NEW YORK - Pity the Uighurs -- the wrong kind of minority, the wrong kind of Muslims, fighting the wrong kind of enemy.
For years, Uighurs -- a Turkic people who are largely Muslim -- complained of economic, cultural and religious discrimination under the harsh fist of Beijing. The latter made sure the Uighurs were outnumbered in the western Xinjiang province by Han Chinese migrants.
In the worst ethnic unrest in China in years, Uighurs took to the streets of the provincial capital Urumqi on Sunday, apparently after a protest at government handling of a June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in southern China, where two Uighurs died.
At least 156 people died in weekend riots.
The Chinese government quickly blamed exiled separatists and Muslim militant groups, arrested dozens and tried to curb information by stifling the internet. On Tuesday, Han Chinese armed with iron bars and machetes went looking for revenge on Uighurs.
Following the news that did make it out of Xinjiang, I thought if only the Uighurs were Buddhists like the Tibetans with whom the Uighurs share almost mirror grievances against Beijing.
If they were Buddhists, Bjork, Sting, Bono and all those other one-named saviors of the world's poor and oppressed would have held "Free Xinjiang" concerts already. But the West continues to largely ignore the Uighurs. Maybe they're not as cuddly as the Tibetans or their leader the Dalai Lama.
Perhaps the U.S. State Department would issue stronger words in their defense if only the Uighurs weren't the wrong kind of minority in a country that produces half the goods we use and which currently lends the wobbly global economy enough money to keep it just this side of total collapse.
The Uighurs aren't Buddhists but are instead Muslims and us Muslims don't get much love these days. You'd think the U.S. at least would be paying a bit more attention to Uighurs after locking up four of their brethren at the prison camp at Guantanamo without charge for seven years. They were released earlier this year to Bermuda.
If the West seems deaf to Uighur complaints, then where are their fellow Muslims? Surely this is a chance for Muslims across the world to march in protest at the stranglehold the godless Communist Chinese keep over the Uighurs?
Think again.
The Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas put it bluntly on the micro-blogging site, Twitter -- where thousands follow him -- when he asked why no one was paying attention to the Uighur "intifada," the Arabic word for uprising that is usually associated with Palestinians fighting back against Israeli occupation.
That's precisely the problem -- the Uighurs are no Palestinians and the Chinese are not Israel. Many Muslims -- Arab Muslims especially -- pay attention only when the U.S. and Israel are behaving badly. Palestine followed by Iraq always take precedence leaving little room for other Muslim grievances.
Look at Darfur, where the suffering goes ignored because those who are creating the misery are neither Americans nor Israelis but instead fellow Arab Muslim Sudanese.
China is coincidentally one of Sudan's biggest trade partners and sells Khartoum plenty of weapons which Darfuris complain are used against them. So it's unlikely Sudanese President Omar Bashir, who declared himself the guardian of Islam in 2007 by putting on trial a British teacher for insulting Muslims when she named a class teddy bear "Mohammed", will condemn Chinese oppression of Uighurs.
Perhaps Israel can save the day and invade Xinjiang.
Xinjiang and its Muslim inhabitants are almost complete unknowns in the Arab world, much to China's relief, I'm sure. During a visit in 1995 to attend the United Nations conference on women in Beijing, I tried to visit Xinjiang. But not a single airline office would sell a ticket to a "radical lesbians," as conference attendees were seen. No "restive regions" for us.
Further afield from the Arab world, Shaaz Mahboob, a British Muslim friend of Pakistani descent, wondered on Facebook "Where are the Pakistani emotions which rage whenever there is an issue to do with Muslims anywhere on this planet (thank God there aren't Muslims being persecuted on the Moon or Mars -- yet!)?"
He asked Imran Khan, the former Pakistani cricket superstar, and other Pakistanis who have supported militant groups why "they would not even support the militant Uighur groups who have allegedly initiated this chain of violence?
"They remain mysteriously silent over the plight of Chinese fellow Muslim. Or is it that the "friendship" with China takes precedence over helping fellow Muslims this time?"
As I said -- wrong enemy.
The Chinese government quickly boosted security to crush Sunday's Uighur uprising and arrested dozens of men, leaving many women to demonstrate on Tuesday, waving their the identity cards of male relatives they say were arbitrarily detained.
Those women just might be the Uighurs' best hope of getting the world's attention. Or at least one of them and no, I don't mean Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur businesswoman and activist whom Beijing blames for orchestrating the violence from her home in the U.S.
Reuters' photographer David Gray took a picture of a lone Uighur woman in a headscarf leaning on a crutch and facing off with two Chinese security vehicles behind which stood dozens of security personnel.
It was reminiscent both of the picture of the lone Chinese student facing off with the tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and of the ubiquitous images of Iranian women from that country's recent demonstrations,
So now they have an iconic image, here's hoping the Uighurs start to register on our radar.
Follow Mona Eltahawy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/monaeltahawy
Muhammad Tarim
Dec 29, 2008
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The Blind Eye of the Prophet
Since early December a movie clip from a popular TV show produced and broadcasted by China’s biggest and most watched TV network, China Central TV, which is owned by the government, has been passing around on the internet and causing quite a stir among Muslims in China. The movie clip contained at the following link features a picture of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in which he was depicted as one eye blind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dyUEZmVFQE
Growing up in China, I was not taught Islamic history or anything remotely Islamic at schools. In fact, Islam is banned in all schools and at work places unless your work for yourself or are a farmer. Everything I learned about religion came from my parents. Therefore, I did not know if this picture was based on historical fact. But, I knew, however, that drawing and showing his picture is a taboo in Islam. Therefore, even if the picture reflected the historical fact, it is offensive by itself.
