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In China Uighurs Fight for Freedom. Other People Too.
Posted by zikipediq on 13 July 2009
Uighur riots sparked by fears that separatist dream is dying.
Riots of July 5, between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang in northwestern China, are the most serious in decades. In this region of 20 million people, where the main community is Muslim and Turkish-speaking, the causes of violence are deep …
One of the later news that has convulsed the world last week -though not as much as the death of Michael Jackson- has been the strong police repression in Chinese Xinjiang (known as Chinese Turkestan), where several Uighur riots took place. Actually treatment given to them by Chinese authorities in their own homeland as well as in the rest of China, where they often migrate for job purposes is clearly discriminating.
This situation must be put in context. 55 minorities coexist in China and they represent approximately 110 million (2005), on a total of 1.315 million citizens of the People’s Republic. Han are the ethnic majority, equivalent to 91 percent.
Among these 55 ethnic minorities, Uighurs are the largest both demographic and territorial. There are about ten million native Uighurs, 5.5 Tibetans, and 6 million Mongolians. With the particularity that these three ethnic groups represent about 50 percent of the territory of China, and with a low population density, the vast reserves of oil, gas, coal, and large quantities of other raw materials.
Among the 55 ethnic minorities, the Hui and Manchu use to write Chinese characters, while the remaining 53 have their own writings. Since 1950, the Government of Beijing has organized a panel of experts to ‘help’ the creation and improvement of written expression.
In political life, the use of spoken languages is theoretically guaranteed, and when important official meetings take place too. Simultaneous interpretation of the seven major languages are supposedly provided; state laws and transcendent official documents should also be published in these seven languages.
(15 July update)
Meanwhile…
Uighurs who dare to protest the discrimination and abuse are arrested. The protests are brutally suppressed. In Yining in 1997, Chinese police forces responded violently to street riots causing many deaths. After 9/11 attacks persecution intensified. Some Uighur leaders were accused of having links with Al Qaeda and were imprisoned. Repression against any Uighur group suspected of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism is relentless, systematic and ongoing.
All this is happening for decades. What did say politicians or religious leaders from the Islamic world? Not much.
· · · · · · ·
Three themes outlined below have played important roles in the modernization of the unity of the People’s Republic :
1) A geographical factor. The Pacific Ocean is the East border of the People’s Republic, the desert is at north, while the limits to the west and south are high mountain ranges. In such circumstances, the regional economies tend to converge among themselves.
2) A long history of unification. China is a unified country for almost three millennia, when the Qin dynasty. And in the last 800 years, in contrast to the European trend where the ancient great empires divided into nations, China showed a trend towards consolidation, stronger than ever, over the last Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Be noted that the Yuan and Qing dynasties were established by the Mongols and Manchus, respectively, two outsider peoples that strongly promoted, however, the unification of China.
3) The Han core stability. Their ancestors were called Han Hua, peripherals and other peoples were known as Yi. Hua meant men civilized country’s central and Yi wild men of the periphery. An idea that lasted from generation to generation, making strong distinctions between Hua and Yi, where Hua were not an ethnic affiliation, but cultural. So, Hua population grew to become the largest and core binder compared to Yi. And since the Han dynasty (202 a. C./220 AD), peripheral peoples have called Han those who were living in the central country, abandoning the former used Hua. For over two millennia, the Han have continued to absorb the peripheral outlying populations to reach a rate of 91 per cent of the total population of China today.
In the three most important territorial nationalities mentioned above, there are more or less broad trends towards greater autonomy or even independence. In the case of the Mongols, these features are less intense for their long history of relationship with the Chinese themselves, to the point where there was a powerful Mongol dynasty.
Tibetans, as we know well, have a strong personality, currently represented overseas through the Dalai Lama. And although the progress of Tibet is clear, and the Han are still a minority, demonstrations during the past year there have shown that Tibetans look to keep their ancestral culture on their own standing without impositions from outside.
The Uighurs are less known in the rest of the world than the Mongols or Tibetans. They are far more different than other Chinese citizens for their religious Muslim. Furthermore, the treatment they have received raises many doubts about the supposed equality of every citizen under the Chinese law. Therefore, the outbreak of violence in Xinjiang should help the authorities in Beijing to refrain from punish Uighurs but rather to study the problems in view of satisfaying a mutual cooperation. Additionally, China is an hyper power now and cannot afford to go shooting their own people, creating a feeling of malaise that could turn against the Government of Beijing itself, despite their good intentions and actions in many international areas. It goes without saying that if many peripheral populations of the People’s Republic want more freedom, they are not alone. There are many millions of Han who fight for democracy too…
xtiangodloki said
The one thing which China did right this time over all of this is to to the western reporters in the day after the riot.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/malcolmmoore/100002509/urumqi-riots-signal-dark-days-ahead/
“Turning over the riots in my mind, I concede I was wrong in my last post to suggest that Rebiya Kadeer would rise in stature as a result of the riots. When I wrote the post, I had limited information and I jumped to the conclusion that the 156 victims of Sunday”s violence were Uighur.
