Malaysia - The Tribal Self Detains the Helpless Refugee, Rejecting the Appeal to Shared Humanity

Event Baseline: Malaysian police detained more than 100 Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers who were seeking assistance from the United Nations.

The nation, a line drawn by thought, becomes a prison of the mind. The Rohingya, already victims of genocide, are again punished for seeking safety. This is the mechanical operation of identity: the tribe must defend its illusion of purity from the foreign body. The self, identifying with the state, experiences the refugee as an intrusion, a contamination. There is no perception of shared suffering, only the reflex to expel the other. This action is the result of a mind that has divided the world into us and them, and then worships that division as security. The detention is a desperate attempt to preserve an image, a belief in separateness that breeds only cruelty. The energy of fear becomes a system of cages.