The 1995 Lecture by Martin Smith, "The Muslim Rohingyas of Burma". Martin Smith is a British writer and expert on Burma's insurgencies. In this lecture, he covered the history of Rohingya from early Arakan Kings, pre & post British colonization and right through the dictatorship of Gen. Ne Win. As such our readers can visualize the continuity of the developments of Rohingyas and, perhaps, gain insight knowledge on the struggles of this community. Although this historical lecture was delivered at Burma Centrum Netherland in 1995, to my view, it's still very much relevent today. This is because much inroads into understanding of the complexities of Rohingy issues have developed, at the researchers levels, only around 2012-2015.
You can download the lecture here at this link: |
If you are looking, perhaps, for an un-biased and apolitical perspectives of Rohingya issue, this video lecture delivered in 2012 by Dr. J. Leider may be the best one. In views of Dr Leider, the Rohingya in Burma are mainly migrated after British colonization. He pointed out that, for centuries, the Arakan State has been cultural frontier for Buddhist and Muslim religions. Being historian, he views current conflict in Arakan primarily as the quest for identity by both Rohingya-Muslim and Rakhine-Buddhists. He views the Rohingya campaign (2012) as 'political movement' and notes the invention of Rohingya as historical identity basically is on a 'shaky basis'. You can find the lecture delivered at University of Illinois in here:
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