The Unrooting

The Great Unrooting

Episode 1:  

(After Today, Things Will Change)

a podcast mini series

for Human Rights Watch 

by Ngofeen Mputubwele

Characters  

HOST + NGOFEEN 

MAUNG 

JOHANNES 

FOOTNOTE 

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH EXPERTS: 

MAUSI 

NADIA 

KYLE 

BELKIS 

Notes 

TAPE  

SCENE ONE  

HOST 

For Human Rights Watch, this is Ngofeen Mputubwele. 

FOOTNOTE 

 Note: Ngofeen is better known as a radio producer and attorney who hosts “Rights and Wrongs,” a podcast for Human Rights Watch. End note. 

HOST  

 If you feel at all disturbed by the world right now, might I recommend the story of a guy named Maung? Maung Seydollah. I was in therapy the week after Alex Pretti got killed in Minnesota. Alex Pretti, the American, that ICE officer shot in Minnesota during protests, and I kept telling my therapist, “This happens all the time. This happens all the time. These kinds of violent, brutal acts happen all over the world all the time." And kind of unexpectedly, I brought up the story of this guy Maung, that I met through work. 

Enter music, “The Night of Fire.” 

HOST  

 Almost every major human rights abuse... 

HOST 

Every major issue of life in the 21st century... 

HOST 

...all coalesces in the life of Maung. 

MAUSI 

HOST 

Something about his story is like... 

HOST 

...telling us about this moment in history that we're living in.  

HOST 

 And yet, it’s the most hopeful story. 

Vocal hums of “Unrooted Theme.” Reverb out.  

HOST  

You’re listening to The Great Unrooting. Episode 1: The Unrooting. 

SCENE TWO: THE DORM 

Enter ambient sound of Curtis preparing for Maung’s first interview. 

CURTIS 

Let me hear how you sound. What did you have for breakfast? 

HOST 

 The first time we, as a team, met him, I wasn't there. 

MAUNG 

This morning, I only had some paratha... 

HOST 

 Producer Curtis actually interviewed him. 

MAUNG 

My name is Maung Sawyedollah. 

CURTIS 

 And how would you like to be identified? 

HOST 

Here goes Maung. 

MAUNG 

 Um. [Pause.] I am an agent of change. 

Curtis laughs. 

HOST  

“ I am an agent of change.” This is the line we talked about after that first interview. Curtis says he regrets having laughed.  

Quick  rundown: Maung’s in his early twenties. He's from a tiny town in Myanmar. He is a Rohingya Muslim, which we'll explain later, but for now, it means he is stateless. He has no citizenship anywhere. He fled his home because of violence, lived in a refugee camp in Bangladesh for seven years, and now is a senior at New York University, NYU. 

MAUNG 

We are now in a small room... 

HOST 

But a few weeks later  

MAUNG 

...at the south building of International House...  

HOST 

I go to Maung's dorm room near Harlem... 

MAUNG 

 ...in Manhattan, New York City. So basically, this is my room. 

HOST 

With so many questions. 

  NGOFEEN 

Um [Ngofeen laughs.] your story's so crazy. 

HOST  

and the more he tells me, the more incredulous I become. 

Ngofeen laughs. 

HOST  

I studied opera when I was coming up. And I kept thinking, Maung is an operatic lead. But he sings with this quiet, pianissimo single-mindedness that confounds me.  

Maung's story starts when he's in middle school in 2012 with whispers. A really unsettling rumor. 

SCENE THREE: MYANMAR 

MAUNG 

There is going to be a war. Like there is going to be a war, like a big conflict, between the Rohingya and the Rakhine community,  

HOST 

In Maung’s town, there are a few main ethnicities: Rakhine, Burma -- Maung calls them Burmese -- and Rohingya.  Maung is a Rohingya and he’s Muslim. Myanmar is a majority Buddhist country. In the eighties, the Myanmar government effectively stripped Rohingya of their citizenship. So Maung was born without citizenship. In Maung's town, in middle school, it was pretty chill until these rumors started.  

MAUNG 

 So they are no longer open, no longer friendly with us, and they no longer want to go and play with us.  

Enter shaker from “World is Changing.” 

HOST 

 There started to be little changes as he was going from middle school into high school. 

MAUNG 

The Burmese student, the Rakhine student...  

Enter taiko drums.  

MAUNG 

...just used to ignore the, the Rohingya student. And also in some cases,, slowly they even, uh, started treating, um, themselves, they are the superior, than the Rohingya. The Rohingya student are nothing. 

HOST 

Actually, Maung even gets into like a tiny little scuffle. 

MAUNG 

 So I go to school...  

HOST 

Sitting in the front row of his classroom.  

MAUNG 

...Always those front seats are reserved for those Rakhine, Burmese student. So Rohingya are usually need to sit in the back seats. Some Rakhine students, they started, wanted to fight me because of sitting in the front row. 

