Women and children in a makeshift house they share with six others in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, after fleeing from Myanmar's Rakhine state. Credit:Getty Images That is to say, the media had less nice (or even neutral) things to say about Muslims in 2014 than it did immediately after 9/11. And so in response to Trump, a diverse religious group who, as Fairfax columnist Waleed Aly reminded us, existed in the popular consciousness only as terrorists and fanatics, were suddenly being praised as doctors, engineers, pet-owners, translators, "almost as if they were people". Yet even as images and articles likening Trump's "Muslim ban" to the US rejection of boatloads of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust were circulated, the parallels between the Holocaust and another atrocity, happening now and on our doorstep, were somehow missed. As was our own complicity. In 2015, some 87,000 Muslim Rohingya refugees attempted to flee from Myanmar to Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia by boat. With no one initially willing to take them, thousands were trapped at sea for months. Unable to turn back, they drifted aimlessly, left, quite literally, to float into oblivion. Many did not survive.

Rohingya children at a refugee camp in Rakhine state in 2014. Credit:AP When asked if he would intervene, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott infamously quipped, "Nope, nope, nope," before demonstrating a complete lack of both empathy and knowledge by continuing, "If you want to start a new life, you come through the front door, not through the back door." What a thing to say to people literally fleeing for their lives. Nearly a dozen fellow Nobel peace laureates criticised Myanmar leader Aunt Sun Suu Kyi in December, saying she failed to ensure equal rights for the minority Rohingya people. Credit:AP The Rohingya are an ethno-religious group who have lived in Myanmar (Burma) for centuries but are still denied citizenship and other rights. Making up just 5 per cent of the predominantly Buddhist population, they are persecuted relentlessly by government security forces, firebrand Buddhist monks (yes, they exist), and the general public. This has seen them bestowed such titles as the "world's most persecuted people" and the "world's most unwanted people".

Human Rights Watch has described what the Rohingya now face as a campaign of ethnic cleansing; this includes the destruction of entire Rohingya villages, widespread and systematic rape of women and girls by security forces, and summary executions. This is what such violence looks like: "They killed the baby by stomping on it with heavy boots. Then they burned the house." "They gathered all the women and started beating us with bamboo sticks and kicking us with their boots. In total they beat about 100 to 150 women, young boys, and girls." "When they entered [our house], our brothers were sleeping on the veranda, and we [five sisters] were in the bed. They shot and killed my [brothers] and held the girls so they couldn't move."

Now consider that this has been going on for years. And how, even as the UN warns these killings number in the thousands, the response from the Burmese government has been to deny almost everything. The irony is, this violence, which is far more devastating than an immigration ban, is now being administered under the leadership of someone the west has long fetishised for her peace-loving, democratic credentials. In late December, State Counsellor and darling of the West, Aung San Suu Kyi issued a press release denouncing what she called "rumours," and "Fake Rape". Given the high hopes placed in the Nobel Peace Prize winner when she assumed power last year, the ongoing persecution and government denial is disappointing to say the least. But then again, such hopes were likely misplaced to begin with. Suu Kyi had already refused to denounce the persecution when pressed in an interview with a Muslim BBC reporter last year, reportedly angrily exclaiming afterwards, "No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim!" Assuming she is even trying to stem the violence, it looks very much like a losing battle. The hatred of Rohingya is so deep, Buddhist monks who call for their death have hundreds of thousands of social media followers, fake news stories are circulated to fan the flames of violence, and terrorism that takes place in distant lands by unrelated groups is used as justification. That our collective response is to shrug at this slow-burn genocide betrays two uncomfortable realities.

First, the dehumanisation of Muslims the world over has been so successful, they have been effectively assigned responsibility for all the violence in the world. Muslims as victims of persecution by non-Muslims does not fit the narrative and is therefore easily ignored. Unless, of course, and this brings us to the second truth, this persecution is coming from someone we despise even more than we seem to despise Muslims. Cue the Trump outrage. Is this really what it all comes down to – that we only care about oppression when we can use it to rail against those we already hate? Was the fate of the Rohingya sealed, not only because they are Muslim, but because their torturers and killers are Buddhists, a religion we only associate with peace? It certainly seems so, and they are not the first to feel the brunt of our selective compassion and outrage. This is why the shooting down of Flight M17 in Ukrainian air space is taken as proof of intrinsic Russian evil, even though the US military itself once downed an Iranian passenger jet, killing almost 300 civilians.