China's Uighurs hope to gain from world spotlight
AFP July 13, 2009, 5:01 pm
A policeman passes an ethnic Uighur man selling bags on a street in Urumqi. The recent uprising in the city, capital of China s Xinjiang region, has put the remote area on the world stage with many local people welcoming the attention but, warn experts, the hopes of the Uighurs could soon prove unfounded with the unrest likely to fortify China s resolve in maintaining its tight grip on the region.
AFP © [Enlarge photo]
URUMQI, China (AFP) - Like many ethnic Uighurs, businessman Anwar hopes greater world interest in the Muslim minority following deadly unrest in this remote Chinese city of Urumqi could lead to long-time grievances being addressed.
Sitting on an overturned bucket he uses as a chair in his cramped apartment, Anwar spoke in angry whispers about religious restrictions and other forms of repression many Uighurs say they suffer under Chinese rule.
"In my lifetime we have not had an opportunity like this," Anwar said of the recent international attention on the eight million Uighurs in China's far northwest Xinjiang region.
"We call on America or the United Nations to come here and see the situation for themselves and help us."
The Uighurs created headlines around the world after taking to the streets of Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, on July 5 in protests that quickly turned violent.
The government said 184 people died that day, when some Uighurs savagely attacked members of China's dominant Han ethnic group and razed their shops.
However the death toll from that day of unrest, a security crackdown and subsequent clashes is likely to be higher.
When told of world criticism about some of China's policies toward Uighurs, Anwar, who wore a traditional four-cornered embroidered Uighur cap, broke into a broad grin as he stroked a scruffy beard.
"We welcome this. We hope the rest of the world can stop ignoring us," Anwar said in Mandarin.
Tucked in a remote corner of China, and without a charismatic globe-trotting figure like Tibet's Dalai Lama to trumpet their cause, many Uighurs expressed hope that the recent unrest here had finally given them a window on the world.
Aside from what they say is Beijing's religious and political oppression, Uighurs complain of an influx of Han migrants that they say is extinguishing their culture.
But those hopes could soon prove unfounded, experts said, with the unrest likely fortifying China's resolve to maintain its tight grip on Xinjiang, a strategic and energy-rich region that crosses into Central Asia.
Publicity about Uighurs attacking Han will also likely damage their public relations efforts.
"In some ways, this has helped the Uighur cause by raising their (world) profile," said Dru Gladney, an expert on the Turkic-speaking central Asian people at Pomona College in California.
"But domestically, the government has successfully turned this against the Uighurs and made them look very bad. It has demonstrated that the Uighurs are violent."
The Islamic world's criticism of Chinese policies towards the Uighurs has been the strongest, with Turkey's prime minister last week calling them "a kind of genocide."
But China, which says Xinjiang faces a Uighur terrorist threat, has given no hint of any softening. Official pronouncements have vowed a tough crackdown and made little or no mention of Uighur complaints.
Communist Party Politburo member Zhou Yongkang, the nation's security czar, over the weekend called for a "steel wall" of security against "hostile forces".
Gladney said he saw little hope of a government rethink to any policies relating to Uighur grievances.
"That has all been put on hold for a while," he said.
The Islamic world's criticism also is likely to prove only a blip against China's rising economic and diplomatic clout, Gladney added.
Many Uighurs agreed, expressing deep dismay that the violent riots had cost them the moral high ground and saying darker times lay ahead.
Akbar, a college-educated Uighur in his late 20s, has not held a steady job for three years, saying job fairs in Urumqi often say "Uighurs need not apply."
He left Urumqi at the weekend for his rural hometown several hours' drive away, fearing arrest amid reported police sweeps on young Uighur men, although he denies involvement in the unrest.
"Many of us (Uighurs) had wondered how it could be worse for us but we are now entering into a new period that will be bad for a long time, so I just want to spend time with my family now," he said.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Beijing can't bury the Xinjiang story
Beijing can't bury the Xinjiang story
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - The story of ethnic strife engulfing China's far-western province of Xinjiang may have been relegated to the inner pages of the country's state-controlled newspapers, but it found space on the front pages of almost every other Chinese daily.
Unlike the Tibetan riots last year, when the media were initially told to suppress the story, the clashes between Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghurs that erupted in the provincial capital of Urumqi on July 5 was widely reported.
In many ways, this is symbolic of the profound changes taking shape in this fast-developing society, which the communist mandarins can no longer fully control.
Taking cue from the protests in Iran, where the emergence of new
media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube ensured the story was broadcast to the rest of the world, Beijing was eager to put its own version out as quickly as possible.
On July 7, widely read local newspapers like the Beijing Youth Daily and the Beijing News published pictures of burned cars, smashed buses and bloodied people in Urumqi. Accompanying reports from the state news agency, Xinhua, claimed the violence that erupted was "a pre-empted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country".
Beijing has blamed Rebiya Kadeer - a female Muslim-American emigre, as well as pro-independence Uyghur groups in exile in Washington, Munich and London for masterminding the revolt from afar.
Even the Southern Weekend - a liberal newspaper based in China's free-wheeling south - fell in line with the mandated version of events. It devoted a full page to profiling Kadeer, describing her as "the Dalai Lama of Uyghur people". It spent little effort on probing how more than a hundred people died in a matter of hours in a city swamped with paramilitary police or questioning the officially released number of Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghur victims.
Beijing insists that Uyghurs' fight is for independence and has condemned their demands for religious freedom and genuine autonomy as separatist agitation. The Uyghurs - members of a Turkic-speaking group that is culturally, religiously and linguistically different from the Han Chinese - have long complained of the heavy-handed Chinese policies.
Li Wei, an expert on terrorism issues with the Chinese Institute for International relations told the Southern Weekend newspaper that the Urumqi riots had the same goal as the Tibetan riots that erupted in the run up to the Beijing Olympics last August.
"This is a provocation by Rebiya aimed at sabotaging the 60th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China," he said. "She has been plotting incessantly and she has been looking for a suitable fuse to fire up unrest in the autonomous region."
Much of the media have attempted to convey a message of danger from "hostile" elements stirring trouble in the ethnic minority areas and has rallied the nation to stand together in the face of the "threat". Photos of paramilitary police officers on TV and the newspapers have been interspersed with the coverage of state leaders visiting wounded people in the hospitals and calling for national unity.
But not all the media have lined up behind the official line of reporting. Some business newspapers - widely perceived as operating outside of sensitive topics as national sovereignty - have probed the reasons for the protests beyond the official sanctioned explanation of separatism.
The China Business Journal for instance, carried an investigation into the triggers for the protests and dared to suggest that widening income disparity between the ethnic Han majority and the Muslim Uyghur minority has played a part in the uprising.
Much alike Tibetans, the Uyghurs have found themselves on the fringes of the Chinese economic miracle. Hoping to benefit from the economic reforms that Han Chinese spearheaded and introduced through the country, they have instead been marginalized as outsiders in their own homeland, witnessing how resources and profits have flown to Han Chinese migrants.
The last census taken in Xinjiang showed that although the nearly 8.4 million Uyghurs are still a majority in their land (they stand at 42% of the total), the Han Chinese population has risen to 38%.
The Urumqi riots - some of the deadliest conflicts between the two ethnic groups in Xinjiang region since the Chinese communist troops arrived there 60 years ago - started with demands by local Uyghurs for the government to investigate the deaths of two Muslim migrant workers in the southern province of Guangdong.