HOST 

There’s backrow students and there’s front row students. Maung is a front row student. Another time it's the teacher who chastises Maung.  

Enter tabla drums. 

MAUNG 

But I had been removed by the teacher saying, “No this is not for you.” 

HOST 

Maung notices some posts on Facebook are spreading the same ideas. But honestly, Maung’s not super aware of what that Facebook algorithm stuff means. He’s like 16. That time will come.  

 And then the Myanmar military starts showing up and arresting people. The military are never Rohingya, the military is not made up of Rohingya and they start arresting Rohingya. 

Music out. 

MAUNG 

One was my immediate uncle and his son, my uncle and his son, and some other villagers from the village. 

HOST 

That's when everything went down. 

SCENE FOUR: MYANMAR 

MAUNG 

It, uh, it was Friday. It was Friday, August 25th, 2017. Midnight, I started hearing the, the voice of the guns firing like the guns voice, like I have never, uh, heard of like that, that much gun, uh, voice and in, in my life, this was the first time I started hearing the gunfiring voice.

HOST 

What a way to describe gunfire.. The gun’s voice. It sings.

Enter music, "Stars Fall.”  

The police station was very near to my home. The song was like, very high. The song was very high. Like I needed to put my finger into my ear, that much higher voice. And all my family members, my father, my mother, they, uh, woke up already and we sit together.  

HOST 

They all lock themselves in. It’s Maung’s dad: at the time, younger than me. 35, 36. Maung’s mom: also about the same age. And, side note! Very pregnant. There’s Maung. And there’s his 4 younger siblings. They’re all crouching together. 

MAUNG 

We started talking like, what's really happening? Like, we were very nervous and we were very scared because we, we definitely know that those are the voices of danger. And we went to see what was really happening. But my father, uh, asked no one, uh, should be opening the doors. 

HOST 

Maung’s dad says don't open the door. Maung doesn’t open the door.

MAUNG 

Um, so we didn't open the door until morning. Because, uh, all of us were very scared.  

HOST 

 Daybreak comes. They wait.  

MAUNG 

And when we started seeing the light outside, like the sunlight outside, the firing of the gun didn't stop even that time. It was continuously firing and continuously firing. 

HOST 

Morning.  

MAUNG 

And around, uh, 11am, 11 to like 12, we see the, a group of soldiers come in through the main road in our village. And we see like they have a dead body. There were around 50 soldiers, five zero soldiers, and they are carrying a dead body. And with them, they arrested. Almost 50 Rohingya as well with them.  

Enter bass progression of "Stars Fall.” Time signature shifts to 4/4 time, adagio. 

MAUNG  

They tied everyone, uh, in their hand. Their face to the ground. And in the evening, we started hearing the news on WhatsApp, on Facebook, on WeChat. 

So when that news spreaded, people became really scared and people became kind of like senseless, like people do not know what to do, where to go. It's kind of like. People lost consciousness. 

The sound of people being frantic.

But we have seen, uh, like a flood of the people, like a flood of the people.  

HOST 

Masses of people start pouring through Maung’s town. This is the Rohingya exodus from Myanmar that took place in 2017 -- acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing -- the one you may have heard is connected to Facebook.

Remember how I said Maung is at the center of all the crises in the 21st century? We’ll get to this, but what Maung is living through… oh man. One historian I talked to called it an enduring image of the 21st century. I It’s about how ethnicity, violence, state power, and technology collide.  

MAUNG 

People are coming from other villages. They are going across our villages. Uh, start sharing their stories, what happened in their villages. And they started like, uh, walking towards Bangladesh. So they're literally like, uh, leaving everything behind and started walking. 

HOST 

Bangladesh is to the West.

So the family hears gunfire, they hunker down, they’re scared, they see a dead body. They know that person. Guns come back, more intense… massive influx of people. And Dad goes, “No! We’re not going anywhere.” All this takes place within a few days. 

 Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people just up and start walking. Dad stays put. News keeps trickling in. 

MAUNG 

Where they killed, uh, peoples as a group, massacres in, in, in other villages.  

HOST 

Landmines, explosions. 

MAUNG 

 So in their explosions, one of my cousin-brother, he got extremely injured to his leg. And after, uh, five to six hours, he, he, he’s dead.  

HOST 

Still, dad stays put. And therefore, so does Maung. Meanwhile, time is running out.  

NGOFEEN 

What is your dad like? 

MAUNG 

My dad was a businessman, especially he was a shopkeeper. And, my father decided to open his shop and give away all, everything he had in, in his shop. All of the materials and all of the stuff that we have in our shop to the people free. So people, uh, like started taking, uh, anything they want,that might be useful for them, uh, on their way, on their journey to, to Bangladesh. 

HOST 

 Still, Dad stays put. Grandpa, dad's dad, comes to talk to his son.  

