Maajid Nawaz: Learn The Lessons Of Syria Or Myanmar Will Become Jihadists' Home Too
17 September 2017, 15:36 | Updated: 17 September 2017, 18:37
The LBC presenter said the ethnic cleansing taking place in Myanmar fulfilled all the pre-conditions necessary for the country to become a nascent jihadist refuge.
Bangladesh's Prime Minister is calling for help from the United Nations to support Rohingya Muslims.
It's understood more than 400,000 have fled from Myanmar, where they are an ethnic minority, to the country amid a crisis the UN describes as ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar's military chief maintained the chaos was the work of extremists seeking a stronghold in the country.
Maajid Nawaz said that he recognised all the pre-conditions necessary for fledgling jihadism to take root, and that startling similarities could be drawn between Myanmar and Syria.
The LBC presenter said: "I will tell you what will happen, if this ethnic cleansing continues unabated.
"I will tell you what will happen next. The only analogy I can draw to a previous example, as a spectacular failure where the world stood by and did nothing for too long, is Syria.
"The Syria uprising against President Assad began as a firmly secular uprising, for democratic rights and free speech.
"It began with youths in cities like Homs spray painting graffiti on the wall, slogans of freedom and democracy.
"What it mutated into was a jihadist hell hole.
"What I fear is that, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, if the UN's Responsibility To Protect is not invoked and implemented, the ARSA [Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army] will become eclipsed by groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.
"Groups who are merely waiting for the opportunity to capitalise on and suck out any nationalist struggle and turn into the hell hole they urned Syria into."
Watch the full moving clip above.
