get that through our largest domestic newspapers, we cannot claim to be committed to the issue as a nation.
Jacob Kates Rose, October 2020
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