Speakers at Carleton’s campus on Nov. 21, called on the university Senate to revoke an honorary degree given to Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.
The event “Discussion with Dr. Maung Zarni: Suu Kyi & The Rohingya in Myanmar” featured Zarni as a keynote speaker along with other panelists to discuss the ongoing situation in Myanmar and its impact on Carleton. Zarni is a Burmese-Buddhist human rights activist and an advisor to the European Centre for the Study of Extremism in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Carleton awarded Suu Kyi an honorary doctorate of law in 2011. Previously regarded as a symbol of peace and democracy, Suu Kyi’s failure to condemn the ongoing violence committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority of Myanmar by the country’s military forces has sparked international outrage.
The event was held to involve members of the Carleton community in a discussion about why Suu Kyi’s honorary doctorate should be revoked as a result of her role in the genocide, but event organizer Raees Ahmed expressed disappointment at the low turnout.
“I believe there is a total lack of empathy amongst people,” Ahmed said, calling the low turnout a “grave failure of our community as a whole.”
“I live in a society where my fellow Canadians are either not aware or do not care as much about what is happening in the other part of the world,” he said. “The fact that there are children being burned alive in front of their parents, that there are elderly being hacked to death, that there are women being gang raped.”
Zarni spoke at length about how the crisis taking place in Myanmar is a genocide, not a conflict.
“If you consider what the Rohingyas experience as a conflict, then the Jews in Nazi Germany had a conflict with the Nazi party,” Zarni said. “Genocide is not a conflict. It’s one group singled out and subject to systematic persecution with the intention of destroying the entire community.”
Zarni added that the Rohingya genocide is both “official and popular” in Myanmar.
“The Burmese public is so blinded by racism towards the Muslims in general and Rohingyas specifically,” he said.
Zarni called for Carleton to strip Suu Kyi of her honorary doctorate, saying that “complicity is an extremely mild term” for her role in the genocide.
“This woman has blood in her hands. She is culpable, she is criminally responsible,” Zarni said. “Her conduct is so unbecoming of anyone who deserves any type of honour.”
Ahmed wrote an email to Carleton interim president Alastair Summerlee asking that Suu Kyi’s honorary doctorate be revoked in light of her complicity with the genocide currently taking place in Myanmar. Ahmed provided the response he received from the Office of the President to The Charlatan.
“The interim president of the University, on behalf of the University community, has expressed concern and shock at the treatment of the Rohingya and had called upon Aung San Suu Kyi to respond to the humanitarian crisis that is emerging,” the email reads.
As a result of the ongoing violence in Myanmar, Carleton’s interim president Alastair Summerlee has asked the Senate Committee on Honorary Degrees “to develop a mechanism to revoke honorary degrees and honors,” according to the email.
“This process will be brought before Senate for approval,” the email said.
Ahmed said the response indicates that the Senate of Carleton realizes that keeping Suu Kyi’s degree impacts Carleton’s reputation and credibility in granting honorary doctorates.
Carleton alumnus Fareed Khan launched an online petition on Sept. 4, asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to rescind Suu Kyi’s honorary Canadian citizenship. He said the Carleton community should be “outraged” that the Senate is not acting faster to revoke Suu Kyi’s honourary doctorate.
“We can’t do something about the rest of the world’s inaction, but we can do something here at Carleton,” Khan said.
He encouraged students to pressure the university into action.
“Get them to take action where our government won’t,” Khan said. “Make Carleton the shining example of what should be done.”
Photo by Aaron Hemens
