--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sarah Cliff, you've been with me all week in the studio here with Max talking about your getquipped.com slash explained conversion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I should ask about Max because he's been here patiently this whole time. Yes. Increasingly less patient.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I want to hear about baby tooth brushing if you don't mind.
--:-- Sarah Cliff: Yeah, let's, um, if Max will tolerate it, we'll talk about baby tooth brushing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hey Sean. Hey Mike. Thanks for making time for me. I know you have an Ohio area code, but you're not in Ohio, are you?
--:-- Mike: I actually live in Houston, Texas now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I work in public relations. And from Houston, you listened to Today Explained, and you emailed me the other day about our credits.
--:-- Mike: You had a question, and it wasn't about the fact that I host the show, or that Irene Noguchi's our executive producer, or that Bridget McCarthy's our editor, or that Afim Shapiro's our engineer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It wasn't about Noam Hassenfeld and Luke Vander Plug producing, or Bree Seeley being our summer intern, or Agarene Shasha Gray helping out this week.
--:-- Mike: It was about the guy who makes music for us, the mysterious Brake Master Cylinder, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, and he has a name that stands out too, doesn't he?
--:-- Mike: He sure does, and you noticed something about it that I thought maybe we could share with the audience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I've had to purchase a new car recently, and when I brought it in for a pre-purchase inspection, one of the items on the list stuck out to me.
--:-- Mike: It said, Brake Master Cylinder, three words, B-R-A-K-E, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. And then it dawned on me that not only is Brakemaster Cylinder a master of brakes, I assume drum brakes, but he's also a master of puns, Sean.
--:-- Mike: I mean, that doesn't surprise me based on what he calls the songs he sends us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But what did you notice when you went to the auto shop there in Houston?
--:-- Mike: Well, I noticed that Brakemaster Cylinder is a car part that everyone has in their car. and we just never realize it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We didn't realize that he's also within us everywhere we go, taking us places.
--:-- Mike: Well, and he's crucial because without that brake master cylinder, what's going to push the brake fluid to stop your car, Sean?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: True words, Michael. I ride a bike, but I'll take it.
--:-- Mike: Michael, it's been really nice to learn this fact about the mysterious brake master cylinder.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I suppose that's why he's mysterious.
--:-- Mike: Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Before I go, I just wanted to ask, I know you're at work. I don't want to keep you too long.
--:-- Mike: Do you follow Today Explained on Twitter at today underscore explained?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I do actually, and I'm very happy for the content.
--:-- Mike: Have you rated and reviewed our program on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you listen?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh my God, I should. Will you? I guarantee you on my life that I will review your show.
--:-- Mike: Thank you, Michael.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One last thing, Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher and we're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Mike: And thank God for that, Sean. You do a great job and I hope you keep it up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar has been going on for years. This week, it got harder to even understand what's happening there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A judge in Myanmar found two Reuters journalists guilty of collecting state secrets on Monday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Walon and Chosou have been sentenced to seven years in prison.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Walon and Chosu got seven years for doing their jobs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At the time of their arrest, the two had been working on an investigation into the killings of 10 Rohingya by troops and Buddhist civilians in Rakhine State.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For reporting on the violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The writer's story draws for the first time on interviews with Buddhist villagers who confessed to torching Rohingya homes, burying bodies, and killing Muslims.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's important to understand the context here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kevin Krolicki worked with the two reporters. I'm Asia editor for Reuters. We reached him in Yangon.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's the biggest city in Myanmar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The events in question really started in late August of 2017.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was a coordinated attack on security stations in western Myanmar by a group called ARSA.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a group of Rohingya militants.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Myanmar military is cracking down in northern Rakhine state after fighters from a group that calls itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched coordinated attacks on Friday on 30 police stations and an army base.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The government of Myanmar viewed the attacks of late August by the ARSA group as their 9-11, essentially.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Those attacks precipitated a brutal crackdown by the army that every international observer says was utterly disproportionate.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They are part of a deliberate strategy to intimidate, terrorize, or punish the civilian population.