In fact, it appears that the majority of the victims were Han Chinese, brutally killed by gangs of Uighurs roaming through the back streets of Urumqi. There are some horrific pictures circulating of rows of bloodied bodies and cyclists lying in puddles of blood with their heads bashed in.
“I apologise for running ahead of the facts, but the idea that Chinese troops had been unable to prevent the Uighurs from murdering Han Chinese honestly never occurred to me.
Now that the sequence of events is clearer, I have a lot of praise for the Chinese security operation in the city. According to Peter Foster, who is on the scene, they managed to prevent escalating situations getting out of hand several times yesterday with calm and judicious policing.”
Now, for those who still claim that hundreds of Uighurs were killed by the police, care to back it up?
Frank said
Here’s a guy who has some fair and balanced reports on the ground.
As he mentions, the police dispersed the original Uighur rioters with no shots fired…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100002368/uighur-unrest-not-another-tiananmen/
Most of the dead and wounded are Han Chinese, butchered by the Uighur mobs….
He also praises the Chinese police for stopping the bloodshed, as he should:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100002643/urumqi-criticism-and-credit-for-the-chinese-police/
The lesson? Stop and think before writing. No knee jerk reactions….
Mona said
I think the larger point that people were trying to make (or should have been making) is that regardless of body counts for either side, this unrest – much like the riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King incident and the riots among France’s suburban minorities (or the 2001 riots in Cincinnati, which I witnessed), this incident was the result of deep structual inequality and long-simmering dissatisfaction among the marginalized group. Quibbling about the death toll in these riots is a rather myopic thing to do.
The real issues that matter are: How did things get to this point? What has been going on in Xinjiang with regard to Uighur – Han Chinese relations? What role has the state played?
xtiangodloki said
“Quibbling about the death toll in these riots is a rather myopic thing to do. ”
It’s only a myopic thing to do because it puts the Uighurs in a bad light.
“The real issues that matter are: How did things get to this point? ”
Internet slacktivism FTW. At the most basic level, the Uighurs are upset about income disparity, while the Hans are complaining about affirmative action offered only to the Uighurs.
From personal experience, when I visited Shanghai I was mugged TWICE in the subways by Uighur gangs. Even after I pointed out to the police the group who robbed me, the police refused to arrest them because they were “minorities”. Those who think this is a stereotype simply check the expat sites, people even made a list of the locations where the Uighur gangs usually operate in major cities.
zikipediq said
I can see what both of you are saying. On the one hand, it’s important that we get an exact death toll to understand the magnitude of the violence, to respect those who died from the clashes, and to end critical speculation. Foreign media is keen to claim that most of the dead were Uighurs razed over by PRC tanks in the riot’s ensuing “clampdown,” which from the first-hand accounts (by Westerners) that I have read, seems not to be the case.
On the other hand, I think it was wholly appropriate for the government not to disclose the ethnicities of those who died- a dead Uighur and a dead Han Chinese is a tragic loss of life from any angle. Amidst all the journalistic bias and the West swooping in with their “savior complex,” I’m extremely curious to know exactly how Chinese Uighur-Han Chinese relations were like before the riots. I think Mona’s mention of the LA riots and France’s suburban minorities are extremely apt examples to call upon.
There must have been some deep seated hostility between the two groups for things to have gotten this bad, and I’m sure that many of the migrants to Xinjiang are poor laborers seeking a better life made them resentful of the Uighurs, who might have viewed them as invading the area and proliferating off the business of locals. The Han Chinese influx must have been taken a hit on the Xinjiang economy and greatly impeded on the lifestyles and cultural freedoms of the Uighur people, thus causing the riots.
But really, who knows, when our media is so bent on politicizing instead of reporting on the subtle socioeconomic dynamics of the region? When the smoke clears (if it clears), I want all the questions that the above poster has raised to be answered. I hope the Chinese government knows that their best course of action is to open up dialogue between the groups and give a voice to all of the country’s minorities so that all can be heard. Only then can they move on from incidents like this.
Alex Fleishman said
According to demographic study, there are 10 ethnic groups in China who are known to be Muslims. If it’s true the Chinese government discriminates against Chinese Muslims, why no other Muslim ethnic minorities in China join the Chinese Uighurs in protests and demonstrations? Do the 2000 Chinese Uighur demonstrators, as reported in the corporate media, represent the will of all Chinese Muslims?
I think it’s prudent for Muslims outside of China to first get the facts on the situation in China before jump into the water. This could be one of the reasons why Muslims in other countries remain silent and reluctant to criticize China.
