WCSS2018

This presentation will explain how the history of Burma/Myanmar under British colonialism and later under military dictatorship helped lead to the crisis Rohingya refugees are facing today. It also will provide an analysis of the critical role that metaphors can play in the fostering of specific types of nationalism that legitimate homicidal intolerance of ethnic, religious, or other minorities, offering a useful tool students and teachers can use to understand similar events elsewhere, including lynching in the American South and the Rwandan genocide. Finally, it discusses the importance of visual images through both old and new media in public perceptions of this crisis and earlier pivotal moments in Burma/Myanmar's history.