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The ARSA attacks killed, you know, I think estimates are dozens, but the reprisals that followed, thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A conservative estimate by the UN is 10,000.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Villages were burned. Villages were surrounded by the Myanmar military.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Soldiers swept through. They opened fire on men, women, and children as they were running away, and they systematically burned down villages.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were gang rapes. There were three soldiers. Two of them pointed guns at me and the other took off my clothes, pushed me to the ground.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then one after the other, they raped me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the days and weeks that followed, more than 700,000 of them fled across the border to Bangladesh.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: but the involvement of the military and police none of that was clear
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What Wallone and Chosu wanted to understand, what many reporters wanted to understand and many human rights groups wanted to understand was what had happened.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they found evidence of a mass killing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a chilling and detailed account of what can only be described as a premeditated massacre.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was the first time that the involvement of security forces in an extrajudicial killing had been documented.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Up until then, the government's position had been that this had not happened.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The photographs provided to Reuters by a Buddhist village elder don't lie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ten men, including two boys, the youngest of whom was 17.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was one picture of them in custody, kneeling down, and then another after they'd been killed and pushed into a single grave.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Their ages ranged from 17 to 45.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Among them were students, fishermen, farmers, shop owners, fathers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They were all part of the same Rohingya community from the village of Indin in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was a lot of hate speech directed at our reporters and directed at us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There is a view, and it's a prevalent one, that Rohingya people are not citizens of Myanmar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Government officials don't use that term, which is the preferred term for the Rengi themselves.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They call them Bengali. They describe them as undocumented immigrants and aligned with terrorist groups.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The military had been denying these atrocities, despite clear evidence that widespread violence had been perpetrated by the military.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wallone, our reporter, he had been looking at the involvement of a particular police battalion in this killing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the course of that reporting, he took a phone call from a police officer he'd never met, who asked to meet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And when they met, he went with Chosu, our other reporter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When they met, that police officer gave them documents rolled up in a newspaper.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They hadn't sought those documents, tried to decline them, ended up taking them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the moment they left the restaurant, they were arrested by police.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They were set up in an attempt to prevent publication of their story about what had happened in this village called In Din, where the 10 men were killed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For a few weeks, they just vanished.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They were taken by police. They were held for questioning.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They had no access to lawyers. and we didn't know where they were.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It took a long time for us to even understand that they had been arrested.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At the trial, we started to see the discrepancies and holes in the prosecution case.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One of the crucial moments was when the police called a police captain.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On the stand, despite the prosecution's expectation he would say something else, he said that he had been present at a meeting where a more senior officer had said they needed to trap Walon and Chosu and arrest them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were gasps in the courtroom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They were sentenced to seven years in prison and convicted of a violation of the Official Secrets Act in Myanmar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: None of the evidence presented at trial justifies a guilty conviction, let alone a prison sentence of that kind.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For many local reporters who don't have the protection of working for a large international news agency, This verdict is a really chilling message that, you know, any reporter at any time is not beyond the reach of the police and security forces if they want to shut down reporting that they find inconvenient.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kevin, these are your colleagues at Reuters being arrested for doing their jobs, for reporting on what they discovered.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Have you lost hope in what you do there in Myanmar?