Violence erupted when police began to disperse protesters, spreading across the Han-majority capital city of 2.3 million people. Sympathy protests followed in the traditionally restive towns of Kashgar and Khotan, and in places as far away as Munich and Istanbul. The authorities claim some 184 people died in the riots, more than two-thirds of them Han Chinese.
While the China Business Journal's reporting steered clear of questioning the official version of events, it traced the origins of the conflict to a government-sponsored poverty alleviation project. The migrant workers that died in a brawl in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, were part of a labor force export scheme aimed at reducing social tensions in the most remote parts of Xinjiang.
The two Muslim workers were among the 4,100 people from Shufu county under Kashgar city that were "exported" by local authorities to work as migrant labor in the manufacturing hubs of China's east and south. According to the report, the project had transformed the remote county into a model "labor export" center, attracting some 8,000 recruits since 2008.
"In the poorest areas of China where resources are scarce, labor export is one of the most convenient ways for poverty alleviation," said Chen Yaogao, social researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
While in most areas, migrant force recruitment is conducted by labor agencies or the companies themselves, in the case of Shufu scheme the recruitment was entirely driven by the government. Local authorities contacted manufacturers in Guangdong and in the eastern coast harbor of Tianjin to find placement for the laborers, and even dispatched local cooks to cater to their food needs.
While sounding positive on the government intention, the paper highlighted the problems of Muslim Uyghurs feeling "resentful" of the wealth and living standards of Han Chinese. The report spoke of the "fragility" of the labor export experiment in ethnic minority areas plagued by poverty.
Electronic media has been even more effective in raising public awareness about political and economic inequality between Han and non-Han.
A Chinese-language website, www.uyghurbiz.cn, had emerged as a cyber forum probing Beijing's minority polices and questioning the wisdom of encouraging the migration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang. The Internet forum, founded by Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, had argued that Beijing's polices were in need of revision as they had put Uyghurs at disadvantage and alienated them.
As Beijing tried to silence the forum after the riots, the response by online activists was immediate. A lobby of more than 100 Chinese writers and intellectuals published a letter calling for the release of www.uyghurbiz.cn's founder. Ilham Tohti was reported missing from his Beijing home this week and has apparently been detained.
The letter posted online on Monday urged Beijing to reflect on whether its own mistakes caused the unrest in Xinjiang and the anti-government riots last year in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities.
(Inter Press Service)
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - The story of ethnic strife engulfing China's far-western province of Xinjiang may have been relegated to the inner pages of the country's state-controlled newspapers, but it found space on the front pages of almost every other Chinese daily.
Unlike the Tibetan riots last year, when the media were initially told to suppress the story, the clashes between Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghurs that erupted in the provincial capital of Urumqi on July 5 was widely reported.
In many ways, this is symbolic of the profound changes taking shape in this fast-developing society, which the communist mandarins can no longer fully control.
Taking cue from the protests in Iran, where the emergence of new
media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube ensured the story was broadcast to the rest of the world, Beijing was eager to put its own version out as quickly as possible.
On July 7, widely read local newspapers like the Beijing Youth Daily and the Beijing News published pictures of burned cars, smashed buses and bloodied people in Urumqi. Accompanying reports from the state news agency, Xinhua, claimed the violence that erupted was "a pre-empted, organized violent crime. It is instigated and directed from abroad and carried out by outlaws in the country".
Beijing has blamed Rebiya Kadeer - a female Muslim-American emigre, as well as pro-independence Uyghur groups in exile in Washington, Munich and London for masterminding the revolt from afar.
Even the Southern Weekend - a liberal newspaper based in China's free-wheeling south - fell in line with the mandated version of events. It devoted a full page to profiling Kadeer, describing her as "the Dalai Lama of Uyghur people". It spent little effort on probing how more than a hundred people died in a matter of hours in a city swamped with paramilitary police or questioning the officially released number of Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghur victims.
Beijing insists that Uyghurs' fight is for independence and has condemned their demands for religious freedom and genuine autonomy as separatist agitation. The Uyghurs - members of a Turkic-speaking group that is culturally, religiously and linguistically different from the Han Chinese - have long complained of the heavy-handed Chinese policies.
Li Wei, an expert on terrorism issues with the Chinese Institute for International relations told the Southern Weekend newspaper that the Urumqi riots had the same goal as the Tibetan riots that erupted in the run up to the Beijing Olympics last August.
"This is a provocation by Rebiya aimed at sabotaging the 60th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China," he said. "She has been plotting incessantly and she has been looking for a suitable fuse to fire up unrest in the autonomous region."
Much of the media have attempted to convey a message of danger from "hostile" elements stirring trouble in the ethnic minority areas and has rallied the nation to stand together in the face of the "threat". Photos of paramilitary police officers on TV and the newspapers have been interspersed with the coverage of state leaders visiting wounded people in the hospitals and calling for national unity.
But not all the media have lined up behind the official line of reporting. Some business newspapers - widely perceived as operating outside of sensitive topics as national sovereignty - have probed the reasons for the protests beyond the official sanctioned explanation of separatism.
The China Business Journal for instance, carried an investigation into the triggers for the protests and dared to suggest that widening income disparity between the ethnic Han majority and the Muslim Uyghur minority has played a part in the uprising.
Much alike Tibetans, the Uyghurs have found themselves on the fringes of the Chinese economic miracle. Hoping to benefit from the economic reforms that Han Chinese spearheaded and introduced through the country, they have instead been marginalized as outsiders in their own homeland, witnessing how resources and profits have flown to Han Chinese migrants.
The last census taken in Xinjiang showed that although the nearly 8.4 million Uyghurs are still a majority in their land (they stand at 42% of the total), the Han Chinese population has risen to 38%.
The Urumqi riots - some of the deadliest conflicts between the two ethnic groups in Xinjiang region since the Chinese communist troops arrived there 60 years ago - started with demands by local Uyghurs for the government to investigate the deaths of two Muslim migrant workers in the southern province of Guangdong.
Violence erupted when police began to disperse protesters, spreading across the Han-majority capital city of 2.3 million people. Sympathy protests followed in the traditionally restive towns of Kashgar and Khotan, and in places as far away as Munich and Istanbul. The authorities claim some 184 people died in the riots, more than two-thirds of them Han Chinese.
While the China Business Journal's reporting steered clear of questioning the official version of events, it traced the origins of the conflict to a government-sponsored poverty alleviation project. The migrant workers that died in a brawl in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, were part of a labor force export scheme aimed at reducing social tensions in the most remote parts of Xinjiang.
The two Muslim workers were among the 4,100 people from Shufu county under Kashgar city that were "exported" by local authorities to work as migrant labor in the manufacturing hubs of China's east and south. According to the report, the project had transformed the remote county into a model "labor export" center, attracting some 8,000 recruits since 2008.
"In the poorest areas of China where resources are scarce, labor export is one of the most convenient ways for poverty alleviation," said Chen Yaogao, social researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
While in most areas, migrant force recruitment is conducted by labor agencies or the companies themselves, in the case of Shufu scheme the recruitment was entirely driven by the government. Local authorities contacted manufacturers in Guangdong and in the eastern coast harbor of Tianjin to find placement for the laborers, and even dispatched local cooks to cater to their food needs.
While sounding positive on the government intention, the paper highlighted the problems of Muslim Uyghurs feeling "resentful" of the wealth and living standards of Han Chinese. The report spoke of the "fragility" of the labor export experiment in ethnic minority areas plagued by poverty.
Electronic media has been even more effective in raising public awareness about political and economic inequality between Han and non-Han.
