Crossing The Farak River by Michelle Aung Thin

Fourteen-year-old Hasina lives in the fictional village of Teknadaung in Rakhine state located in Burma, now called Myanmar. The village is divided into two sections by the Farak River; one side is Muslim, the other is Buddhist. Hasina lives in Eight Quarters District which is the Rohingya part of Teknadaung, with her mother Nurzamal, her father, Ibrahim, and her six-year-old brother Araf, her grandmother Dadi Asmah, as well as her Aunt Rukiah and her cousin, Ghadiya.

One day while outside, they see helicopters fly over their madrassa which is run by Aunt Rukiah. Terrified they all run inside except for Hasina who watches them stunned before she finally runs into the building. No one seems to know who the helicopters belong to.

Four years ago, during the Arakanese War, in Rakhine State everything changed. Many Rohingya in the south were forced to flee during the violence, to Thailand, Malaysia and Australia. Hasina's Aunt Rukiah and Ghadiya are refugees from the south, having fled north to Teknadaung leaving behind Uncle Rashid. Although her Aunt Rukiah grew up in the house Hasina and her family live in, she is now considered a foreigner to the district and illegal, requiring a special passport to travel.

The violence also touched the north part of Rakhine State where Hasina and her family live. Electricity, water and gas were turned off and schools were closed.  Hasina was forced to leave the government Basic Education School which Dadi Asmah paid for. Now she attends her aunt's school.

After things settle down, Nurzamal sends Hasina to take lunch to her father who has a stall in the bazaar. But because she's a refugee without a passport, Ghadiya must stay at home.

In the bazaar, Araf heads to the television located at the front of the bazaar where the Araknese stalls. There a crowd of people are watching as the announcer, speaking in Myanmar (Burmese) calls Muslims, "Chittagonian Bengali Muslims", instead of Rohingya. For Hasina, this is upsetting because it implies that the Rohingya are foreigners from Bangladesh who do not belong in Myanmar. The announcer also refers to them as terrorists. When Araf tells the people in Rohingya about the helicopter, a kindly Arakanese man changes the channel. They head to the back of the bazaar where the Rohingya stalls are.

There she meets Isak, also once a student at the government school. Forced out of school, he works in the Brothers & Sons Puppet Stall. At her father's stall, Hasina, Araf and their father sit down to eat but are interrupted when the teashop owner, U Ko Yin visits.He warns that soldiers will come to Teknadaung. After he leaves, Hasina questions her father about what is happening. He tells her, "Hasina, Sit Tat fight for a single nation. The Arakanese Army fight for an Arakanese nation. ARSA fight for a Rohingya Muslim nation. But there are other Muslims. Where do they fit in? ...If there are over one hundred and thirty-five ethnic groups in Myanmar, and many religions, then what happens if we all fight one another? Surely you can see that we are weaker separately than we are together?"

Over the next weeks, more helicopters fly overhead and police begin to patrol the streets of Teknadaung and walk through the bazaar.Nurzamal forbids Hasina from walking along the main road, and her father's stall is losing money as are all the Rohingya businesses. On the television in the bazaar, Buddhist extremists demonstrate, calling the Rohingya intruders. Eventually Aunt Rukiah closes the school. Police in blue uniforms flood into Teknadaung, confiscating anything that looks like a weapon.

And then one night, Hasina, Araf and Ghadiya are awoken and told to run and keep running. Hasina decides to take them into the forest and hide, to wait for her father and mother and grandmother to find them. As they flee, they see men with torches setting fire to buildings. After three days in the forest, Hasina, Araf and Ghadiya watch as the soldiers trucks leave Teknadaung. When they return to their village, they find their homes in ruin, burned and destroyed. Her father's stall in the bazaar and all the other Rohingya stalls are also destroyed. Even worse, Hasina is unable to locate her parents or her aunt and uncle.

With just her frail, elderly grandmother, Araf, her cousin Ghadiya and her friend Isak, Hasina begins to forge a new life. But they face starvation, the loss of their family's lands, the struggle to locate their family who fled the Myanmar soldiers as well as the dangers of human traffickers.

