The Uighurs (pronounced wee-GORES), or Uyghurs, live mainly in north-western China in the province of Xinjiang. It used to be their own country: East Turkestan. Not any more.
They are not at all Han, what the Chinese call themselves. They are distant relations of the Turks of Turkey and close cousins of the Uzbeks. Their language is Uighur. Their religion, like most Turks, is Sunni Islam. Because of Chinese rule their religion is weak.
There are 11 million Uighurs. Most live in Xinjiang but some live in neighbouring countries or in big Chinese cities in the east, like Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese fear them as kind of wild and dangerous.
Over a thousand years ago they settled down in cities along the Silk Road. Their great city was Kashgar. Except for a period of Mongol rule in the 1200s, they were free and independent from the 700s to the 1700s. Their empire – and their golden age – was from 744 to 840.
China began taking over their country in the late 1700s. By 1949 it was complete. In the late 1900s they started sending Han Chinese there to live so that now Urumqi, the capital, is only 10% Uighur and Xinjiang as a whole is less than 50%. It has become a Chinese colony, even if it is called an “autonomous region”.
Some fight to free their homeland. Violence broke out in 1954, 1997 and 2008. The Chinese call them terrorists. Most Uighurs now see freedom as a pipe dream. The street violence in 2009 was more about respect and equal rights than about freedom.
Uighurs are not allowed to study their language, Uighur, after middle school. They cannot study or practise their religion, Islam, till age 18. The Chinese treat them like dirt. They destroy their ancient buildings, particularly in Kashgar.
Here is what one Uighur says:
Ever since I was born until now there has been this problem between Uighur and Han. Han people don’t treat us or our culture with any respect, and the key thing is that there are more and more Han coming to live in Xinjiang. And that means us Uighur people are losing our culture and we have less freedoms.
He says it is so bad Chinese taxi drivers will not pick him up on the streets of Urumqi.
Meanwhile Chinese workers at one factory say things like this:
Everyone always said watch out for Uighurs, they’ll rob you. And they did look aggressive.
They were always trouble. They can’t speak Chinese. And they steal.
When asked why so many Uighurs are out of work, the Chinese say it is because they do not work hard.
The Han Chinese are “normal”. Their tax dollars are spent on Xinjiang and the Uighur are still not thankful!
At that factory, by the way, two Uighurs were killed when violence broke out on news of six Uighur men raping two Chinese women. A video of the factory violence was put on YouTube. Uighur protesters took to the streets in Urumqi. It turned violent, at least 156 killed. It was the worst violence in China in 20 years.
See also:
Weegirs? hmm. Why does their experience sound so familiar?
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Just read from the link in your 12/2009 article.
Interesting, Abagond. I can’t think of a single culture that continued to remain functional or thrive, when another one came in and dominated.
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yeah. it sounds pretty sad
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A long but very captivating article on the relationship between Han and Uighurs.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1318900/strangers-blood-and-fear-xinjiang
Xinjiang is the place in China that I found intensely interesting. China has been assimilating many of its minorities, from the Manchu and Mongols in the North and Northeast to the Miao, Dai, etc. in the SW, but Uighurs (as well as Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc.) in NW China are in general, not being assimilated. They have been doing it by overpowering them in numbers and economically and politically. I guess Kazakhs could flee to Kazakhistan, but where could the Uighurs go?
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The China Daily (the English language state media) has reported some “interesting” information about “Religious Extremism” that targets all groups that practice religion, but especially Uighurs in Xinjiang:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-11/29/content_18996900.htm
OK folks, that means, in public or in any venue not officially registered by the government
No more hijab and niqab.
No burqua.
No more turbans.
No more crosses.
No more Christian clerical clothing
No kippah, tzitzit and tefillin
And don’t dress like a buddhist monk.
Depending on any ordinance enacted on the whim of a local official, you might be viewed as a religious extremist. And we cannot predict what might happen to you. 😮
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The Economist addressed this topic in this week’s issue
Don’t make yourself at home
Uighurs and Tibetans feel left out of China’s economic boom; ethnic discrimination is not helping
(http://www.economist.com/news/china/21639555-uighurs-and-tibetans-feel-left-out-chinas-economic-boom-ethnic-discrimination-not)
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Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti nominated for human rights award
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/04/27/uyghur-intellectual-ilham-tohti-nominated-for-human-rights-award/
“Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti was nominated as a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award 2016 on Wednesday. The award is given to those who have defended human rights with courage in the face of personal risk.”
