6/13/22, 3:31 PM ‘Genocide’, ‘human rights’ and what’s lost in translation | Frontier Myanmar ISSUES SIGN UP NOW ‘Genocide’, ‘human rights’ and what’s lost in translation MAY 8, 2019    The fight to protect human rights and counter genocide is hampered by the way these terms are understood in Myanmar, and mistranslation is partly to blame. By THAN TOE AUNG | FRONTIER On March 28, the Burmese edition of The Irrawaddy published a cartoon on its website that caused an outcry among human rights activists in Myanmar. The cartoon depicted two employees of an international non-government organisation, or INGO, walking among a pile of human corpses. One of them mentions that among the dead there are no bearded men, an indirect way of describing Muslims. “Well,” says his colleague, “then this is not genocide. Let it be.” The headline could be roughly translated as saying, “Not genocide yet”, but a more literal translation would be, “[this] race is not extinct yet”. The “race” in question is not stated but, because the cartoon was published while conflict was mounting in Rakhine State, the Buddhist Rakhine community is implied. The cartoon, which was later deleted from The Irrawaddy’s website and Facebook page without explanation, echoes popular rhetoric in Myanmar that the United Nations and the international community are unfairly biased in favour of Muslims such as the Rohingya; that for them, “it is not genocide unless the victims are Muslims”. But it is also premised on a fundamentally flawed definition of “genocide”. Some in Myanmar like to pose the rhetorical question, “If it is really https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/genocide-human-rights-and-whats-lost-in-translation/ 1/6