Ronan Lee
Dr Ronan Lee is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Loughborough University London researching the meaning of social vitality for Rohingya refugees. He researches Asian politics, genocide, hate speech and migration. Ronan’s book “Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech” was published by Bloomsbury/IB Tauris in 2021. Ronan was awarded the 2021 Early Career Emerging Scholar Prize by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and he won Deakin University's 2015 Neil Archbold Memorial Medal for his journal article "A Politician, Not an Icon: Aung San Suu Kyi's Silence on Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya".
Ronan’s PhD research involved conducting long-term field work in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand during 2014-2017. Ronan's PhD thesis titled “Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Rohingya Perspectives of History and Identity” considered the identity, history, and politics of the Rohingya. This work aimed to amplify the voice of Rohingya participants and involved in-depth interviews with Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in Yangon, in the Bangladesh camps, and among the Rohingya diaspora living further afield from Myanmar.
Ronan’s professional background is in politics, media, and public policy. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament (2001-2009) and served on the frontbench as a Parliamentary Secretary (2006-2008) in portfolios including Justice, Main Roads and Local Government, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. He has also worked as a senior government advisor, and as an election strategist and campaign manager.
Address: Loughborough University London, 3 Lesney Avenue, The Broadcast Centre, Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, E20 3BS, UK
Ronan’s PhD research involved conducting long-term field work in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand during 2014-2017. Ronan's PhD thesis titled “Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Rohingya Perspectives of History and Identity” considered the identity, history, and politics of the Rohingya. This work aimed to amplify the voice of Rohingya participants and involved in-depth interviews with Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in Yangon, in the Bangladesh camps, and among the Rohingya diaspora living further afield from Myanmar.
Ronan’s professional background is in politics, media, and public policy. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament (2001-2009) and served on the frontbench as a Parliamentary Secretary (2006-2008) in portfolios including Justice, Main Roads and Local Government, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. He has also worked as a senior government advisor, and as an election strategist and campaign manager.
Address: Loughborough University London, 3 Lesney Avenue, The Broadcast Centre, Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, E20 3BS, UK
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Papers by Ronan Lee
The anniversary will be marked within Myanmar by a “silent strike”, with participants acknowledging those jailed or killed by the junta during the last year by avoiding public space, leaving Myanmar’s streets empty. The junta has threatened participants with decades-long jail sentences and property confiscations. But if previous calls for anti-coup resistance are an indication, tens of millions of people will stay home and Myanmar’s streets will be spookily empty.
Interviews in the camps paint a desperately sad picture. The details of these interviews are invariably confronting and often distressing, and explain why so many Rohingya fled Myanmar so quickly.
But unless Myanmar reverses its discriminatory domestic policies targeted at the Rohingya, more will be forced onto boats to avoid persecution.
Conference Presentations by Ronan Lee
The anniversary will be marked within Myanmar by a “silent strike”, with participants acknowledging those jailed or killed by the junta during the last year by avoiding public space, leaving Myanmar’s streets empty. The junta has threatened participants with decades-long jail sentences and property confiscations. But if previous calls for anti-coup resistance are an indication, tens of millions of people will stay home and Myanmar’s streets will be spookily empty.
Interviews in the camps paint a desperately sad picture. The details of these interviews are invariably confronting and often distressing, and explain why so many Rohingya fled Myanmar so quickly.
But unless Myanmar reverses its discriminatory domestic policies targeted at the Rohingya, more will be forced onto boats to avoid persecution.
Ethnic relations in Myanmar have been a long-standing source of domestic conflict. Ethnicity can be a test for citizenship and ethnic identity is often closely linked with religion. Communal conflict between elements of the country’s Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority since 2012 have exposed previously suppressed staunch anti-Muslim voices from within the Buddhist community. Notably, the 969 Movement, activist monk Ashin Wirathu and the Ma Ba Tha have argued it is in Myanmar’s national interest to protect the Buddhist religion from a perceived Muslim threat, calling for restrictions to Muslims’ political and civil freedoms.
This paper suggests that the success of U Wirathu and the Ma Ba Tha’s political agenda would add another layer of complexity to how Myanmar’s citizenship laws operate in practice since existing citizens would have their rights restricted on the basis of religion. This would amount to the creation of a de facto religious test for full Myanmar citizenship rights.
In the context of Myanmar’s limited democracy (Kingsbury 2014), this paper asks, can Myanmar’s national political leaders hold back the apparent tide of popular support for the creation of a de facto religious state? The author will argue that Myanmar’s political leaders, facing a national general election in November 2015, will not take the necessary steps to hold back this tide of support for discriminatory policies and the consequence, while perhaps unintended, will be the creation of a de-facto official state religion.
Z. Fareen Parvez’s book Politicizing Islam: The Islamic Revival in France and India examines the lived experiences of Muslims and considers the limitations and dangers of accepting simplistic contemporary stereotypes of faithful Muslims. This is compelling subject matter at a time when openly religious Muslims are frequently assumed to harbour radical sympathies and can face discrimination and violence. ……
You can read my complete book review at the Ethnic and Racial Studies website.