A Chinese-language website, www.uyghurbiz.cn, had emerged as a cyber forum probing Beijing's minority polices and questioning the wisdom of encouraging the migration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang. The Internet forum, founded by Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, had argued that Beijing's polices were in need of revision as they had put Uyghurs at disadvantage and alienated them.
As Beijing tried to silence the forum after the riots, the response by online activists was immediate. A lobby of more than 100 Chinese writers and intellectuals published a letter calling for the release of www.uyghurbiz.cn's founder. Ilham Tohti was reported missing from his Beijing home this week and has apparently been detained.
The letter posted online on Monday urged Beijing to reflect on whether its own mistakes caused the unrest in Xinjiang and the anti-government riots last year in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities.
(Inter Press Service)
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy by Christina Larson
The Uighurs aren't extremists--but the Chinese government may change that.
Post Date Thursday, July 16, 2009
Columns of paramilitary police are now keeping a tenuous peace in Urumqi, the western Chinese city where more than 1,000 Uighurs rioted ten days ago in the bloodiest clash in decades between the authorities and the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority group.
The eight million Uighurs who live in Xinjiang province have long chafed at Beijing's rule. Shortly after the United States introduced the concept of a global "war on terror," the local police seized the opportunity to ratchet up already stringent security measures aimed at Uighurs under the mantra of cracking down on the "three evils" of "terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism." The police treat these threats as interchangeable and as the underlying source of Uighur discontent in the region, despite the abundance of obvious socio-economic grievances-- which range from income inequality to dilapidated schools to job discrimination. The resulting dynamic is a simmering cauldron of unrest, ever threatening to boil over as in last week's riots.
But perhaps the most tragic irony lies in the Chinese insistence that Uighur dissent is rooted in ideology and religion, and that recent incidents of violence--such as the string of bus bombings and attacks on police that last year riled southwestern Xinjiang--are the work of Islamic extremists and agitators tied to foreign campaigns. In truth, the Uighurs' observance of Islam is largely apolitical, but by treating the Muslim faith itself as a threat and sharply curbing religious practice in Xinjiang, Chinese security forces may end up breeding the very kind of insurrection they are now trying to quell.
In principle, Islam is one of China's five officially recognized and legal faiths. But in practice, Uighurs face a litany of restrictions on daily devotional life: In Urumqi, mosques are banned from playing the call to prayer; in the ancient city of Kashgar, anyone under age 18 is barred from entering mosques during major Muslim festivals; and throughout the province, inspectors from China's ethnic Han majority routinely saunter into mosques to post government propaganda and peruse log books. As one Uighur man told me outside a mosque in Kashgar, "In theory, we have more religious freedom now [than during the Cultural Revolution]. But in reality, it is different. Of course it makes us angry."
It's not uncommon to feel threatened by what you don't understand. And fundamentally, the Chinese Communist Party, which was founded on materialist principles and encourages atheism among its members, doesn't understand religion. Its leaders see every non-state-supervised religious gathering, or attempt to impart values to children, as a potential threat to their political authority.
It's true that the Uighurs in Xinjiang are devout. Last fall, when I visited Kashgar during Ramadan, every Uighur man I met was keeping the fast. And on the holy month's final day, called the Rozi Festival, ten thousand men from across southwestern Xinjiang gathered to mark the occasion outside the city's historic Id Kah mosque. It's also true that the restive western province is located smack in the middle of volatile central Asia and borders eight nations, some of which, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, are wrestling with Muslim extremism.
Yet if you visit Xinjiang, you'll hear little about jihad or fatwas, and few diatribes against contemporary lifestyles, women's rights, or capitalism. The Uighurs, like the Turks with whom they share ethnic and linguistic roots, embrace a blending of devotion and modernity. While Islam is a central aspect of their identity, Uighurs don't view the world, or their relationship to Beijing, as an ecclesiastical clash of civilizations. They have plenty of complaints about Chinese government policy, but those grievances aren't formulated or expressed in the name of Allah. Nor do Uighur clerics enforce a culturally conservative outlook. Women in Kashgar wear headscarves, but they also zip themselves about town on motorbikes.
Although the world knows little about Xinjiang, educated Uighurs themselves tend to be outward-looking: Many speak three languages (Uighur, Mandarin, and English), and their English is often more fluent than that of their Han counterparts. Far from decrying global pop culture, Uighurs I met spoke fondly of Bruce Springsteen, Lindsay Lohan, and Braveheart.
As Gardner Bovingdon, professor of East Asian and Eurasian studies at Indiana University, told me, "The Islam of Xinjiang is not the Islam ascendant in some Middle Eastern countries, where religion is more fundamentalist, textualist, rigid." Uighurs, he added, have a heritage that is distinct--culturally, linguistically, and in outlook--from the Arab countries sometimes understood as Islamist flashpoints.
In fact, the notion of highly politicized religion seems at odds with Uighur mentality. When I traveled along the Karakorum Highway, a winding mountainous route stretching between Kashgar and Islamabad, my Uighur driver was quite concerned that we not actually cross the border into Pakistan. "It's a dangerous country--it's fundamentalist," he said. I asked him what that meant, and he explained, with a touch of mirth, "Fundamentalism means the men make the women stay home and take care of their bad children." Humor aside, he said he didn't want his home to become a place where Islam was deeply politicized. For now, he saw Xinjiang as different.
Some observers credit China's strict border controls--including a policy of routinely denying visa requests to Uighurs who wish to visit Mecca--with insulating the region from more incendiary religious factions in neighboring and nearby countries.
But at the same time, many analysts believe that further restricting religious observance--a troubling likelihood today, as Chinese authorities look for scapegoats in the wake of the riots--could encourage radicalism. A recent Human Rights Watch report makes a detailed and alarming case that China's "overbroad and repressive policies in Xinjiang deepen local resentment and risk further destabilizing the region." Or, as Andrew Nathan, chair of the political science department at Columbia University, puts it: "It's a real dilemma for the Chinese regime: They have long been committed to this regulatory repressive track, but it produces resentment. It produces resistance."
One afternoon, when I was visiting a small village mosque in southwest Xinjiang, two Han inspectors sauntered in, out of place in their dark brimmed hats; they didn't ask any questions, but seemed there largely to intimidate, to make their presence felt. My Uighur guide felt instantly uncomfortable, as if incriminated, and insisted we leave. The impression such encounters have left him with is: "I don't like police. They are always rude and rough."
Fueling popular indignation is a serious risk. As Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute's Center for Political-Military Analysis, points out, the Chinese government could target alleged extremists (if they existed) without putting the entire Muslim community of Xinjiang under suspicion: "What should the government do if it was trying to control a real threat? Short term: Infiltrate these groups; arrest people with arms. Long term: Eliminate source of grievances, and allow more autonomy, religious and cultural freedom. ... Calling everyone a terrorist is not useful to achieving the goal of stability."
Or, as Nathan puts it: "Islam is extremely diverse. We should not 'essentialize' Islam. ... Countries and governments hurt themselves with the idea of a class of civilizations. We paint ourselves into a corner. We make a situation much worse by our imagination."
Christina Larson is an editor at Foreign Policy magazine and a fellow at the New America Foundation. She reports from Washington, DC, and Asia.
The Uighurs aren't extremists--but the Chinese government may change that.
Post Date Thursday, July 16, 2009
Columns of paramilitary police are now keeping a tenuous peace in Urumqi, the western Chinese city where more than 1,000 Uighurs rioted ten days ago in the bloodiest clash in decades between the authorities and the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority group.