--:-- Kevin Krolicki: This isn't the end. It can't be allowed to end here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The government of Myanmar now has an opportunity to do the right thing, to pardon them and to set them free.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nothing can make up for the injustice of their detention and their arrest and the time they've spent from their families and been away from their jobs, but the government now has an opportunity and a responsibility to put this right, and that's what we want to see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How this brutal conflict got started. That's next on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All right, Max, we've reached the point in the program where we're going to talk about your toothbrushing habits. Is this bad? Is he like actually crying now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, it's fine. He does this all the time. This is normal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Max doesn't have teeth yet. He does not have teeth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you don't have to brush anything. So that's a summary of his toothbrushing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Once Max is of toothbrushing age, do you think he'll be like a old school rotary or a quip or something in between?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know. Some people use their fingers at camp.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. I don't know. It's a little unpredictable. Yeah. You know?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, I have a dog toothbrush for my dog. I guess I'll get a baby toothbrush for my baby.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I should say at getquip.com slash explained, I found out recently they have family packs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh. But I mean, he probably doesn't have the proper motor skills.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, maybe we can put something on our calendars for two years from now and see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, yeah, great. See what kind of toothbrush he's using. We'll hear back then.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you, Max. Great to see you. See ya. Bye.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shafir Rahman you a documentary filmmaker based in the UK
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You made two documentaries about the Rohingya crisis
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm wondering if you could help us understand it.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Of course.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: First of all, Myanmar. Burma, Myanmar, which do people say?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Both. I've heard both.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I believe you're very right. You can say both.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: In the camps, they use both words.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Myanmar government obviously prefers Myanmar without any of the colonial connotations that Burma has.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And when did the country gain its independence from the UK, from Britain?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 1948, I believe, yeah.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And what's the population now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The population of Myanmar is around 50 million.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And majority Buddhist?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Overwhelming majority, 90% of the population are Buddhists.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And how big is the Muslim minority?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I believe Muslims constitute around 4% of the population, but the Rohingya would be much less than that.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: So who are the Rohingya?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Rohingya are an ethnic minority who live mainly in the northern region of Rakhine State.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Rakhine State is east of Bangladesh, and most of the refugees that you've been hearing about are from villages which are, you know, perhaps a day's walk away, and of course some much further afield.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it's next to Bangladesh.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And Rohingya have been basically described by the military government, successive governments, and including the present one, as interlopers, as if they were recent arrivals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Actually, this is not the case.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Rohingya have been in Myanmar, in Burma for some time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The record of the word Rohingya is by a Scottish botanist way back in 1799.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: So therefore, there's historical evidence of how long they've been there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So how does the conflict begin between the Rohingya and Myanmar nationals, Buddhists in Myanmar?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I would say that, as you've correctly identified, that they are nationals of the country, but nationals who have lost their nationality.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This was in 1982.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: But, you know, I think we should start probably in 1962 when everything changed for Burma.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The military came in, there was a coup d'etat, and the military manipulated notions of nationhood, notions of who belongs in order to undertake its nation-building project.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in their rhetoric, Rohingya did not belong.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: They were infiltrators, they'd come to take up land, etc.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So there were military operations in 1978, 1991 and 2, and of course the most recent ones as well.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And these operations against the Rohingya were basically, well, look, you're not a national, you have to clear out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in 1982, they basically made conditions for nationality, for citizenship so difficult that Rohingya couldn't possibly prove it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They needed to have documentation stretching back before 1823.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Wow. So things really changed for Rohingya in 62, but certainly after 82, when the nationality laws came in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How do you have documentation dating back a century?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I feel like I couldn't tell you things about my grandparents.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, absolutely.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: But this was their project. This was to clear Rohingya out of Rakhine State because they were seen as an existential threat to both race and religion in Burma.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You referenced this refugee crisis. How bad is it?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: How many refugees have fled so far? and where are they going?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In August 2017, when I was at the border, when I saw all these people coming over, it was a very, very difficult sight to behold.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: You couldn't imagine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this is the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: That's right, yes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it was incredibly chaotic and you had hundreds of thousands of people pouring into Bangladesh with nothing ready for them.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: They had to find their own spot to pitch their own little hut.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They had to buy their own materials.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: They had to buy their bamboo, their plastic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There were no toilets.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: It was just horrendous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, we are talking about 1.1 million people.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And these people are not allowed to move around.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They can't leave the camps for another city or another part of Bangladesh or anything like that.