Rohingya remembrance as literary practice: ‘Mirasnama’ by Mayyu Ali

 Nine years ago, on August 25, the Myanmar military launched their “clearance operations” in Rohingya communities, unleashing a campaign of brutality and terror that was unprecedented in scale if not in nature. 

International news cycles filled with images of smoke billowing across the green hills of northern Arakan State as Rohingya villages were scorched, rows of mutilated bodies washed up on the banks of the Naf River and the sandy beaches. 

Thin lines of Rohingya refugees stretched as far as the eye could see, walking along the causeways and paddy bunds out of Myanmar into Bangladesh carrying the elderly and injured on stretchers improvised from bamboo and longyis. 

Those images of Rohingya victimhood have, over time, become emblematic of the forms of military violence were inflicted on communities across Myanmar after the 2021 coup. 

But Rohingyas have more than their victimhood to articulate to others in Myanmar and beyond. They also have their defiance, with which they have reclaimed their collective narrative and identity. 

They have turned art, language, traditions, local knowledge and practices into ways of resisting group destruction and erasure. 

The Rasa book series, Mirasnama– meaning legacy in Rohingya language, edited by Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali, is both an active part of that arts movement and a reflection of the Rohingya spirit of resistance through cultural revival. 

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