The eight million Uighurs who live in Xinjiang province have long chafed at Beijing's rule. Shortly after the United States introduced the concept of a global "war on terror," the local police seized the opportunity to ratchet up already stringent security measures aimed at Uighurs under the mantra of cracking down on the "three evils" of "terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism." The police treat these threats as interchangeable and as the underlying source of Uighur discontent in the region, despite the abundance of obvious socio-economic grievances-- which range from income inequality to dilapidated schools to job discrimination. The resulting dynamic is a simmering cauldron of unrest, ever threatening to boil over as in last week's riots.
But perhaps the most tragic irony lies in the Chinese insistence that Uighur dissent is rooted in ideology and religion, and that recent incidents of violence--such as the string of bus bombings and attacks on police that last year riled southwestern Xinjiang--are the work of Islamic extremists and agitators tied to foreign campaigns. In truth, the Uighurs' observance of Islam is largely apolitical, but by treating the Muslim faith itself as a threat and sharply curbing religious practice in Xinjiang, Chinese security forces may end up breeding the very kind of insurrection they are now trying to quell.
In principle, Islam is one of China's five officially recognized and legal faiths. But in practice, Uighurs face a litany of restrictions on daily devotional life: In Urumqi, mosques are banned from playing the call to prayer; in the ancient city of Kashgar, anyone under age 18 is barred from entering mosques during major Muslim festivals; and throughout the province, inspectors from China's ethnic Han majority routinely saunter into mosques to post government propaganda and peruse log books. As one Uighur man told me outside a mosque in Kashgar, "In theory, we have more religious freedom now [than during the Cultural Revolution]. But in reality, it is different. Of course it makes us angry."
It's not uncommon to feel threatened by what you don't understand. And fundamentally, the Chinese Communist Party, which was founded on materialist principles and encourages atheism among its members, doesn't understand religion. Its leaders see every non-state-supervised religious gathering, or attempt to impart values to children, as a potential threat to their political authority.
It's true that the Uighurs in Xinjiang are devout. Last fall, when I visited Kashgar during Ramadan, every Uighur man I met was keeping the fast. And on the holy month's final day, called the Rozi Festival, ten thousand men from across southwestern Xinjiang gathered to mark the occasion outside the city's historic Id Kah mosque. It's also true that the restive western province is located smack in the middle of volatile central Asia and borders eight nations, some of which, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, are wrestling with Muslim extremism.
Yet if you visit Xinjiang, you'll hear little about jihad or fatwas, and few diatribes against contemporary lifestyles, women's rights, or capitalism. The Uighurs, like the Turks with whom they share ethnic and linguistic roots, embrace a blending of devotion and modernity. While Islam is a central aspect of their identity, Uighurs don't view the world, or their relationship to Beijing, as an ecclesiastical clash of civilizations. They have plenty of complaints about Chinese government policy, but those grievances aren't formulated or expressed in the name of Allah. Nor do Uighur clerics enforce a culturally conservative outlook. Women in Kashgar wear headscarves, but they also zip themselves about town on motorbikes.
Although the world knows little about Xinjiang, educated Uighurs themselves tend to be outward-looking: Many speak three languages (Uighur, Mandarin, and English), and their English is often more fluent than that of their Han counterparts. Far from decrying global pop culture, Uighurs I met spoke fondly of Bruce Springsteen, Lindsay Lohan, and Braveheart.
As Gardner Bovingdon, professor of East Asian and Eurasian studies at Indiana University, told me, "The Islam of Xinjiang is not the Islam ascendant in some Middle Eastern countries, where religion is more fundamentalist, textualist, rigid." Uighurs, he added, have a heritage that is distinct--culturally, linguistically, and in outlook--from the Arab countries sometimes understood as Islamist flashpoints.
In fact, the notion of highly politicized religion seems at odds with Uighur mentality. When I traveled along the Karakorum Highway, a winding mountainous route stretching between Kashgar and Islamabad, my Uighur driver was quite concerned that we not actually cross the border into Pakistan. "It's a dangerous country--it's fundamentalist," he said. I asked him what that meant, and he explained, with a touch of mirth, "Fundamentalism means the men make the women stay home and take care of their bad children." Humor aside, he said he didn't want his home to become a place where Islam was deeply politicized. For now, he saw Xinjiang as different.
Some observers credit China's strict border controls--including a policy of routinely denying visa requests to Uighurs who wish to visit Mecca--with insulating the region from more incendiary religious factions in neighboring and nearby countries.
But at the same time, many analysts believe that further restricting religious observance--a troubling likelihood today, as Chinese authorities look for scapegoats in the wake of the riots--could encourage radicalism. A recent Human Rights Watch report makes a detailed and alarming case that China's "overbroad and repressive policies in Xinjiang deepen local resentment and risk further destabilizing the region." Or, as Andrew Nathan, chair of the political science department at Columbia University, puts it: "It's a real dilemma for the Chinese regime: They have long been committed to this regulatory repressive track, but it produces resentment. It produces resistance."
One afternoon, when I was visiting a small village mosque in southwest Xinjiang, two Han inspectors sauntered in, out of place in their dark brimmed hats; they didn't ask any questions, but seemed there largely to intimidate, to make their presence felt. My Uighur guide felt instantly uncomfortable, as if incriminated, and insisted we leave. The impression such encounters have left him with is: "I don't like police. They are always rude and rough."
Fueling popular indignation is a serious risk. As Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute's Center for Political-Military Analysis, points out, the Chinese government could target alleged extremists (if they existed) without putting the entire Muslim community of Xinjiang under suspicion: "What should the government do if it was trying to control a real threat? Short term: Infiltrate these groups; arrest people with arms. Long term: Eliminate source of grievances, and allow more autonomy, religious and cultural freedom. ... Calling everyone a terrorist is not useful to achieving the goal of stability."
Or, as Nathan puts it: "Islam is extremely diverse. We should not 'essentialize' Islam. ... Countries and governments hurt themselves with the idea of a class of civilizations. We paint ourselves into a corner. We make a situation much worse by our imagination."
Christina Larson is an editor at Foreign Policy magazine and a fellow at the New America Foundation. She reports from Washington, DC, and Asia.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Cruel China, Miserable Uyghur and Disabled World
Cruel China, Miserable Uyghur and Disabled World"
By Uyghur Oghlu
It is an undeniable fact that Uyghur people have suffered tremendously under the Chinese communist regime over the past 60 years. The destruction and tragedy that China has imposed on Uyghurs is no less than the holocaust that the fascist Germany committed against innocent Jews people. Although the nature of China's oppression of Uyghurs has been static prior to "9.11", the scale and intensity of it have been widended and acclerated after "9.11".
Seven years ago from today, although there is a day and light, Earth and Mars differences between the way of Uyghur life and lunatic Al-Qaida and Taliban Maniacs, Richard Armitage declared in Bejing that "ETIM", a fake organization that Uyghurs have never heard of as a terrorist organization. The opportunistic Chinese communist leaders took advantage of this, began to categorically demonize the Uyghur people as terrorists or terror suspects. Needless to say, US listing of so-called "ETIM" has played a catalyst role for China to oppress Uyghurs even harsher. With that declaration, the United Stated of America which stands for as a beacon of hope for oppressed people, and only one country on earth that can tremble the dictators in China and around the globe has sold out its core value, and debased its image among the oppressed people. Having won their jackpot from US, China attacked Uyghurs in every dimension of life.
Let's not talk about the innocent Uyghurs killed during the various political campaigns directed at Uyghurs since 1949.