MAUNG 

 My grandpa came to my home and he was telling, “Why not you are leaving? Like, why not? Why not you are leaving? You will be killed here. If we live here, we'll be killed here because of you. We cannot go because of you/. So if you do not go with us, then how can we go without you? So why you are not, uh, leaving? Because of you, we also cannot go and because of you, all of us will die” Something like that. 

NGOFEEN 

And so dad says? 

MAUNG  

Then Dad say like,“ Why would we leave our own homes? We born here. We lived here. We have our properties here, we have our businesses here, and we have done nothing wrong.  

NGOFEEN 

Yeah.  

MAUNG 

“Why would we leave?” And my grandfather was consistently saying that because of you. Uh, we cannot go.  

NGOFEEN 

Yeah.  

MAUNG 

And because of you, uh, we are in danger because of you, we will, uh, be harmed.  

HOST 

 I put myself in Maung's dad's shoes. I specifically, Ngofeen, and part of me is like, ‘you gotta go’. Another part of me is like, I hear you saying that unspeakable things have happened over there, and that's awful. It's not gonna happen here. It's almost like this subterranean belief in justice, like that kind of naked wrongdoing, it's not going to continue. It can't. If they leave after today, everything's gonna change. 

Ad break.

SCENE FIVE: HRW 

NGOFEEN + NADIA

Hello. Hi, Nadia. Hi, Ngofeen, nice to see you! I’m super on time, look at that.  

All good. Hold on, Kyle’s here.  

KYLE

Hello.  

MAUSI

Hi, hi, hi, hi. 

NADIA

Hi, Mausi. 

NGOFEEN

What time is it where everyone is? 

MAUSI

It's 5 p .m. here.  

KYLE

It's 9:45 p .m. here. 

MAUSI + NADIA

What? Where are you, Kyle? 

KYLE

I’m in Nepal.  

NGOFEEN

I think. Hold on. Yeah, here. 

BELKIS

I'm sorry. Sorry, I was a couple minutes late. 

HOST 

`So in our story, in Myanmar things are clearly getting worse. It’s so obvious from the outside and from retrospect that Maung and his family have to leave. But in the moment, history is never that clear. Would you know when it was time to leave your family and uproot your family? And Maung’s Dad can’t see it. 

I need help understanding what’s boiling inside someone at this kind of crucible moment.  

 So that's when I call up the, uh, Human Rights Watch gang who've all spent a lot of time with people who've had to flee.  

MAUSI 

It just gets really emotional, because there is a lot of nostalgia, and there is a longing for home. 

HOST 

Mausi Segun, from Nigeria. 

MAUSI  

And for yourself as well, just steel your heart, steel your mind, you know. 

KYLE 

Get ready for it not to be simple.  

HOST 

Kyle Knight, from the US. 

KYLE 

You can’t assume that getting from point A to point B has been the same for anyone. 

HOST 

Nadia Hardman is based in Europe. 

NADIA 

The way that migration generally is dealt with in the media is just a complete contradiction when you speak to an individual. The stories are so layered. 

HOST 

Belkis Wille in Brussels  

BELKIS 

People don’t wanna leave home if they don’t have to. They don’t wanna leave their family, they don’t wanna leave their friends. They don’t wanna leave. 

NADIA 

One very tangible thing, I do a lot of interviews in refugee camps and displacement camps etc. something I’ve realized is the proximity to their identity documents. You know they all have their documents with them because they’re key to them, more often that it’s in, like, a plastic wallet. And it’s so vital to carry that piece of information with them. People who had to leave really quickly usually took their identity documents with them. It’s there with them within arms reach. 

BELKIS

Part of it is longing and heartache. And then on other the side, hope. Hope that maybe they’ll be able to return home one day. 

SCENE SIX: MYANMAR  

HOST 

Finally, Maung’s dad caves. Packs up the family.  

MAUNG 

Including my mom 

HOST 

And they start walking by foot. At some point, in the jungle, Maung’s like “I need to go back home.”  

Response? “No.” Remember, there’s landmines everywhere.  

MAUNG 

Everyone, including my father and my mother, they wanted me not to come. They say it's danger, don't go there. But I said, no.  

HOST 

“Why?” they ask.  

MAUNG 

Because I wanted to take my student card from my home. 

HOST 

Maung wants to grab his student ID. 

MAUNG 

And also to, to, to lock the door.  

HOST 

And he wants to lock the front door. 

MAUNG 

We left without locking the door because it was like an emergency time, like we were just running. Um, so I came back to the home to lock the door and to take my student card, especially.  

HOST 

Maung’s cousin has died. Thousands of people are fleeing, there are massacres happening, we’ll come to learn. But Maung makes up his mind. He waits for the right moment when gunfire subsides and he makes a break for it. 

