Amnesty
International recently issued an extensive report on the policies of
the Chinese government towards the Uighur minority in Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region (XUAR).1
The 24-page document details the various legislative provisions
recently introduced into Chinese law with a view to curbing
“terrorist, separatist and illegal religious activities.” Loosely
translated, China is attempting to create domestic legal sanctions for
the post-September 11th crackdown on Muslims and Islam in XUAR.
By
no means is a Chinese crackdown on organized religion unique; China
has a long-standing antagonism towards religion, as evidenced by the
highly publicized crack down on the Falun Gong sect a few years back,
and the ongoing persecution of the Tibetans. However, unlike Falun
Gong, Uighurs are not exceptionally popular in the West, and unlike
the Buddhists of Tibet, have no charismatic leader in exile or
celebrity converts in Hollywood to rally to their cause.
The
report, however, is a poignant reminder of a persecuted Muslim
community that has been ignored far too long.
China’s
New Dominion
A
note on names: Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is the name given to
Eastern Turkistan by the Chinese government, and is the cause of much
resentment; Xinjiang is Chinese for “New Dominion,” or “New
Frontier,” a legacy of their former Manchu rulers, who invaded
Eastern Turkistan in 1759 and incorporated it into China. The
reference, understandably, does not go down well with Uighur
nationalists.
One
feels the need to stress that, while this article focuses on Eastern
Turkistan and the Uighur population thereof, this is in no way meant
to denigrate or disregard the suffering of countless other Muslims at
the hands of the Chinese government.
Who
are the Uighurs?
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Uighur
girl in Kucha
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The
Uighurs are not the only Muslims in China; the Hui Muslims are also a
recognized minority of several millions, and minorities of Tajiks,
Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs are to be found in Xinjiang.2
Two percent of China’s population is Muslim; a deceptively
small statistic until one realizes the reference is to a country with
a population of 1.2 billion, leading to a total of 24 million.3
The Uighurs, however, are distinct for various reasons.
Ethnically,
the Uighurs are a Turkic people, their language being part of the
larger Altaic family. Since their adoption of Islam in the 10th
century, during the reign of the Karakhanid kings, the Uighurs used
Arabic script until the Chinese forced them to adopt a new Latin-based
alphabet. Eventually, the Uighurs were allowed, in one of the Chinese
government’s parsimonious concessions to their “national”
minorities, to return to their Arabic script in 1983.4
Eastern
Turkistan Republics
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Military
of the Eastern Turkistan Republic (1944-1949)
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Historically,
the Uighurs have a rich and distinct history, a fact official Chinese
propaganda has long sought to bury. The Manchu rule of Eastern
Turkistan was violently opposed by the Uighurs until they were
successfully expelled in 1862. Independence was short-lived, however,
with the Manchu reoccupying the land in 1876, and annexing it proper
in 1884. Resistance to Chinese rule continued, regardless of whether
the rulers were the Imperial Manchu dynasty or the Kuomintang
nationalist government, culminating in the establishment of two
republics in the 20th century, one of which was crushed with the
assistance of Soviet troops in 1934. The second and more important
state was the Eastern Turkistan Republic (ETR) established on November
12th, 1944. Coming under intense pressure from both the Kuomintang and
the Communists, the leaders of the ETR accepted an invitation to
Beijing for negotiations. Their plane never arrived at Beijing. It was
announced months later that it had crashed en route in the Soviet
Union. In October of 1949, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops
marched into the Eastern Turkistan Republic, effectively ending the
ETR.
Though
lasting only five years before coming under the occupation of Mao
Zedong’s PLA troops, the creation of the Republic was an epic moment
for the Uighurs, the memory of which is cherished and marked by Uighur
nationalists to this day.
Under
Communist Rule (1949 - Present)
Mao’s
Cultural Revolution was a period of terrible suffering for the
Uighurs. Religion was identified as a “bourgeois” conception and
therefore bore the brunt of the Red Army’s wrath. A Human Rights
Watch report, “Xinjiang, China’s Restive Northwest” tells of how
the Uighurs were forced to breed pigs, and mosques were shut down and
occasionally used as pork warehouses, to add terrible insult to
devastating injury.5
Fast-forward
a few decades. An aggressive population transfer policy has seen the
rapid growth of the Han community in XUAR, from an original 6% in 1949
to 40% in 1978, and has effectively made the Uighurs second-class
citizens in their country, discriminated against in both employment
and education.
Animosity
is rife between the Uighurs and the Hans; one reporter relates asking
a group of Han children gathered near a statue of Chinese
revolutionary Wang Zhen why he was considered a hero. The answer:
“Because he killed many Uighurs.” Such a response from a ten year
old is perhaps somewhat indicative of the feelings of the Han
colonialists toward the indigenous Uighurs.
Tensions
are also exacerbated by the fact that Han enterprises exercise a
monopoly on most of the area’s scarce resources. All this, coupled
with the obvious hatred and disdain the Chinese feel towards the
Uighurs and their religion, mean that it comes as no surprise that
some Uighurs have concluded that armed resistance is the only option
available.
Human
Rights Abuses
Violent
opposition to Chinese rule in East Turkistan is sporadic; occasional
bombings or shootings take place and are met with a terrible fury.
Every so often, reports are issued about the arrest, trial and
execution of “terrorists” or “ethnic splittists” as the
Chinese insist on calling them. Even peaceful protests are met with
excessive force.