Let's not talk about the untimely deaths of thousands of poor Uyghurs who without knowing what the cause of their diseases due to China's numerous atomic bomb tests in Uyghur Land since 1960.
Let's not talk about the mental and physical deaths of kind and naive uyghur women whose babies were aborted in an abject condition due to forced abortion.
Let's talk about how China increased its oppression of uyghurs since "9..11";
In violation of their own constituion and Autonomus Regional Law, China restricted Uyghur culture. Uyghur lanuguage was forbidden to teach at schools, and Mandarin was forced on Uyghur Children when they were in kindergarden. Uyghur teachers, and government staff were laid off due to insuffient Chinese language, where it is not needed at all. Uyghur government workers were forced to shave off their symbol of manhood - moustaches and beards and fined or reprimanded them for going to the mosque or attending the burial rituals. Uyghur youth who were found jogging or doing physical exercise were questioned for their motive of their increasing physical strength. Since 2006, hundreds and thousand of young and beautiful Uyghur girls were transferred to China's coastal regions in the name of employment. These girls' age range from 14-22 and are at the best of their reproductive age. Due to the revelation of this political campaign and subsequent international inquiry on this campaign, Wang le quan and his puppet Nur Bekri began to transfer young and able Uyghur men to the coastal region to cover their motive. Those young Uyghurs literaly were turned into modern slaves working for a dime per hour. Uyghurs who protested these policy were imprisoned at best, and executed at the worts, despite international organizations' criticism of China's human rights record. The local Chinese officials have turned Uyghur land which located in Central Asia into a "new concentration camp" in 21th century with Chinese caracteristics.
Uyghurs complained, screamed and cried, but no government dared to say anything to China.
As if these misery were not enough for uyghurs, Newt Ginggrich and Rush Limbaugh took sides with Communst China and demonized Uyghurs. what a dirty lap dancing?
Three things have happened recently in Uyghur life and it reminded us the cruelty of China, misery of uyghurs, and impotency of the world.
Listen world, you are semi-deaf. you heard the "calling" from Iran, and mourned the death of innocent girl - "Neda". but you have not heard the cry of uyghurs. Uyghurs started to cry louder since May'2009, when a 33 year old Chinese beast surnamed Zhao, a primary school language teacher who was recruited by government to teach Uyghur pupils in the historical Uyghur city of Yarkand- were discovered to have had sexually assaulted more than a dozen innocent Uyghur girls whose age ranges 8-11 old. For his unforgivable crime, he was protected by the school principal Liu Yu Mei, and along with other local Chinese police. The uyghur parents who demanded him be punished harshly were intimitated, discouraged.
Hello Chinese people, Hello parents in the world, don't you have kids? what were you do, if that happens to your children?
The second incident happened in Shao guan, Guangdong. The victims are 800 Uyghur young workers, of whom most were female. They were brought there by the intimidation and deception of so-called ineffective Autonomous Regional Government in mid-June of 2009. On June 26th, thousands of Chinese gangsters in Shaoguan attacked these young Uyghurs who were unaware of the death was falling on them. Any normal person with a human heart who sees the video distributed by the Chinese themselves will be furious at the crulety of those Chinese. In it, Uyghurs who were attempting to escape the Chinese terrorists were beaten to death. The more enraging fact is that the Chinese police did not come on time, and delayed protection of these innocent Uyghurs who were the victims of Wang Le quan's terror policy. As a result, a number of them died, and many of them were severely injured. I could not believe that Chinese people would show such cruelty toward Uyghurs who have done nothing wrong and happened to be their fellow citizens. Later, it turned out that these Chinese terrorists were instigated by a rumor made by another dissatisfied Chinese factory worker.
Poor Uyghurs, poor and soulless Chinese.
Had the police protected these innocent victims at the time, and Wang le quan or Nur Bekri flew to Guang Dong and paid attention to Uyghurs' pain, things would not have gotten this bad. The incoming tragedy must have been averted. I have the sympathy for the victims of Nanking massacre, and hate those war criminals, and I thought Chinese were better than those war criminals. but not anymore. In that video, holding the metal rods and other violent tools, shouts the Chinese: "Kill the Uyghurs, Kill them all!", and they raise their hands with pride and sense of victory each time an Uyghur falls. Did they think these Uyghurs came from Japan?
I did not forget that Chinese internet police has built the strongest online great wall to serve their national interest. I thought that unity comes from equality, and I believed that equality, unity and harmony among ethnic groups would make China stronger and greater. Having seen that video, I am convinced that Chinese descended to evilness, and Chinese people don't care about their image in the interconnected world. And they want to stay forever selfish and cruel as third class world citizens by trading the greatness with their surging nationalism. What a expensive trade, and what a high price to pay?
It must be noted that nationalism is a double edge sword. I worry that it hurts all parties involved. immediately after Shao guan massacre, young Chinese vented their anger toward Uyghurs, and instigated other Chinese to wipe out Uyghurs from the face of earth. I am surprised that when and how they began to share Ahmadi Nijad's idiology that "wipe out those whom you don't like". Some Chinese netizens even recommended government carry out a holocaust against Uyghurs. Until this day, I did not know that Chinese internet police along with Chinese netizens share the same feeling and would openly adore Adolf Hitler. "China needs Adolf Hitler, slaughter these Uyghur pigs", some Chinese netizens commented. May Almighty forbid that one of these fanatics will become the President of China in the future. If that happens, the possibility that he will turn the world into ashes will increase..
The holocaust that happened in the last century was a stain and shame that humanity can't and should not erase easily. It must be remembered to forewarn the present and future generations who may like to taste the blood of others.
Reports came out since yesterday that Uyghur students were suppressed by the Chinese military and we don't know how many Uyghurs died in Urumqi as of now. We also saw that incompetent governor, Nur Bekri finally gave an explanation about Shao Guan Massacre. Although he twisted the facts, he was late. Wang le quan and Nur Bekri could have easily prevented Urumqi massacre by taking a just and humble approach. But they showed the true face of blood thirsty dictators. We don't know what is going on in Urumqi now. It was also reported that Chinese civilians and semi-military population in Bing Tuan were armed themselves, organized and began to attack innocent people as long as they are Uyghurs. I doubt that Chinese state television will show the Uyghur victims of Chinese attack to the visiting foreign press.
Yes, all this happened and happening now in Urumqi, the capital of an ethnic Autonomous Region that China's constitution granted.
I am very shocked to find out that the world is much disabled than I imagined. The images show that Chinese in Urumqi is carrying out ethnic cleansing with the protection of Chinese Army and the Police. The world is not seeing it and could not see it. But they saw it when it happened in Darfur, Even George Clooney saw it. Fareed Zakaria saw it when it happened to Tibetans. Bill Clinton saw it when it happened to Kosovar people. And the world spoke out on behalf of all of them.
But now? They are all deaf and blind.
Whom do we expect some kind of humantarian gesture, a kind of ethical response to this incident?
By biologically defined marks, Uyghurs were related to Turks. Did not we hear from them? yes, we did. We heard that Turkish Authorities entrusted Chinese justice System standing in line with Beijing. Abdulla Gul must have been well received in Zhong nan hai.
It is useless to mention the independent Turkic states in Central Asia. They have a history of harming Uyghurs at the request of Beijing, because they can get benefits from China. Our neighbor, Pakistan and its army also have the history of killing or extraditing Uyghurs per Beijing's demand. The former Pakistani dictator- president Musharrap (May god curse him forever) was the first head of a sovereign government that accused Uyghurs of terrorsim without evidence, just to please Jiang Ze min.
