I do not have a coffin to shroud my dead son, how can I wear a black flag of ISIS to terrorise you country?
With all the strength I am left with, I plead and advocate that I too am a human being. Do not ask me my creed, my colour, my religion, my caste and my decent and I do not know whether I will be able to finish this letter or not because death is after me, I can be killed any time. Ask me how am I able to speak with all my bones broken and bloodless heart, with fresh spectre my three month old son cut into pieces in front of my eyes. His pieces were alive and his eyes open while I feigned death lying beside him out of helplessness. My eyes saw women burned alive and I lost consciousness and when I regained my consciousness all I could see was burnt and inexplicable body parts lying all around and I later learned that those women were raped. Our mothers, sisters are being raped, maimed, killed and we can do nothing to protect them.
I write with all the strength that is left in me that I am that one who has survived among thousands fortunately or unfortunately. I can barely explain how our elders were locked inside our houses {tents they were}, and burnt and how the smell of burning human flesh that is still fresh in my nostrils feels. I carry nothing from my home while covering these distances to carry myself to a safer place. I even lost my tears and emotions in between.
And here again I am seen as an illegal immigrant, a security threat to your country. I am being seen just as a Muslim. Am I not a human being? I do not have a coffin to shroud my dead son, how can I wear a black flag of ISIS to terrorise you country? I was denied all basic human rights, from citizenship to health care. I am uneducated, I know nothing but I have heard about Article 21 of your constitution. I am brutalized human being, unclothed, empty stomach, dried up eyes; with haunting fears of death in my mind.
It is not a war in which I am being killed. It is an ethnic cleansing. I am being wiped off from the earth like an unwanted weed. If you ask me my creed, I will say I am an impure and filthy Rohingya. If you ask me my religion, well I will say I do not belong to any religion of the world. Had I been a Muslim, I would have been saved by Arab countries. Had I been a Christian I would have been taken up by the Europe. Had I been a Hindu, India would not have moved to their supreme court for our deportation. If you ask me my caste, I will say I am not a Buddhist. If you ask me my decent, I will say that the graveyards of my ancestors are in the land of Myanmar. If you ask me about my fate i would stay mute and while facing to the starless sky, holding my tearless eyes in disdain.
I do not need a citizenship from your mighty country. I do not ask you to fight against our perpetrators. We are caught in an abyss; we just need a ground on which we can patch our tethered selves and balm our wounds. We need a space where we can mourn and cry aloud for our lost ones. We just need a little space in which we can breathe without the fear of death continuously haunting us. We will go back to our burnt valley but we need shelter until the makers and shakers of world will wake from their sweet slumber and stop awarding noble prizes to the enemies of peace. We can survive on the disposed water and less haunting air, until the United Nations Human Rights Council decides to accept us as HUMANS. In fact we are just a creed, just a religion, just a colour, just a smell and just a name away from being human.
Every heartfelt prayer, every penny donated every mention of the word Rohingya is needed at this point of time. Otherwise you will be written a part of that power which is cleansing this dirt from the pious earth of HUMAN BEINGS.
Dr Khursheed Ahmad is working at CnC Physiotherapy sgr}
The letter is written with active help of Yasir Amin(ijt)