Following the Japanese invasion of lower Burma in 1942, communal violence between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority broke out.  This was when the Muslims fled to the north while the Buddhist fled south. This led to the ongoing ethno-religious and political divide today. Myanmar became independent in 1948, which is when the Rohingya were still recognized as citizens. Under the rule of prime minister U Nu, who later won the votes of many within Burma with his promotion of Buddhism as the state religion and his ideals of separatism. He later created a one-party, military-led state because of the anger outcasted by the military coup led by Gen Ne Win. Later, in 1974, the New constitution came into effect which transferred the power from the military to the People’s Assembly who was headed by past military leaders as well as Ne Win. The division between ethnic identity and national identity did not start much after, in 1982 the citizenship law came into place and excluded certain races as well as ethnic groups which left many stateless. In 1989 the state of Burma became present day Myanmar, which was changed to me more inclusive to the 134 other ethnic communities. 

With the alteration of the citizenship law, it left the Rohingya people stateless. In Article 3 of the Law the word "Arkanese" was altered to "Rakhine" which excluded the Rohingya minority. The word "Rakhine" is often used for Buddhist Arakanese at the expense of the Muslim Rohingya Arkanese.³ This left the Rohingya in a position that removed them from the recognition through the nation, with no fault of their own. Article 44(c) of the 1982 Citizenship Law states an applicant for naturalized citizenship shall have “to be able to speak one of the national languages.”⁴ This article was design to undermine the law, so that minority groups like the Rohingya could not become citizens of the state. This has left the Rohingya to having a lack of legal protection of their rights, which has caught the attention of the United Nations since Myanmar is a UN member state. “ The General Assembly declares that it is in the higher interests of humanity to put an immediate end to religious and so-called racial persecution and discrimination, and calls on the Governments and responsible authorities to conform both to the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, and to take the most prompt and energetic steps to that end (United Nations 1946).”⁵Since the Rohingya have officially been characterized as stateless, the military can "(1) seize private property owned by the Rohingya on the grounds that stateless people cannot be property owners, (2) detain and torture them since they are perceived to be living in Myanmar illegally, (3) traffic and enslave Rohingya men into forms of forced labor, and (4) kidnap and rape Rohingya women."⁸

The start of Anti-Muslim and Anti-Islam attitudes began during the colonial era. Racial policies of governments were in favor of the majority population which has led to the Muslim population being a key target. Myanmar being a predominantly Buddhist state, there was a rise of Islamophobia. When Burma declared that it will be recognized as a Buddhist state, it led to wide-discrimination against the Indian and Muslim minority.⁶ The politicalization of the buddhist religion encouraged anti-islamic thought. “The government targeted Muslims due to the rising Buddhist nationalist sentiments within the population driven by the use of Muslims as a convenient tool.While the initial expression of hate was couched in racial terms, the rise of political Buddhism led to stronger anti-Muslim expressions within the state.”⁷ During General Ne Win's reign, Myanmar's national imagery came to be defined by Buddhism which has caused a lot of tension between the Buddhist and Muslim communities. During the transitional period of military rule (1962-2011) to semi-democratic rule under President Thein Sein, riots betwen Buddhists and Muslims broke out in the Rakhine State. Since then Buddhist nationals have created movements to protect their nation and keep the country Buddhist. Some popular movements of Buddhist extremists are the 969 movement and the Ma Ba Tha. 

On July 12, 2012, President Thein Sein asked the UNHCR to place all the Rohingya into refugee camps or to send them abroad. He stated, "The solution to this problem is that they can be settled in refugee camps managed by UNHCR, and UNHCR provides for them. If there are countries that would accept them, they could be sent there.”He also declared, “We will take care of our own ethnic nationalities, but Rohingyas who came to Burma [Myanmar] illegally are not of our ethnic nationalities and we cannot accept them here.”[14] Many people from the Rakhine state supported the President's decision, the All Rakhine Refugee Committee, Buddhists Monks, as well as Rakhine nationalist groups. In September of the same year, the Rohingya people had officially become internally displaced within their own land, they were guarded by police officers and put in make shift camps, one journalists states that the camps were "ghetto-like quarters."[15] One month later violence broke out in the Min Bya Township, which rapidly spread to other townships including Mrak Oo, Myebon, Rathedaungm and Kyaup-yu Townships.[16] This displaced over 35,000 Muslims and bordering countries refused to provide aid to the Rohingya people. The UNHCR that the refugee crisis out of Myanmar hit an all time high in the summer of 2015, while many of them sought refuge places overseas. 

In 2014, a draft of the government's response to the Rakhine Investigative Committee issued previously was leaked to the media, with this can outrage by the community. They intended to permanently segregate the Rohingya people unless they would register as "Bengali."[17] The leaked drafts sparked allegations that the government was abusing their power and had numerous human rights violations against the Rohingya. Later in 2016, a couple of men who later become ARSA, attacked Burmese police and soldier. In retaliation they burned down Rohingya homes were put a blaze and thousands were forced out of their homes once again. Through the control of media, the government has been able to promote anti-Rohingya hate, by doing so it has created more of a negative image and promoted violence. 

Media in general has a large influence on society. From agenda setting, shaping public opinion and creating stereotypes, as well as biases. Media influence for the Rohingya crisis is especially crucial, because "As the number of media coverage increases, this would mobilize the international pressures to stop the causes of the refugee influx and potentially initiate various humanitarian interventions that aim to protect the human rights of Rohingyas in Myanmar."[21]In a study done by Lee she found that, "In 2015, the images of Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar on dangerous boat voyages that drowned at least hundreds of people captured international attention (Southwick 2018; Rosenthal 2019), as media coverage of the Rohingya refugee crisis increased by 240% by the Guardian and 116% by the New York Times from the previous year."[22] This shows that media has a vast effect on how people view a specific case, in this instance, the picture that was shown sparked news outlets to start reporting more on it. Sadly, once the media stops publishing articles about issues, people often forget about it,even though it is an ongoing issue.

Although, Myanmar's government won't allow for humanitarian aid through Bangladesh. "Despite strong advocacy by the U.N. and international humanitarian agencies for unhindered humanitarian access, the Myanmar government has banned humanitarian organizations and their staff to visit the Rakhine State, restricting the U.N. from verifying reports of ongoing human rights violations and the number of people still internally displaced or fleeing." [23] Since most Rohingya fled to the bordering country, Bangladesh, Humanitarian aid efforts were concentrated there. In the refugee camps they provided food, shelter, medical care, psychological support. Outside organizations were able to bypass the strict protocols of the government and worked with local NGOs in Myanmar to help those who were internally displaced. UNICEF and UNHCR have managed to negotiate limited access to certain areas of the Rahkine state and operate under strict conditions.