MAUNG 

They were not firing the gun that time when I was coming. But when they see me, they started firing again. Because they can also see my home from the police station they firing again. So I was like, uh, that time I was like, okay, maybe today I'm also dead, like I will also hit by the bullet, but, uh, I'm lucky enough I didn't, uh, got hit by the bullet.  

HOST 

Maung makes it home. Grabs his student ID. Locks the front door. Then starts the journey back. From a distance, people are still shooting at him. All he has to do now is join his family. All he has to do now is make it back to them safe. 

Enter music, “The Night of Fire.” 

MAUNG 

 So when I took the student card and I, uh, closed the door and like went to return back to my family again, they started firing again. So it was literally, I was just running under their bullet. Their bullet was hitting to the roof of my home, and I was just running, uh, under, under those bullets.   

It was not safe. 

Uh, it, it, it's kind of like, uh, I kind of started ... 

CURTIS 

You panicked.  

MAUNG 

Yeah. Super panic. It's a super panic situation.// And, uh, because those, uh, bullets and, and the voice were so extensive, uh, I, I lost my conscious there. 

It was scary. 

HOST 

Maung collapses, passes out. When Maung wakes up, Maung rejoins his family ... 

MAUNG 

 Why me? Why our people? 

HOST 

... as they make their way out of the region on foot. 

MAUNG 

Because of my grandfather / my family ultimately decided to leave everything behind. Um... 

HOST 

What follows is unedited, as we heard it.  

MAUNG 

That night, before leaving the homes, um, we sleep the night, uh, in a, in another home. It was near to, near to a forest. Uh, all of my family were staying there in that home, but I didn't stay.  

Long pause. 

HOST 

Maung pauses. Takes his time. Maung isn’t crying, his eyes aren’t watering. And he’s determined to tell his story.  

MAUNG 

I think, uh, this was the night, um, I cried a lot in my life because all my family were in another home, but, but because it was already decided that we are leaving, I didn't stay in that home. I come back the nighttime to my home. 

CURTIS 

Do you need to take a break?  

MAUNG 

I think I'm good. Okay. So, during that night, I stayed in my home alone ... and I was crying the whole night because I know I'm leaving the home.  

HOST 

To be clear, he goes back a second time, filming everything he can on his phone.  

MAUNG 

From that morning, I never see my home again. And it was burned down.

Enter music, “Map of Unrooted Theme.” 

HOST 

 As Maung walks, perhaps you see it. Perhaps see something heavy for the first time in his right hand pocket. Perhaps watch him reach in for the first time and feel it. Thousands of little shards of glass. 

In his dorm room, Maung, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out this large handful of glass and lays it out on his bed. It forms a map. And when I see what the map depicts...  

Enter Chopin Polonaise in A flat major, Heroïque, Op. 53. 

HOST 

...my only reactions is ‘whoa’. 

FOOTNOTE 

Note. It is at this point that Maung’s story becomes an opera. Because the Map he carries is not strictly real. It is a fiction. A device, an invented way of seeing, that Ngofeen insists is somehow sur-real. Ngofeen will tell you about it next time.  

I will leave you with this very grounded image: Maung, his dad, his grandapa, his mother, walking.  

MAUNG 

No one know where we are going and we, where we are reaching. 

FOOTNOTE 

Stopping as little as possible. 

MAUNG 

We only keep walking and walking, um, with a sense that if we didn't walk, then we will get killed. 

FOOTNOTE 

So with the imperative to keep walking... a day or so in... imagine Maung’s very pregnant mom. Suddenly, a puddle of water falls beneath her. End note. 

HOST 

 Coming up on this season of the Great Unrooting, Maung’s story continues, but it’s not just about Maung. We’re going to bring in other people. Refugees, migrants, or a queer kid pushed out of the life you thought you had—

Every episode, we go from Maung to the choices people face when the world they know becomes unlivable — and the long road that follows.  

BELKIS 

Hope, maybe one day be able to return home again.  

HOST 

Episode two, the flight: if you had to leave home where would you go and how would you get there.. Episode three: earth’s biggest refugee camp.  

MAUNG 

I cannot stay in a hotel because I do not have an identity. I cannot cross like a checkpoint because I do not have an identity. 

HOST 

Episode Four. Trauma, lots of therapists. Episode Five: My New Home ... Doesn't Love Me. 

ARCHIVAL  

We’re ICE. Do you have a warrant? We don't need a warrant, bro. Stop getting that in your head. No, I will not get out of the car, you can. Get out of the car. Get your hands off of me. 

MAUNG 

And another thing that I realized was, like, how powerful it is when we are together. 

HOST 

This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Sophie Soloway is the associate producer. Music this episode is by Chaz McKinney and me. Footnotes by Alex Hare. Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale are the executive producers.  

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. We’ll be back in two weeks with a new episode. Thanks for listening!