Alex Fleishman
Jeremy Ott said
In China”s minority areas, Han people have long been subjected to discrimination by the government that is supposedly to be a Han government. The minorities have all the preferential treatments that Han people resent. There are 56 ethnic groups in China, including other Muslims such as Kazaks, Tajiks, Kirgiz and Huis. Why are the Uyghurs having problems with the government? That is because they seek independence. The Uighurs want to establish East Turkistan in Xinjiang. Then, they want to go west and establish West Turkistan in Kazakhstan with the local Uighurs there. Next they want to unite the Turkistan. Finally, they may want to expand further to reach Turkey to establish a pan-continent Turk empire. For China, Uighurs are just like Kurds for Turkey. While it is ok for Turkey to fight the Kurds, it is not ok for China to the Uighurs. What a double standard for Turkey!
zikipediq said
The current unrest in the Xinjiang western desert region has its origins in an incident thousands of kilometers away in southern Guangdong province, where a Uighur dormitory was attacked in June by Han Chinese and at least two people were killed.
Photographs appeared online. The government tried and failed to delete them. Calls for protest spread through web sites and instant messaging. Again, the government attempted to block online discussion of the incident. But Uighur rage had gone viral.
Mona said
…who said it was OK for Turkey to attack the Kurds the way they do? I don’t think so. And maybe this wasn’t your actual intent but your post comes off as a bit Islamophobic — how many times have we heard this “Muslim caliphate empire” myth being touted? Like I said, it’s not necessarily where you’re going with this but it’s hard not to read it that way.
Dorian Batz said
Too much bias in your claims (which you likely will claim are facts), so I’ll reply showing the ‘other side of coin’. First thing, the majority of people getting killed are the Uighurs. While there are mobs of Uighurs killing Han Chinese, there are also mobs of Han Chinese. There are reports that they beheaded 2 Uighur girls and hung their heads in the streets. Also, according to the RFA and Time, the police tend to be protecting the innocent Han Chinese more than the innocent Uighurs (saying that there are no innocent Uighurs would be nonsensical for obvious reasons). What intrigued me was when you said “is there no right or wrong in this world?” Upon research, Uighurs were subjected to forced abortion, conversion of mosques into slaughterhouses for pigs, torture, racial discrimination, and more; so when you ask “is there no right or wrong in this world?” you must remember the other side is saying the exact same thing.
Hopefully readers now have a more balanced view of the situation.
Dorian
Steven said
Sounds like Tibetan redux to me.
Let’s keep in mind that we Americans, neophytes on the world stage have basically done the same n short order to (in chronological order):
1. “Witches”
2. Catholics
3. Spaniards
4. Native Americans
5. African Americans
6. Japanese Americans
7. Muslims
Who are we to criticize any other country for their behavior? Narcissistic, egotistical and out of touch Americans, that’s who!
Eliott said
If China wants to stop the unrest in its western provinces it must stop moving its own people out there and making the Uighurs and Tibetans minorities in their own regions.
Mona said
LOL @ all you people scrambling to try to portray the empowered majority as the victims and the disenfranchized minority as the oppressors.
Classic GOP move.
Robert Kendall said
It is not the Uighurs that are the victims. The Uighur mobs murdered over a hundred innocent people. Although the Chinese government is doing the right thing by not publishing the ethnic breakdowns, but most of the killed are Han Chinese. What are you complaining about? Based on the Western report, even some of the Uighurs are “happy” now, because they are noticed by the world through killing others. Is there right or wrong in this world? For comparison, Tibetans are nothing if you look at the number of people killed by the Uighurs: 8 time more.
We thought that the Chinese people have stood up after we have fought with the imperialist Westerners. I can say here that the Chinese people have not stood up before we can fight with the Central Asian Islamic terrorists. The Russians and Americans have already done that. Now it is China”s turn. There are two difficulties for China as far as I can see. First, the imperialist Westerners still use human rights, other prejudices and double standards to hinder China”s struggle. Second, the Muslim World itself has racial altitude to China. They don”t think that an Asian and non-Muslim country should fight with the basically white Islamic terrorists. People have already emphasized the Uighurs are different stock, looking like Europeans. Turkey has already come to attack China. The same goes with the Islamic Conference. However, if China can convince the West that this fight is their fight, the victory can be achieved.
Dorian Batz said
Wow. What an opinion about Uighurs and you /still/ manage to distort it into a critique of the entire Islam world. Exactly what lengths are the pro-Israel lobby willing to go to in order to deflect attention from their own war crimes? Seriously?
Is this a bad time to point out that Israel is quietly threatening to turn to China with our military secrets if the US takes a hard line with them?
mercerd said
interesting material, where such topics do you find? I will often go