I was also offended by the picture like my fellow Uyghurs. Unfortunately, opinions of my people do not count in China, but opinions of the outside Muslim world might. They have been very silent.
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?
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....
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?
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 bismillah001's mention of the LA riots and France's suburban minorities are extremely apt examples to call upon.
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.
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.
Above all the Chinese authorities have made it clear their actions are against "splittists", those who would break apart the PROC. I honestly do feel much empathy and sympathy for the Uighurs and their plight, as they are becoming a minority in their own homeland. At the same time, I cannot condone killing of innocent people even though they may be of a migrant ethnic group, in this case the Han. Nobody deserves to be lynched for who their parents are, no matter who they are.
Just because one sympathizes on a gut level with one side or another in a quarrel doesn't mean one should judge the quarreling parties based on that inclination. There's a lot more going on here than a kafir-vs-Muslim fight, and as you stated, this is why Muslims outside China have been largely silent.
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.
Hopefully readers now have a more balanced view of the situation.
2 Several of the pictures by journalists coming from there show many Mosques around (including those with police marching and protecting the Uighurs), so what is this BS about destroying all mosques?
1. The Imam - religious leader in each mosques is appointed by Chinese government
2. All the Mosques closely monitored by installing video camera and sound recording.
3. The Imams of the Mosques are forced to talk only what government allowed also forced to talk for government about "birth control" "ethnic unity" "fighting splitism" ...
4. All the money donated to the Mosques has to be given government for "safe keeping"
So actually there is no need for destroying mosques as it is working as a "show biz" and turned into a tool of the government actually.
The majority of Muslims are peaceful and nice people, but it doesn't mean all Muslims are non-violent as evidenced by the Uighur rioters who started the riots and the Al Qaida. Why should we side with the perpetrators of violent crime, which unfortunately in this case were the Uighurs?
The fact that the Muslim world stays silent shows that most Muslims are reasonable people who don't tolerate violence even though their fellow brothers commit them.
The U.S. government's response is appropriate by not speaking in favor of the criminals, and there's no need to interfere. The bottom line is law breakers must be punished, regardless of their ethnic affiliations. The Chinese security force has done sufficient jobs arresting the violent protestors and protecting the innocent Uighur civilians. Given the scale of the violence, it takes time to tell who is innocent and guilty.
It is an old and simple rule of "enemy`s enemy is my friend. "
Many Muslim countries actually feel sympathetic to Uyghurs but due to above reason they choose to remain silent or provide aids secretlyly.
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!
*bow*
By ancestry I fall into categories 4 and 7...it's good to be a mutt! :)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/world/asia/09han.html?hpw
“Relations with the Uighurs were pretty good,” Ms. Zhang said. “There was a mutton stall beside the cart where my son sold fruit. On nights when my son didn’t want to bring his fruit home, he would ask the Uighur neighbor to keep the fruit inside his stall.”
.
The killing of Mr. Lu, 25, was a ruinous end to the journey of a family that had fled their poor farming village in central China more than a decade ago to forge a new life here in China’s remote desert region.
The government, apparently hoping to tamp down racial violence, has not released a breakdown of the ethnicities of the 156 dead. But Mr. Lu’s father said that of more than 100 photographs of bodies that he looked through at a police station to identify his son, the vast majority were Han Chinese, most with their heads cut or smashed.
Each victim had a number. His son was 51.
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?
“Among large minority groups, Huis, Mongols and Manchuas did not have the kind of tension with Han similar to that between Han and Tibetan and Uighur, while Huis, Mongols and Manchuas also maintain a distinctive identity and large presence of around many cities in China.
The deep-rooted mistrust is related to royalty of a population group towards China especially during times of hardship. I have to emphasis that Chinese culture are very forgiving and mostly peaceful and inclusive. But once a population group made attempts to break away during time of hardship, their actions are usually not forgiving for a long time. This historical background has to be addressed head-on between Tibetans and Uighurs with Han openly someday, the sooner the better.
On the other hand, people knew how Huis, Mongols, Manchuas and Han struck together at times of foreign invasion, civil wars and hardships, even though there were kinks among them too.”
However, this is part of growing pain during China's modernization. It is being addressed. China is not Israel. The situation is clearly not a conflict between Jews and Palestines.
I believe what mostly is happening is the refusal of the Uighur to integrate into the main society, which explains their economic situation. And btw, I do so HOPE they can read and speak CHINESE because after all, the are in CHINA.
Several of my friends live Xinjiang, and even at the school level the government is trying its best to integrate them into the main society; for example, by bringing poor Uighur schollchildren into the better schools with the Han groups.
A few things gave me pause, however. The first is the spelling of Xinjiang, which is written "Xinxiang" in the article. Don't mean to be petty, but the incorrect spelling distracts from your larger points.
Another is your treatment of Sudan. I was a bit surprised to hear the standard "arabs oppressing blacks" frame coming from you. Anthropologist and Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani has some cogent observations about Sudan. One of his points is that "arab" is a poor category with which to distinguish people in Sudan, as many tribes are black but "arabicised", and the "blacks" supposedly being oppressed by the "arabs" are often just as "arab" as their oppressors. Many of the "black" tribes are also Muslim, and Mamdani takes issue with the complete disregard for Sudanese political realities (i.e. civil war and insurgency/counterinsurgency) and the reframing of a political conflict as something racial/ethnic/religious - which is all too easy for us to do when looking at "primitive" Africa and its "savage" "tribal" shenanigans. We create the perfect villians - Arabs, and the perfect victims - "Africans" in order to smooth over any political complexity or nuance and create an easy entry point for ourselves as saviors.
Read this article:
"The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency"
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html