Drifting aimlessly. Desperate. Terrible shape. Begging. These are just a few of the words that introduce the Rohingya, a heavily targeted ethnoreligious Muslim minority from Myanmar, in the BBC podcast The Inquiry. The episode, entitled “Will Anyone Help the Rohingya?”, opens with the faceless voice of a British reporter describing a harrowing scene: a boat full of Rohingya who have fled to Thailand, only to be refused entry and stranded at sea. His words, hurried and tinged with concern, cut through their ambient moans and cries:

Well this is incredible...They [have] no food and water, and they’re in just terrible shape at the moment. They’re begging for help. They’ve had absolutely no help, no supplies for close to a week. There are plenty of women and children onboard...They’re begging for help. (“Will Anyone Help the Rohingya?”)

This short prelude, although lasting only a minute or so, speaks volumes about the ways in which this podcast—and Western media at large—extricate the Rohingya genocide and displacement from its postcolonial context. By doing so, Western powers are not only ignoring centuries of important history; they are eschewing the direct role they played in the crisis, instead framing themselves as altruistic benefactors and ultimately reproducing—rather than rectifying—colonial legacies.

In 1893, present-day Myanmar and Bangladesh belonged to a single landmass off the Bay of Bengal. The geographical and cultural distinctions between South and Southeast Asia, in other words, were blurred. But by 1947, the British had partitioned this territory into discrete states, engendering newfound notions of national belonging within these hardened borders (Pant). Myanmar has explicitly excluded the Rohingya, who practice Islam and are ethnically South Asian, from this imperialism-induced national identity—and have enacted the brutal disenfranchisement, detainment, and displacement of millions within the community (“The Rohingya Refugee Crisis”).

The opening part of “Will Anyone Help the Rohingya?” is a prime example of how detaching the crisis from this colonial history reinscribes the West as the global bastion of civility and charity—especially in juxtaposition to the oppressive Global South. The BBC reporter characterizes what seems like a traumatizing event for the Rohingya as “incredible,” emphasizing that not only are the Rohingya in “terrible shape” with no food, water, or supplies, but that there are “plenty of women and children onboard” (“Will Anyone Help”). Myanmar, it seems, is unquestionably cruel, forcefully driving the Rohingya out of their own homes. And Thailand callously refuses to offer the most basic relief of food and water, leaving innocent women and children to die.

Of course, these two countries are most certainly responsible for this horrific violence. But the reporter refuses to acknowledge Britain’s own culpability in cultivating the very conditions that caused this calamity in the first place. His condoling narration implies that such an egregious violation of human rights is “incredible,” unbelievable, and could simply never happen in Britain. The reporter designates himself, and by extension, his Western viewers, as uninvolved third-party observers. The Rohingya’s drifting boat is simply a tragedy—a spectacle, even—for us to consume in simultaneous pity and disbelief.

What’s more, the reporter mentions the word “begging” twice and “help” three times (“Will Anyone Help”). He seems to imply that the Rohingya are not only desperate, but that they are desperate for our charitable aid. He strips them of their humanity—their complex emotionalities, their cultural practices, their intimacies and interpersonal networks—and instead reduces them to a devastating and dire problem that necessitates Western munificence. In failing to be cognizant of colonialism and its manufacture of deep power inequalities, the reporter only further corroborates these inequalities—insinuating that the poor Rohingya need to be rescued from the heroic British.

Using this anecdote even visually removes the Rohingya from a broader postcolonial framework. They are isolated in a boat at sea, with little explanation other than that they are suffering. And although the rest of this 23-minute episode delves further into the crisis and its intricacies (the host consults a number of journalists and a member of the Rohingya community itself), the fact remains that listeners’ first impression of the Rohingya is one completely disconnected from any type of historical context.

Another podcast, The President’s Inbox, which is affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), similarly portrays Western powers as good-natured benefactors to the Rohingya rather than perpetrators of their crisis. James M. Lindsay, the podcast host and Director of Studies at the CFR, lauds the U.S. for “historically [having] played a role in promoting human rights” with the “European Union typically by its side” (“The Rohingya Refugee Crisis”). And Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at the Human Rights Watch and consultant in the episode, recognizes a need for these Western political powers to “stand up on the right side,” or else ethnic cleansing across the globe will go unchecked. “The Rohingya,” she continues, “are a test case for how the world responds” (“The Rohingya Refugee Crisis”).

I wholeheartedly agree that Western powers should contribute their immense wealth and clout toward Rohingya community relief and rebuilding. The problem is that neither Lindsay nor Ganguly fully acknowledge the United States and European Union’s direct role in rendering the Rohingya stateless in the first place. These nations, Ganguly insists, must respond to Rohingya persecution according to a vague, internationally-minded moral code. This crisis, it seems, is little more than a litmus test for how magnanimous these already-affluent nations can be.

But what if we reoriented our conceptualization of the Rohingya’s plight? Rather than confining it to Myanmar and Bangladesh, what if we expanded our framework to include British colonial history as well? With this outlook, Britain, the rest of Europe, and the United States no longer occupy a morally neutral position on the world stage; they are direct culprits in this crisis. And it is their responsibility to remedy the wrongs of their imperial pasts—or at least try.

In a short visit to our class, researcher Daniel Coyle recounted a conversation he had with a Rohingya man: if the United Nations can allocate the money to fly drones over their heads and map their tents and fingerprints, they certainly can give them a better life (Coyle). Both the BBC and CFR podcasts rightly acknowledge that Western nations have the nonpareil privileges and powers to materially aid the Rohingya.

The question, then, is what this aid will look like. Will it be doled out in drones and makeshift shelters, without substantial or systemic rehabilitation? Will the Rohingya be seen through the gaze of the BBC reporter—starved, stranded, and impotent refugees “begging for help,” lucky enough to even receive these morsels of humanitarian relief? Or will Britain and other Western countries empower the Rohingya to be the authors of their own futures? Can they acknowledge their part in creating the crisis and consciously ground their aid in colonial history—no matter how uncomfortable, inconvenient, or intimidating?