Young Thai asks Obama an "interesting" question
President Obama needed some time to collect his thoughts before answering an "interesting" question by young Thai Pensiri Bangsiri at a White House meeting on Monday.
Ms Pensiri was representing Thailand at a Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Fellows programme which featured a question-and-answer session with the president at the White House.
You can watch the exchange here and I've provided a transcript of the question and the president's rather lengthy answer.
Pensiri Bangsiri: Sawat dee Kha. Good afternoon Mr President. My name is Pensiri Bangsiri. I'm from Thailand and now I work on the anti-human-trafficking issue in Thailand and neighbouring countries. So today I would like to ask you that if you were a Rohingya which country would you prefer to live with and why. Thank you so much
Audience: laughter
Clearly taken by surprise, the president needed some time to form his response.
President Obama: That's an interesting question. Um........ Let me speak more broadly and then I'll, I'll answer your question.
Um.........We were talking earlier about what's required for Myanmar to succeed. I think one of the most important things is to put an end to discrimination against people because of what they look like or what their faith is.
And the Rohingya have been discriminated against, significantly, and that's part of the reason they are fleeing.
I think if I were a Rohingya, I would want to stay where I was born. I would want to stay in the land where my parents had lived. But I'd want to make sure that my government was protecting me and that people were treating me fairly. That's what I'd want.
And that's why it's so important I think as part of the democratic transition to take very seriously this issue of how the Rohingya are treated.
One of the things about discriminating against people or treating people differently is by definition that means that people will treat you differently, and you never know when you will find yourself in a situation in which you are a minority, where you are vulnerable, where you are not being treated fairly.
And right now, obviously, our focus is on making sure those who are being subject to human trafficking and are in some cases right now still in a very perilous situation out in the open sea, that they are relocated. I would to commend Indonesia and Malaysia for their willingness to take on thousands of these displaced persons.
The United States as part of our refugee process will take some. We've put over 100 million dollars into – over the last several years in Burma to make sure minority groups, including the Rohingya are protected against...
But ultimately, this is going to be a great test for the democracy of the future, not just in Burma-Myanmar but in areas all throughout the country.
When I was, and I know this directly because when I was young and I was living in Indonesia, there were times where there were anti-Chinese riots. They were very violent and vicious and, in fact, sometimes the Chinese-Indonesians were treated very similarly to how Jewish-Europeans were treated in Europe and subject to stereotypes and resentments and the truth of the matter is one of the reason that Singapore, I mentioned earlier, has been successful is that it has been able to bring together people who may look different but they all think of themselves as part of Singapore. And that has to be a strength, not a weakness. But that requires leadership and government being true to those principles.
To their credit, the Indonesian government when I growing up was very good about not discriminating on the basis of religion despite the fact that it was 98 percent Muslim. And I think that the tolerance towards other faiths historically in Indonesia has been part of what has contributed to progress there. You haven't seen the same kind of sectarian animosity that you've seen in parts of the Middle East.
But....the one thing I know is countries that divide themselves on racial or religious lines, they do not succeed. They do not succeed. That's rule number one.
Rule No. 2 is nations that suppress their women do not succeed. They don't succeed. Not only is it bad because half the country is not successful because they are not getting education and opportunity but it's women who teach children, which means the children are less educated if you are not teaching the moms.
So, there are some....each country is different but there are some rules if you look at development patterns around the world that are pretty consistent and those two pretty good rules.
Don't divide yourself on religious and ethnic lines and racial lines and don't discriminate against women. You do those two things, you know, you're not guaranteed success but at least you're not guaranteed failure.