It has been close to six years since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya faced a deadly genocide by Myanmar’s military and fled the country in search of protection and refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. The Rohingya population has been undergoing persecution, discrimination, arbitrary arrests, and atrocities in Myanmar for over seven decades. Their condition is alarmingly worsening in the squalid refugee camp in Bangladesh, and they are currently facing a significant risk of generational loss due to lack of access to formal education and the loss of their culture, traditions, and language.

As an educator and poet hailing from the Rohingya community, I have had the opportunity to closely observe the students and people living in the refugee camp. I have noticed that the students prioritise learning English and Bangla over Burmese. In fact, for the first three years after arriving in Bangladesh, they exclusively studied English. It took considerable efforts from teachers to get them back on track with the Burmese curriculum taught in community-run schools. Meanwhile, the adults in the camps have taken to watching Bangalee TV shows, listening to Bangalee Islamic preachers, and frequently conversing with one another in Bangla, instead of watching lectures by Burmese scholars and speaking in Burmese.

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This is quite normal for the people who have encountered bad experiences and fled their homes, as they may wish to turn away from everything that reminds them of “Myanmar.” At the same time, it is important for us not to break the chain of our ancestors, in order to be able to exist as a culturally and historically unique and enriched community on this planet.

Due to our isolation from our motherland for more than five years, we are gradually losing touch with our cultural practices that have been passed down from one generation to the next. The traumatic experiences that we faced have left us feeling hopeless and disheartened, with many of us lacking the motivation to preserve our traditions or learn more about them.

Our children and youth have adapted to the local culture to varying degrees, and their lifestyles have changed significantly compared to what they were in Myanmar. For instance, they now wear trousers instead of the traditional longyi, which may be due to dress code restrictions imposed by NGOs and INGOs.

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