Yes, I emphasize that the majority of Uyghurs were muslims, therefore it is natural to observe other muslim countries' attitude toward Uyghurs.
Syria has expelled Axmatjan Osman, a famous uyghur poet whose wife is Syrian, because China asked her to do so.
Neither Saudi king nor other so-called protectors of Islam has uttered a word on Chinese persecution of Uyghur muslims. China and these muslim states lick each other's lips as they think they have a common enemy - The West and Democracy. That leaves Uyghurs with some China-wary democratic western countries and although small but beautiful, kind and couragous great states like Albania, Bermuda and Palau..
I believe Uyghurs who are good at businesses remember those transactions. Believe me we will give the due credit when time comes to those who helped us in times of great diffuclty and do the same to those who had done the worst to us.
Hello world, have you lost your senses? something horrible must be happening in Uyghur land now. Please speak up!! What you do for Uyghurs today, will be your doings for yourself in tomorrow!
Please ask the United Nations, The United States and The European Union send an independent, impartial delegation to Urumqi, and have them investigate this massacre!.
Where are you, Spanish Judge? Wang le quan is committing genocidal crime aganist Uyghurs.
Hello Texas, Can you ask George W. Bush, if he still remembers by his statement that the United States Government stands by oppressed people. As a former president , his words still carries some weight.
Finally America, and freedom loving American people, can you please tell President Obama that Uyghurs can't expect an audacious hope for their freedom from him, but only craving a tiny ray of hope for their basic human rights???
By Uyghur Oghlu
It is an undeniable fact that Uyghur people have suffered tremendously under the Chinese communist regime over the past 60 years. The destruction and tragedy that China has imposed on Uyghurs is no less than the holocaust that the fascist Germany committed against innocent Jews people. Although the nature of China's oppression of Uyghurs has been static prior to "9.11", the scale and intensity of it have been widended and acclerated after "9.11".
Seven years ago from today, although there is a day and light, Earth and Mars differences between the way of Uyghur life and lunatic Al-Qaida and Taliban Maniacs, Richard Armitage declared in Bejing that "ETIM", a fake organization that Uyghurs have never heard of as a terrorist organization. The opportunistic Chinese communist leaders took advantage of this, began to categorically demonize the Uyghur people as terrorists or terror suspects. Needless to say, US listing of so-called "ETIM" has played a catalyst role for China to oppress Uyghurs even harsher. With that declaration, the United Stated of America which stands for as a beacon of hope for oppressed people, and only one country on earth that can tremble the dictators in China and around the globe has sold out its core value, and debased its image among the oppressed people. Having won their jackpot from US, China attacked Uyghurs in every dimension of life.
Let's not talk about the innocent Uyghurs killed during the various political campaigns directed at Uyghurs since 1949.
Let's not talk about the untimely deaths of thousands of poor Uyghurs who without knowing what the cause of their diseases due to China's numerous atomic bomb tests in Uyghur Land since 1960.
Let's not talk about the mental and physical deaths of kind and naive uyghur women whose babies were aborted in an abject condition due to forced abortion.
Let's talk about how China increased its oppression of uyghurs since "9..11";
In violation of their own constituion and Autonomus Regional Law, China restricted Uyghur culture. Uyghur lanuguage was forbidden to teach at schools, and Mandarin was forced on Uyghur Children when they were in kindergarden. Uyghur teachers, and government staff were laid off due to insuffient Chinese language, where it is not needed at all. Uyghur government workers were forced to shave off their symbol of manhood - moustaches and beards and fined or reprimanded them for going to the mosque or attending the burial rituals. Uyghur youth who were found jogging or doing physical exercise were questioned for their motive of their increasing physical strength. Since 2006, hundreds and thousand of young and beautiful Uyghur girls were transferred to China's coastal regions in the name of employment. These girls' age range from 14-22 and are at the best of their reproductive age. Due to the revelation of this political campaign and subsequent international inquiry on this campaign, Wang le quan and his puppet Nur Bekri began to transfer young and able Uyghur men to the coastal region to cover their motive. Those young Uyghurs literaly were turned into modern slaves working for a dime per hour. Uyghurs who protested these policy were imprisoned at best, and executed at the worts, despite international organizations' criticism of China's human rights record. The local Chinese officials have turned Uyghur land which located in Central Asia into a "new concentration camp" in 21th century with Chinese caracteristics.
Uyghurs complained, screamed and cried, but no government dared to say anything to China.
As if these misery were not enough for uyghurs, Newt Ginggrich and Rush Limbaugh took sides with Communst China and demonized Uyghurs. what a dirty lap dancing?
Three things have happened recently in Uyghur life and it reminded us the cruelty of China, misery of uyghurs, and impotency of the world.
Listen world, you are semi-deaf. you heard the "calling" from Iran, and mourned the death of innocent girl - "Neda". but you have not heard the cry of uyghurs. Uyghurs started to cry louder since May'2009, when a 33 year old Chinese beast surnamed Zhao, a primary school language teacher who was recruited by government to teach Uyghur pupils in the historical Uyghur city of Yarkand- were discovered to have had sexually assaulted more than a dozen innocent Uyghur girls whose age ranges 8-11 old. For his unforgivable crime, he was protected by the school principal Liu Yu Mei, and along with other local Chinese police. The uyghur parents who demanded him be punished harshly were intimitated, discouraged.
Hello Chinese people, Hello parents in the world, don't you have kids? what were you do, if that happens to your children?
The second incident happened in Shao guan, Guangdong. The victims are 800 Uyghur young workers, of whom most were female. They were brought there by the intimidation and deception of so-called ineffective Autonomous Regional Government in mid-June of 2009. On June 26th, thousands of Chinese gangsters in Shaoguan attacked these young Uyghurs who were unaware of the death was falling on them. Any normal person with a human heart who sees the video distributed by the Chinese themselves will be furious at the crulety of those Chinese. In it, Uyghurs who were attempting to escape the Chinese terrorists were beaten to death. The more enraging fact is that the Chinese police did not come on time, and delayed protection of these innocent Uyghurs who were the victims of Wang Le quan's terror policy. As a result, a number of them died, and many of them were severely injured. I could not believe that Chinese people would show such cruelty toward Uyghurs who have done nothing wrong and happened to be their fellow citizens. Later, it turned out that these Chinese terrorists were instigated by a rumor made by another dissatisfied Chinese factory worker.
Poor Uyghurs, poor and soulless Chinese.
Had the police protected these innocent victims at the time, and Wang le quan or Nur Bekri flew to Guang Dong and paid attention to Uyghurs' pain, things would not have gotten this bad. The incoming tragedy must have been averted. I have the sympathy for the victims of Nanking massacre, and hate those war criminals, and I thought Chinese were better than those war criminals. but not anymore. In that video, holding the metal rods and other violent tools, shouts the Chinese: "Kill the Uyghurs, Kill them all!", and they raise their hands with pride and sense of victory each time an Uyghur falls. Did they think these Uyghurs came from Japan?
I did not forget that Chinese internet police has built the strongest online great wall to serve their national interest. I thought that unity comes from equality, and I believed that equality, unity and harmony among ethnic groups would make China stronger and greater. Having seen that video, I am convinced that Chinese descended to evilness, and Chinese people don't care about their image in the interconnected world. And they want to stay forever selfish and cruel as third class world citizens by trading the greatness with their surging nationalism. What a expensive trade, and what a high price to pay?