Discussion

Crossing The Farak River explores the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, formerly Burma through the fictional story of a fourteen year old Rohingya girl, Hasina.  The Rohingya are an ethnic minority group, who live in Myanmar. Most Rohingya, who have lived for centuries in Burma/Myanmar, are Muslim. However, Myanmar which is predominantly Buddhist, does not recognize the Rohingya as one of the country's large number of minority groups. They have been denied citizenship since 1982 and therefore are considered stateless. Most of the Rohingya live in the western state of Rakhine.

The British occupation and rule of Burma from 1824 to 1948 set the stage for what is happening today (as in so many other countries that were part of the British Empire). Britain also administered India and the area which today is known as Bangladesh. During this time, a significant influx of workers into Burma from India and Bangladesh occurred. The people already living in Burma were not supportive of this influx of people with a very different culture. When Burma gained its independence from Britain in 1948, the Union Citizenship Act passed by the Burmese government defined which ethnic groups were considered citizens. The Rohingya were not included but could apply for identity cards if their families had lived in Burma for at least two generations.

In 1962 a military coup brought new rules to Burma. Everyone was required to obtain national identity cards but the Rohingya were given foreign identity cards. In 1982, under General Ne Win, the situation changed again, when the Rohingya were made stateless by not being considered citizens of Burma. The only way to obtain even the most basic of citizenship was for a Rohingya to prove they had lived in Burma prior to 1948. Few had such papers. 

In 1989, the country's name was changed to Myanmar and in 1990, free multi-party elections were held. The National League for Democracy (NLD)won the election but the military junta refused to acknowledge the results. In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD won the national elections and she assumed the role of  State Counsellor of Myanmar. By this time the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya was international news. 

By this time, the Rohingya had been fleeing Rakhine for decades. In the 1970's they lost the right to freely travel throughout the country, to access health care and higher education.  In 2016, actions against the Rohingya increased dramatically. Rohingya experienced beatings, unlawful arrest and the burning of their villages: the Myanmar government was accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Rakhine. The reports by the Rohingya of rape, murder and the destruction of  hundreds of Rohingya villages had been corroborated by satellite evidence, witness reports and the discovery of mass graves.

Michelle Aung Thin provides young readers with what appears to be a very realistic portrayal of life in a Rohingya village in Crossing The Farak River. This is done through the main character, Hasina whose family, like most other Rohingya are struggling to live a life as normal as possible but who have experienced violence and discrimination. Hasina, her family, and her relatives have already experienced the loss of certain civil rights, such as Hasina's right to attend government schools. The government has simply made the schools so expensive that the Rohingya can no longer afford to attend them. This injustice has greatly affected Hasina who loves math and wants to learn. Her father has experienced discrimination in his business with his stall being placed at the back of the bazaar. Her mother, Nurzamal has changed from a happy, carefree woman into someone "obsessed with doing things the right way." Her Uncle Rashid and Aunt Rukiah and cousin Ghadiya are refugees from the southern part of Rakhine, witnessing horrors that they cannot speak about. Their family is separated with Rashid living in Bangladesh.

Crossing The Farak River also portrays the effects of long-term discrimination can have on an ethnic group. Hasina notes that "...Among the Rohingya, it is only the old people who have been to university." Each successive generation of Rohingya is less educated. Hasina, unlike her grandmother Dadi Asmah has little chance to attend university in Sittwe. 

Aung Thin's story conveys the humanity of the Rohingya people, showing them to be like everyone else, with dreams and the desire to have their own land and to belong. Hasina is a strong, courageous, resourceful young girl who is determined to protect her brother Araf. She risks her life to save both her brother and another boy from being trafficked as slave labour. Readers cannot help but feel deep empathy for Hasina and the injustice of her situation.

Crossing The Farak River whose title refers to the river in Hasina's fictional town, Teknadaung that divides the Buddhist and Muslim Rohingya areas is a well written and evocative novel that will offer young readers a starting point to learning more about the Rohingya, Myanmar and how intolerance can lead to the most inhuman actions.

Book Details:

Crossing the Farak River by Michelle Aung Thin
Toronto: Annick Press      2020
216 pp.