There is a grim, metronomic predictability to the suffering of the Rohingya that almost defies satire, leaving only a bleak, exhausted observation of the obvious. Once again, the sky over Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh has been turned a bruised, smoky grey. Once again, the infernal architecture of 'temporary' humanitarianism has proven itself to be little more than a vast, meticulously organized bonfire waiting for a spark. A massive fire has swept through the refugee camp this week, destroying hundreds of makeshift homes and displacing more than 2,000 people.

If one were to design a cityscape with the specific intention of it burning down with spectacular efficiency, one could do no better than the sprawling camps of Cox’s Bazar. We, the enlightened International Community™, have generously housed a million persecuted souls in structures made of bamboo and tarpaulin—materials known in the construction trade as 'kindling' and 'accelerant.' We pack these shelters eaves-to-eaves, creating a density that rivals Tokyo but without the zoning laws, the running water, or the hope. And then, when physics inevitably takes its course and a spark finds a dry sheet of plastic, we act shocked. We clutch our pearls in Geneva and New York, issuing statements of 'deep concern' while the ashes cool on the ground.

Let us pause to appreciate the specific, cruel irony of the phrase 'displaced.' The news reports tell us that 2,000 people have been displaced. Displaced from where, exactly? From a displacement camp. These are people who were chased out of Myanmar by a genocidal military junta, forced into the purgatory of a Bangladeshi border region, and now, they have been evicted from their eviction centers. They are refugees from their own refuge. It is a Russian nesting doll of homelessness, a Sisyphean tragedy where the rock rolls down the hill and crushes the tent you just spent three years patching with duct tape and despair.

The absurdity of the situation is compounded by the permanence of this 'temporary' crisis. The camps in Cox’s Bazar are not a campsite; they are a city of ghosts, a holding pen for a population the world has decided to simply archive rather than integrate. We treat the Rohingya crisis like a corrupted file on a hard drive—too messy to open, too large to delete, so we just move it to a folder marked 'Bangladesh' and hope the fan doesn't overheat. Well, the fan has overheated. Again.

Consider the bureaucracy of the aftermath. In the coming days, we will see the familiar ritual of the disaster assessment. Men in vests with many pockets will walk through the charred remains of Camp 5, holding clipboards. They will count the burnt bamboo poles. They will quantify the misery in spreadsheets. Reports will be filed. Donors will be emailed. And the conclusion will be momentous: 'We need to rebuild.' And rebuild we shall. We will replace the burnt bamboo with fresh bamboo. We will replace the melted tarpaulin with fresh tarpaulin. We will reconstruct the exact same fire hazard in the exact same footprint, ensuring that we can all do this again next year when the dry season hits or a gas stove tips over.

It is a theater of the absurd where the stage manager is an arsonist and the audience is asleep. The definition of insanity, we are told, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By this metric, international humanitarian aid policy regarding the Rohingya is currently wearing a napoleon hat and barking at traffic. We refuse to build permanent, fire-resistant structures because that would imply these people are staying. We refuse to let them leave because nobody wants them. So they remain in the tinderbox, suspended in a state of flammable animation.

Even the language of the tragedy is sanitized for our comfort. 'Makeshift homes' suggests a plucky, Robinson Crusoe-esque adaptability. In reality, these are suffocating ovens in the summer and damp caves in the monsoon, and now, they are piles of carbon. 2,000 people stood and watched the only possessions they have managed to cling to—perhaps a pot, a blanket, a document proving they exist—turn into smoke.

The fire in Cox’s Bazar is not an accident; it is a feature of the system. It is the inevitable thermodynamic result of warehousing human beings in flammable cages while the geopolitical powers engage in a staring contest to see who blinks first regarding repatriation. Nobody is blinking. They are just watching the fire, perhaps grateful that the smoke obscures the view of their own moral bankruptcy. The bamboo will be cut, the plastic sheets will be distributed, and the wait for the next spark begins immediately.