It must be noted that nationalism is a double edge sword. I worry that it hurts all parties involved. immediately after Shao guan massacre, young Chinese vented their anger toward Uyghurs, and instigated other Chinese to wipe out Uyghurs from the face of earth. I am surprised that when and how they began to share Ahmadi Nijad's idiology that "wipe out those whom you don't like". Some Chinese netizens even recommended government carry out a holocaust against Uyghurs. Until this day, I did not know that Chinese internet police along with Chinese netizens share the same feeling and would openly adore Adolf Hitler. "China needs Adolf Hitler, slaughter these Uyghur pigs", some Chinese netizens commented. May Almighty forbid that one of these fanatics will become the President of China in the future. If that happens, the possibility that he will turn the world into ashes will increase..
The holocaust that happened in the last century was a stain and shame that humanity can't and should not erase easily. It must be remembered to forewarn the present and future generations who may like to taste the blood of others.
Reports came out since yesterday that Uyghur students were suppressed by the Chinese military and we don't know how many Uyghurs died in Urumqi as of now. We also saw that incompetent governor, Nur Bekri finally gave an explanation about Shao Guan Massacre. Although he twisted the facts, he was late. Wang le quan and Nur Bekri could have easily prevented Urumqi massacre by taking a just and humble approach. But they showed the true face of blood thirsty dictators. We don't know what is going on in Urumqi now. It was also reported that Chinese civilians and semi-military population in Bing Tuan were armed themselves, organized and began to attack innocent people as long as they are Uyghurs. I doubt that Chinese state television will show the Uyghur victims of Chinese attack to the visiting foreign press.
Yes, all this happened and happening now in Urumqi, the capital of an ethnic Autonomous Region that China's constitution granted.
I am very shocked to find out that the world is much disabled than I imagined. The images show that Chinese in Urumqi is carrying out ethnic cleansing with the protection of Chinese Army and the Police. The world is not seeing it and could not see it. But they saw it when it happened in Darfur, Even George Clooney saw it. Fareed Zakaria saw it when it happened to Tibetans. Bill Clinton saw it when it happened to Kosovar people. And the world spoke out on behalf of all of them.
But now? They are all deaf and blind.
Whom do we expect some kind of humantarian gesture, a kind of ethical response to this incident?
By biologically defined marks, Uyghurs were related to Turks. Did not we hear from them? yes, we did. We heard that Turkish Authorities entrusted Chinese justice System standing in line with Beijing. Abdulla Gul must have been well received in Zhong nan hai.
It is useless to mention the independent Turkic states in Central Asia. They have a history of harming Uyghurs at the request of Beijing, because they can get benefits from China. Our neighbor, Pakistan and its army also have the history of killing or extraditing Uyghurs per Beijing's demand. The former Pakistani dictator- president Musharrap (May god curse him forever) was the first head of a sovereign government that accused Uyghurs of terrorsim without evidence, just to please Jiang Ze min.
Yes, I emphasize that the majority of Uyghurs were muslims, therefore it is natural to observe other muslim countries' attitude toward Uyghurs.
Syria has expelled Axmatjan Osman, a famous uyghur poet whose wife is Syrian, because China asked her to do so.
Neither Saudi king nor other so-called protectors of Islam has uttered a word on Chinese persecution of Uyghur muslims. China and these muslim states lick each other's lips as they think they have a common enemy - The West and Democracy. That leaves Uyghurs with some China-wary democratic western countries and although small but beautiful, kind and couragous great states like Albania, Bermuda and Palau..
I believe Uyghurs who are good at businesses remember those transactions. Believe me we will give the due credit when time comes to those who helped us in times of great diffuclty and do the same to those who had done the worst to us.
Hello world, have you lost your senses? something horrible must be happening in Uyghur land now. Please speak up!! What you do for Uyghurs today, will be your doings for yourself in tomorrow!
Please ask the United Nations, The United States and The European Union send an independent, impartial delegation to Urumqi, and have them investigate this massacre!.
Where are you, Spanish Judge? Wang le quan is committing genocidal crime aganist Uyghurs.
Hello Texas, Can you ask George W. Bush, if he still remembers by his statement that the United States Government stands by oppressed people. As a former president , his words still carries some weight.
Finally America, and freedom loving American people, can you please tell President Obama that Uyghurs can't expect an audacious hope for their freedom from him, but only craving a tiny ray of hope for their basic human rights???
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A civil rights movement for Uighurs
A civil rights movement for Uighurs
No peace or reconciliation is possible in Xinjiang while China rides roughshod over Uighurs' rights to shore up its authority
In 1955, a 14-year-old African-American boy named Emmett Till, who had been sent to rural Mississippi to spend the summer with his uncle, was beaten and shot, and then his body was weighed down and dropped into the Tallahatchie River after he was alleged to have made a vulgar pass at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Till's body was badly disfigured, but his mother insisted that there be an open casket at his funeral, and up to 50,000 people viewed his body. It took just over an hour for the all-white jury to decide to acquit the two defendants accused of murdering Till – the husband of Carolyn Bryant and his step-brother.
The murder of Emmett Till and the subsequent lack of justice in his case helped spark the beginnings of the American civil rights movement. Just over three months after Till's death, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus. Till's murder shocked the world, revealing the severity of the prejudice experienced by African-Americans, particularly in the southern part of the United States. Decades of demonstrations and protests followed, as African-Americans struggled for equal treatment and a greater share of America's freedoms. Riots also rocked major American cities, exposing deep wounds in America's racial landscape.
More than half a century later, and half a world away, rumours that Uighurs at a factory in Shaoguan, in south-eastern China, had raped two Chinese women led a mob of Han Chinese workers to raid the dormitories of Uighur workers and attack them with knives, metal pipes and other weapons. Riot police reportedly took their time in arriving at the scene of the attacks, in the early hours of 26 June. Chinese officials reported that two Uighurs had been killed in the attacks, but Uighurs who witnessed the murders and beatings told the international media that many more had been killed. Immediately following the incident, the Chinese government only indicated that it had punished the disgruntled Chinese man, a former worker at the factory, responsible for spreading the false allegations of sexual molestation. However, there was no official indication that any arrests would be made related to the killings and beatings that took place. (On 7 July, the official Chinese media reported that 13 arrests were made on 5 July that were related to the Shaoguan factory violence.)
On 5 July, Uighurs began taking to the streets in Urumchi, at first peacefully, to protest the killings at Shaoguan and the lack of government action to bring the perpetrators to justice. Many people have questioned how an event that took place so far away (Shaoguan, in Guangdong province, is more than 3,000km away from Urumchi), and why what they perceive as such a small-scale, isolated event sparked so much anger and frustration. I ask people to understand that Uighurs feel much as African-Americans must have felt at the death of Emmett Till and the acquittal of his murderers; and that, just as the murder of Emmett Till sparked resentment and sadness throughout the United States at many decades of deep repression, lynchings, and lack of opportunity, following the Shaoguan violence, Uighurs in East Turkestan and throughout China felt anger and despair rise up over decades of economic, social and religious discrimination, together with the widespread execution, torture and imprisonment of their people.