He lost his job and is now jailed for “posting information on Uyghurs who were killed, arrested, or ‘disappeared’ during or after protests,” as well as trying to promote dialogue between the Han and the Uyghur.
Basically, this is not too different from what Abagond does regarding black Americans.
But in China, that is viewed as separatist.
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@ jefe
Using words to shine a light on inequality is not highly regarded in America, either. The Han are simply more overt in this instance than European Americans.
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@Afrofem,
Whereas that may be true, I think China is in a different league.
European Americans who come across this blog may not take kindly to see someone post information about unarmed blacks killed in the USA, but they would not go as far as saying the blogger is advocating separatism and is a seditionist and throw him in jail.
I don’t know if you have been following the freedom of speech development in HK in the past year or two, but there has been a growing contingent of the population calling for greater autonomy from Beijing, even suggesting that independence may be an avenue to consider. This irks Beijing to the max, but as it stands now, there is no law in HK preventing this kind of freedom of expression. You may have heard about the abducted booksellers who were snatched and taken into the mainland for performing actions that are perfectly legal in HK. Beijing has been trying endlessly to push forward anti-treason and anti-sedition laws in HK, but there is little local support for what many believe will curtail their freedom of speech.
There is a large chasm between the situation in the USA and what passes for justice in greater China.
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@jefe
You are correct that the degree of oppression is of a greater magnitude in China. No denying that.
The same anti-free speech mindset can be found in both countries, especially when discussing or exposing inequality.
Thanks for the update about HK resistance. It pops up in my usual media sources infrequently. Perhaps I should delve a bit deeper.
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@Afrofem,
What information are you receiving about China? I did notice that US Senate committees have been discussing the escalating conflict in the South China Sea, and something about it appears in the USA news every few days. Japan has resurrected its armed military capabilities, and is conducting joint military exercises with the Philippines alongside the USA. ASEAN has become very united over this (where China has heretofore been trying to pick off territorial disputes with individual countries). Within the next week or two, we may hear the result of the ruling from the International court of the Hague regarding a dispute with the Philippines, which China has vowed to disregard.
I have read that the USA with regional allies could effectively orchestrate a military blockade of both the East China Sea (from South Korea to Japan to Taiwan) and the South China Sea (from Taiwan to Philippines to Borneo (Malaysia, Brunei) to Singapore, which could block off 90% of China’s trade and 60% of its domestic consumption.
However, this would end up blocking Vietnam too, and part of Thailand, so I am not sure how it would work. It certainly would not be good for Hong Kong.
(http://www.ejinsight.com/20160408-what-if-there-s-a-war-between-beijing-and-washington/)
Even Indonesia may now be on board as Chinese fishermen fishing in their waters have been protected by the Chinese navy on the very outer edges of the South China sea. Bullying Indonesia would be the tipping point to push Indonesia to align with the other ASEAN countries to resist the expansion in the South China Sea.
China is still trying to pick off Australia – bullying them to become silent about the South China Seas conflicts, as evidenced by the visit of the Prime Minister last week.
Hence the impetus for China to develop its Belt-Road Initiative, which focuses on developing its overland trade, transportation and infrastructure links to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Russia, effectively resurrecting a 21st century silk road. That route, however, leads it right through the very territory that is occupied by Uyghurs. China will not allow anything to disrupt this policy. I see what is going on in China to be a “Manifest Destiny” of the sort that enveloped the USA in the 19th and 20th centuries, and potential fate of the Uyghurs looks eerily similar to what befell Native Americans. The USA made treaties and broke them. China will not bother making any treaty (as it claims their land anyhow), but prevent them from practising their religion, wearing their traditional dress, using their language, etc.
China has gone one step further by enacting laws to control or even ban foreign NGOs. So we can expect news from Uyghur and other dissidents to be cut off further.
(https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/04/28/breaking-china-adopts-law-putting-new-controls-on-foreign-ngos-xinhua/)
What is different is that Islam is the dominant religion in Central Asian and the Middle East and even all the way to Eastern Europe, and China’s oppression of its own Muslim population may not be winning friends in the nearby countries to the west.
Hong Kong is another story. But Beijing’s tight grips have catapulted at least a quarter of the population into pushing for greater autonomy, even considering the idea of independence. This was nearly unimaginable just 2 years ago, when much of the population was simply pushing for greater democracy. Every single grip tightening seems to push more and more people to the other side. There is a new event literally every day that has eroded freedom of expression here, and Hong Kong seems to be joining Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan as regions that do not want to be part of China. I really expect another uprising in HK perhaps even more serious than Occupy Central.