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: They are concentrated in there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's very little in the way of amenities, facilities or services that can't work.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: The Bangladesh government will not allow them to work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they are dependent on the handouts, their monthly handouts.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And how are they viewed by, say, the government of Bangladesh, where the majority of them are going?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the Bangladesh government has to be congratulated for dealing with the refugee crisis as it has.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: But at the same time, the Bangladesh government does not give them refugee rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It doesn't recognize them as refugees.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: If they were to be recognized as refugees, they would have the freedom to work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They would have the freedom to move around, to study.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: None of these apply.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Bangladesh needs to be persuaded that refugees need to be given refugee rights so that they're not just sitting around there wasting their lives.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Are other countries helping as well, willingly taking in Rohingya refugees?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I afraid third party relocation of Rohingya is not permitted Bangladesh does not allow Rohingya to go to a third country as an exile as an asylum seeker as a refugee
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Those who make the more hazardous journey to Malaysia they are also pretty much trapped in Malaysia
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And some even make it to Thailand.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And there are really horrendous stories about what happens to these people who are trafficked to Malaysia and Thailand.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What role is Myanmar's civilian leader playing in all this, Aung San Suu Kyi?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: She's got a Nobel Peace Prize, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is she trying to establish peace with the Rohingya?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Aung San Suu Kyi has not used her moral authority to do anything.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She, in fact, explicitly said, I don't want to take sides.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: It is not the intention of the Myanmar government to apportion blame or to abnegate responsibility.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: This heroine who has been able to, in the eyes of the world, change Burma, why is she not using her influence, her moral status, to say anything about what's happening?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the answer to that question?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I believe she is working hand in glove with the military.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As someone put it, she is the lipstick on the pig of the army.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: That's the reality. She is complicit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Shafir, you've been in these camps in Bangladesh. You've spent time with these Rohingya refugees. You made a documentary about them.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: What did they want you to tell the world?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think what's clear and what was really emphasised to me everywhere that I went was that they want justice.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I have to tell you that this was one of the most difficult things I've ever covered.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've been in Libyan detention camps. I've seen some horrible things elsewhere, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And many journalists that I've known have said the same thing to me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But one thing struck me was the resilience that these Rohingya refugees have.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And I want to tell you a little story about one woman called Mumtaz and her seven-year-old daughter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She lost three young children in the massacre in Tulatuli.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Her husband, her mother, she herself was raped.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She was set on fire.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: And Razia, her seven-year-old, actually saved her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She roused her. She was unconscious. She was able to wake her up and get her out of the burning hut.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: Razia herself, the seven-year-old daughter, was struck three times on the head with a machete.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's gaps in her hair.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: But what struck me was that she's getting on with her life, her instinct to survive, her endurance.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: and I wondered, you know, where does she get it?
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I don't know. Perhaps it's a love for her seven-year-old daughter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shafir, I mean, you're talking about murder, rape, setting a woman on fire, hitting a child over the head with a machete, attempting to kill a child.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I mean, where does that kind of hatred come from in Myanmar?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you believe that there's a group of people who don't belong, if you believe that they're hell-bent on destroying your race, your religion, if you believe that they're there to take away your livelihood, your land, and all of this fuelled by the rhetoric of the government and the military, mixed with religion, this is what happens.
--:-- Shafir Rahman: I believe that in the new Burma, in the new Myanmar, these are the forces that have been let loose.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shafir Rahman is a documentary filmmaker based in London.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramaswaram. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's $25, and if you go to getquip.com slash explained right now, you'll get your first refill pack free with your Quip electric toothbrush.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kara Swisher, we're here to talk about your podcast, Recode Decode.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're joining me in the Today Explained studio here in D.C.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Usually a lot of tech people, media people, but not exclusively, huh?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Not at all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I try to do different things, and that's why I interviewed Dr. Jen Gunter.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She is the blogger who kind of took down Gwyneth Paltrow a little bit, down a few notches.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, really?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She is an OBGYN and a pain physician.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she has this blog where she would read a lot of the stories on Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness site called Goop.
--:-- Kara Swisher: And they enraged her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Things like putting jade eggs in your vagina, steam.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It's a lot around the vagina because she is an OBGYN.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure. And so she was like, you cannot do this, ladies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do not steam your vagina. Don't put a jade egg in there.
--:-- Kara Swisher: And all kinds of different things that they were pushing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so she thought it was junk science and made it her business to stop it from being on these sites.
--:-- Kara Swisher: And so now Goop has a fact checker.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's definitely gotten into trouble.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Just, again, from a small platform, she changed things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she's very, very funny.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Cool.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And people can find that right now when they go look for Recode, Decode, wherever they find their podcasts?
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah.