I in no way endorse any of the violent acts carried out by Uighurs in East Turkestan over the past week. I am absolutely opposed to all violence. However, I believe that, just as the Chinese government misrepresented the facts in the Shaoguan incident, it has, on a much larger scale, grossly misrepresented the truth of the recent protests and violence in East Turkestan. The Chinese government has aggressively promoted a sophisticated, one-sided image of the killings and beatings that have taken place, distributing CDs to international journalists featuring an almost exclusive picture of violence committed by Uighurs against the Han Chinese population. It is irrefutable that acts of violence, including murders, were committed by Uighurs against Han Chinese. However, numerous residents of East Turkestan have told the organisations I lead that they have witnessed the deaths of hundreds of Uighurs that have gone unreported in the official press. At this point, it is impossible to verify these eyewitness accounts, as communications have been virtually cut off between East Turkestan and the outside world. But I cannot ignore the many accounts I have received of unimaginable atrocities that have been covered up.
How can real peace and justice be brought to East Turkestan? This is a difficult question to answer. Real peace cannot be achieved through a lack of transparency; through the 20,000 troops that have been brought in; or through blaming "outside forces", such as myself and the World Uighur Congress, for the turmoil that is now rocking the region. Real peace cannot be achieved through a complete lack of acknowledgment of ethnic discrimination and ethnic disharmony in East Turkestan, such as was exhibited in yesterday's opinion piece by Chinese ambassador Fu Ying. Peace and reconciliation may only begin when China, at the very least, acknowledges the depth and scope of the problems that exist in East Turkestan.
The Chinese government must stop fanning the flames of nationalism within the PRC, and using anti-Uighur anger to shore up its own legitimacy. Instead of blaming "outside forces", it must look within its own borders to examine widespread official repression and officially-promoted ethnic stereotypes. Chinese officials must work to provide job opportunities for Uighurs within East Turkestan and mitigate the severe employment imbalance between Uighurs and Han Chinese in the region. They must provide a forum for the most basic forms of dissent and dialogue between Uighurs and the government. There must be fair trials for those accused of perpetrating violence. And they must allow an independent, international investigation into the events of the past week.
It is hard to imagine the eventual growth of a Uighur civil rights movement, as tens of thousands of troops patrol Urumchi, Kashgar and other cities in East Turkestan. Not much hope for optimism can come from the recent arrest of a Uighur economics professor in Beijing, who merely called for more economic opportunities for Uighurs. And as Chinese officials broadcast rhetoric about the need to execute those found guilty of crimes over the past week, I expect that trials of the accused will not meet international standards. I can only hope against all hope, for the peace and prosperity of everyone in East Turkestan, that things will begin to change.
No peace or reconciliation is possible in Xinjiang while China rides roughshod over Uighurs' rights to shore up its authority
In 1955, a 14-year-old African-American boy named Emmett Till, who had been sent to rural Mississippi to spend the summer with his uncle, was beaten and shot, and then his body was weighed down and dropped into the Tallahatchie River after he was alleged to have made a vulgar pass at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Till's body was badly disfigured, but his mother insisted that there be an open casket at his funeral, and up to 50,000 people viewed his body. It took just over an hour for the all-white jury to decide to acquit the two defendants accused of murdering Till – the husband of Carolyn Bryant and his step-brother.
The murder of Emmett Till and the subsequent lack of justice in his case helped spark the beginnings of the American civil rights movement. Just over three months after Till's death, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus. Till's murder shocked the world, revealing the severity of the prejudice experienced by African-Americans, particularly in the southern part of the United States. Decades of demonstrations and protests followed, as African-Americans struggled for equal treatment and a greater share of America's freedoms. Riots also rocked major American cities, exposing deep wounds in America's racial landscape.
More than half a century later, and half a world away, rumours that Uighurs at a factory in Shaoguan, in south-eastern China, had raped two Chinese women led a mob of Han Chinese workers to raid the dormitories of Uighur workers and attack them with knives, metal pipes and other weapons. Riot police reportedly took their time in arriving at the scene of the attacks, in the early hours of 26 June. Chinese officials reported that two Uighurs had been killed in the attacks, but Uighurs who witnessed the murders and beatings told the international media that many more had been killed. Immediately following the incident, the Chinese government only indicated that it had punished the disgruntled Chinese man, a former worker at the factory, responsible for spreading the false allegations of sexual molestation. However, there was no official indication that any arrests would be made related to the killings and beatings that took place. (On 7 July, the official Chinese media reported that 13 arrests were made on 5 July that were related to the Shaoguan factory violence.)
On 5 July, Uighurs began taking to the streets in Urumchi, at first peacefully, to protest the killings at Shaoguan and the lack of government action to bring the perpetrators to justice. Many people have questioned how an event that took place so far away (Shaoguan, in Guangdong province, is more than 3,000km away from Urumchi), and why what they perceive as such a small-scale, isolated event sparked so much anger and frustration. I ask people to understand that Uighurs feel much as African-Americans must have felt at the death of Emmett Till and the acquittal of his murderers; and that, just as the murder of Emmett Till sparked resentment and sadness throughout the United States at many decades of deep repression, lynchings, and lack of opportunity, following the Shaoguan violence, Uighurs in East Turkestan and throughout China felt anger and despair rise up over decades of economic, social and religious discrimination, together with the widespread execution, torture and imprisonment of their people.
I in no way endorse any of the violent acts carried out by Uighurs in East Turkestan over the past week. I am absolutely opposed to all violence. However, I believe that, just as the Chinese government misrepresented the facts in the Shaoguan incident, it has, on a much larger scale, grossly misrepresented the truth of the recent protests and violence in East Turkestan. The Chinese government has aggressively promoted a sophisticated, one-sided image of the killings and beatings that have taken place, distributing CDs to international journalists featuring an almost exclusive picture of violence committed by Uighurs against the Han Chinese population. It is irrefutable that acts of violence, including murders, were committed by Uighurs against Han Chinese. However, numerous residents of East Turkestan have told the organisations I lead that they have witnessed the deaths of hundreds of Uighurs that have gone unreported in the official press. At this point, it is impossible to verify these eyewitness accounts, as communications have been virtually cut off between East Turkestan and the outside world. But I cannot ignore the many accounts I have received of unimaginable atrocities that have been covered up.
How can real peace and justice be brought to East Turkestan? This is a difficult question to answer. Real peace cannot be achieved through a lack of transparency; through the 20,000 troops that have been brought in; or through blaming "outside forces", such as myself and the World Uighur Congress, for the turmoil that is now rocking the region. Real peace cannot be achieved through a complete lack of acknowledgment of ethnic discrimination and ethnic disharmony in East Turkestan, such as was exhibited in yesterday's opinion piece by Chinese ambassador Fu Ying. Peace and reconciliation may only begin when China, at the very least, acknowledges the depth and scope of the problems that exist in East Turkestan.
The Chinese government must stop fanning the flames of nationalism within the PRC, and using anti-Uighur anger to shore up its own legitimacy. Instead of blaming "outside forces", it must look within its own borders to examine widespread official repression and officially-promoted ethnic stereotypes. Chinese officials must work to provide job opportunities for Uighurs within East Turkestan and mitigate the severe employment imbalance between Uighurs and Han Chinese in the region. They must provide a forum for the most basic forms of dissent and dialogue between Uighurs and the government. There must be fair trials for those accused of perpetrating violence. And they must allow an independent, international investigation into the events of the past week.
It is hard to imagine the eventual growth of a Uighur civil rights movement, as tens of thousands of troops patrol Urumchi, Kashgar and other cities in East Turkestan. Not much hope for optimism can come from the recent arrest of a Uighur economics professor in Beijing, who merely called for more economic opportunities for Uighurs. And as Chinese officials broadcast rhetoric about the need to execute those found guilty of crimes over the past week, I expect that trials of the accused will not meet international standards. I can only hope against all hope, for the peace and prosperity of everyone in East Turkestan, that things will begin to change.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