Taiwan recently elected a president from a pro-independence party, possibly due in part to all the sh!t that has been going on in HK. But China recently demonstrated that it calls the shots by extraditing Taiwanese nationals from Kenya to be tried in Beijing for alleged crimes committed in Kenya.
I don’t think it is the same. I think what helps in the USA is a judiciary which is more or less independent from the Executive and Legislative branches. We cannot count on them doing the right thing all the time, and it is often unfair, but sometimes it does the right thing, and in any case, under common law, we have the situation of precedents, which guide us into making decisions according to the constitution and the law.
In China, the judiciary is treated as an administrative arm of the bureaucracy, and must conform to party ideology. In that case, the right decision is one that supports the state. The law serves more as an administrative procedure to implement state ideology, and can be interpreted pretty much as they see fit.
After what has happened in HK in the past two years, it has become very clear what is meant by “Rule of Law”, and there simply is no such thing in China. I actually knew that before, but the striking contrast has been made so evident in the past couple years and the HK Secretary of Justice (akin to the US Attorney General) has simply and glaringly disregarded it. Thank god that the Supreme court has not, at least not yet, defied the Rule of Law.
Watch out for the upcoming ruling from the Hague.
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More Crackdown on ethnic Uighurs.
from Human Rights Watch:
China: Officials Impose Home Visits on Muslim Families
(https://youtu.be/kNKV3wvYGME)
China: Visiting Officials Occupy Homes in Muslim Region
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/13/china-visiting-officials-occupy-homes-muslim-region
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“Invasive” is a mild term when an avowed enemy plops themselves into a family’s home.
Outrageous!
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Yesterday morning the Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a Hearing on “Surveillance, Suppression, and Mass Detention: Xinjiang’s Human Rights Crisis”
(https://youtu.be/rE8Ve2nxPds)
If you have a spare 2 hours to listen to what was discussed, you can sit back and listen. I also can see Rebiya Kadeer sitting in the audience.
I really doubt that the US will do much if anything, as evidenced by recent events:
** US Congress could not agree to reverse the lifting of the export ban to ZTE Corp, so I really doubt they will agree to any sanction against the PRC
** The committee mentioned the need for allies to work in concert to deal with this, but the current administration has all but burned bridges with its historical allies.
** Any sanction
When I listen to some of the Senators / Congressmen, all I can think is how they rally against being compliant with human rights abuses in Xinjiang, yet they can easily turn a blind eye over the human rights abuses right on US soil. When they gave examples of complicity of the US government towards human rights abuses, they are always foreign examples. When they called what is happening as the effect of settler colonialism, they never mention the fact that the US is also a settler colonial state.
Having said that, I do think what is happening in Xinjiang is more alarming and widespread than what is going on now in the USA. The only historical example in the USA that I would find as disturbing to this scale is the removal, extermination and re-education of the Native American population. It would have been much more meaningful to me if the US Congress had used THIS example to compare what is going on in China.
Nevertheless, we still need to be aware of what is going on here.
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“Nevertheless, we still need to be aware of what is going on here.”
What are “we” going to do about it other than act as cheerleaders for US intervention in the internal affairs of another country?
REMEMBER LIBYA, SYRIA, ETC. “THEY” NEVER LEARN!
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With due respect, gro jo, you can’t put on the same foot today’s China and Lybia, Syria, etc. China is much powerful than all those other states. By far. And no “intervention” there is even thinkable. I think jefe was asking for some attention to the plight of the Uighrs, and by extension other ethnic minorities in China, and eventually some diplomatic pressure and the likes.
This is my understanding anyway!
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“With due respect, gro jo, you can’t put on the same foot today’s China and Lybia, Syria, etc. China is much powerful than all those other states. By far. And no “intervention” there is even thinkable.”
Such naiveté. Do I have to remind you of the fact that India and China were the economic colossi of the 18th century, reduced to vassal states of the West by the 19th century? How did they do it? Divide and conquer, currently known as ‘humanitarian intervention’. Russia is having a hard time resisting such attack in its minority areas. Putin jumped into the Syria affray in order to fight that kind of war on someone else’s territory. That’s the way I read the present world situation.
I don’t trust people like Jefe. Their ‘humanitarianism’ is bs as far as I’m concerned, since it usually leads to Libyan disasters. They never pay the price for the policies they advocate.
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