On
one notable occasion in 1997, the town of Ghulja was brought to a halt
by large-scale Uighur demonstrations in Ramadan; in response, the
Chinese government sealed off the town, imposed a press black-out, and
proceeded to viciously quell the protests. The official count
suggested 10 deaths and 198 injured, and 500 arrests, according to
Human Rights Watch. Uighur sources insist the numbers were many times
higher. A similar situation occurred in the town of Baren, where an
alleged armed insurgency was quelled with military forces, reportedly
leaving dozens, if not hundreds dead.
The
Human Rights Watch report is also particularly illuminating. The
report describes the various forms of repression and persecution
suffered by the Muslims of Eastern Turkistan under Chinese rule.
It
is particularly painful to hear of the draconian measures utilized by
the Chinese to stamp out any manifestations of religious sentiment
among the Uighurs in the aftermath of September 11. Examples of this
are plentiful in Amnesty International,6
Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. Department of State’s
reports. These include but are not limited to nighttime patrols of
student dormitories to ensure no prayers are taking place, the banning
of fasting during Ramadan, outlawing of Qur’an study meetings and
religious schools, the curbing of mosque building, the identification
and surveillance of religious leaders, and the banning of history
books that do not conform to the “accepted” version of history.
There is also the ominous-sounding “political education” that
Imams are subjected to. One is led to understand this consists of
extensive indoctrination to, as it was put, provide them with “a
clearer understanding of the Party’s ethnic and religious
policies.”
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Old
Mosque in Urumci
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Eastern
Turkistan is also home to the Lop Nur desert, the Chinese nuclear test
grounds in the south of XUAR.7
China was, relatively speaking, one of the most aggressive
states in terms of nuclear weapons acquisition policy, testing its
first hydrogen bomb 32 months after its first fission bomb test. The
fallout from these tests has resulted in the wide-scale contamination
of water sources and land, in turn resulting in a disproportionately
large number of cancer cases, congenital birth defects, and various
other related diseases among the Uighur population.8
All
the above, combined with China’s notoriously repressive birth
control policies (including but not limited to forced abortions),
would seem to suggest to the observer that Eastern Turkistan is one of
the worst places in the world to be a Muslim right now. In the context
of the ongoing global war on Islam, that says something.
It
is of little surprise that China, like so many other countries, has
chosen to take advantage of September 11th to further its own
political agenda and silence - ruthlessly so- internal dissent. All
recent human rights reports point to a drastic escalation of
persecution and repression against the Uighur minority. UN High
Commissioner Mary Robinson expressed her concern over the treatment of
the Uighurs in a November visit to China. The Chinese government,
predictably, responded that “terrorism,” that ephemeral and
much-abused term, is an infringement of human rights and is a threat
to international peace and security. Case closed.
Forgotten?
The
question that inevitably comes to mind upon reading of such terrible
persecution is: What can we do about it? Islamically, we are obliged
to keep track of conditions of Muslim communities around the globe,
particularly when said communities are the target of state-sponsored
terror and persecution, numerous as they have become. However, our
abilities and efficacy vary substantially depending, sadly enough, on
location.
Here
in the Arab world, our role is substantially limited by a government
blatantly antagonistic to the concept of pan-Islamism or even just
plain old concern for fellow Muslims, going so far as to arrest and
try people who collect money for Chechnya or similar causes. It also
virtually impossible to seek to influence government policy in any
sense, due to the autocratic nature of the regimes.
Muslims
in most places in the West, on the other hand, have more flexibility
with regards to issues of this type. The minimum we can set out to do
is seek to be aware of the situation in East Turkistan. Those who can
should attempt to raise others’ awareness of the situation by any
means possible, whether by a simple talk, or by trying to get
something published in a local or campus paper. In this regard, The
Uyghur Human Rights Coalition (www.uyghurs.org) has compiled a small,
yet comprehensive list on how one can contribute to the support of the
Uighurs. While the list is tailored for a Western audience, a number
of the suggestions can be undertaken by Muslims anywhere.
In
that regard, I would urge readers to explore and bookmark the links in
this article, as a gateway to information on the plight of the Uighurs
in China.
To
conclude, one need not point out that we as Muslims are having our
identity systematically erased. One minor way to counter this
purposeful erasure is to ensure a consistent and dedicated effort to
maintain and cultivate links to and an awareness of the larger
community of Muslims around us.
We
can longer afford to disregard Islam outside our borders. Where
possible, we must aggressively lobby the media and the government to
bring these issues to the forefront of domestic and international
attention, not so much for the benefit of the Western audience, but
rather for the benefit of the uninformed amongst us Muslims. And while
it is only natural that the question of Palestine will be more central
to many of us, we cannot allow it to completely overshadow the
suffering of Muslims elsewhere, who have for years suffered in
silence.
The
author encourages your comments. Please e-mail him at azizuddin@islam-online.net
Useful
Links:
1-
Amnesty International “China:
Extensive crackdown on Uighurs to counter “terrorism” must
stop”
2-
China’s Official Gateway to News and Information “Ethnic
Minorities”
3-
CIA
World Factbook 2001
4-
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (Uighur version)
5-
Human Rights Watch “Xinjiang,
China’s Restive Northwest”
6-
Amnesty International Report 2002 “China”
7-
Nuclear Threat Archive “Lop
Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base”
8-
Uyghur Human Rights Coalition “China’s
Violations of Uyghur Human Rights”
