 Reasons behind the rising tensions that sparked Xinjiang riots in July
Earlier this week, courts in Xinjiang sentenced six men to death and
a seventh to life imprisonment for murder, arson and robbery during
riots that swept the region in early July, leaving nearly 200 persons
dead. Paul Mozur, a Taiwan-based correspondent, traveled through the
area shortly after the riots. This is the second of a three-part report
which started Wednesday.
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Kashgar's old city can be
deceiving. Its airy, mud-brick courtyard houses show the dilapidation
of their 400-year history, but many abodes are in fact quite
comfortable. Still, unpatched cracks mark the outside of many walls and
Spartan comforts are the rule. The Chinese government has cleverly
cashed in on this perception to bulldoze whole blocks of the old city
under the pretense of enhancing living conditions and providing
earthquake-safe housing for the Uighurs.
But the stucco
flaking from new apartment blocks outside the city where many have been
or will be moved inspires little confidence in a policy many analysts
have said is designed to continue to uproot Uighur culture and tighten
security. Though it was unclear how severe an earthquake Merhum's house
would survive, its luxuriant interior outdid the dim, stained hotel
rooms that sit in unthreatened buildings in the city's Han quarter.
For
now Merhum is not worried about his house, which is well away from the
areas being razed. After catching my attention as I walked by the open
entrance to his courtyard, he motioned me inside, opening a plain
wooden door to reveal a room stippled with niches holding
golden-framed, black-and-white photos, lushly colored pillows, copper
teapots and other elegantly displayed baubles. Unmistakable on a
minaret-shaped pillar in the center of the room were matching East
Turkestan symbols, a crescent moon cradling a star. I pointed
questioningly.
"East Turkestan," he nodded and assented to a photo.
Appropriated
from the flag of the short-lived 1933-34 first East Turkestan Republic,
the symbol is strictly forbidden in Xinjiang and is alleged to be the
emblem of pro-independence "separatist" groups. Given that troops were
routinely checking tourist cameras for pictures of sensitive most
wanted signs and troop installations, allowing me to take a picture was
about as risky as distributing Tank Man photos in Tiananmen Square. As
I was about to press him about his behavior, his daughter finally
emerged in response to earlier shouts up to the second floor. Unlike
Merhum, she was unhappy and curtly refused to help translate for him.
For
a few brief minutes of muffled argument the two disappeared from the
room, when he returned he apologized in his halting Mandarin, "she does
not want me to talk to foreigners. I do not normally invite guests like
you into my home, but the situation is just so bad right now, we must
speak out." As Merhum explained that he was a retired carpenter in his
late 50s, his daughter dutifully but coldly returned to present the
dastarkhan, or tablecloth, on which fruit, in my case nearly a full
watermelon, is put out for guests to eat. After she parted he sternly
asked: "Do people in the West know about our problems here? Do they
know about the situation? You must tell them when you go back."
"I've
seen too many people die, at least 50,000 are dead or in prison since
the July 5th riots. We Uighurs are good to people who are good to us,
but to those who wrong us," he broke off, "but we only have knives, if
we had guns we could fight them." Although a number of Uighurs I spoke
with reported this 50,000 statistic, most reliable sources estimate
Uighur detentions since the riots between 1,000 and 2,000. But Merhum
was insistent about his numbers, claiming to have heard them from a
Uighur policeman.
When I asked where else he obtained
information over the past months he drew close and mischievously
motioned at the floor. "I have a radio I use to get the news, but I
have to keep it hidden from the police," he replied, likely referring
to the extra antennas or pieces of tin required to receive signals from
media sources like Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-run Uighur news
service whose broadcasts are blocked in China. During our conversation
Merhum had grown more emotional and finally fighting back tears he
shook his head: "Many of my friends have been arrested, too many have
died, and America, Germany, England what can they do? We have no hope."
As
I stepped out from the cool darkness of his house to the blinding
alley, he told me: "Keep the photo and show it to people abroad, they
need to know about what is happening here." Merhum was not alone in his
vocal denunciation of China, nor was he the first to admit he didn’t
normally speak out. Shop owners, taxi drivers, tour guides and even a
few state employees made clear in ferocious language their disgust with
the current situation, often within earshot of dozens of passersby.
When a bus I took from Hotan to Urumqi across the Takalamakan was
stopped on the desert's edge for six hours until dawn, several men
openly cursed the government to me as they clustered in a group,
slurping down instant noodles and joking through the night.
On
the other hand the large and undisguised presence of the People's
Liberation Army at almost every cultural site did little to intimidate
Uighurs. One old man, with the aid of his grandson for translator
bristled at soldiers drilling in front of a new theater dedicated to
Uighur Mukam music. "They're here to intimidate us," he shook, "but
they're scared too, they know that we will not back down." When I asked
him about the history museum next to the theater and how Chinese
official history differed from his own understanding of it, he mounted
his pedicart and laughed, "anything I say about that would be
separatist," and without waiting for an answer he rode away with his
grandson perched in the back.
That this strategy of occupying
cultural spaces inflames as much as it intimidates seems to have eluded
the authorities. In Urumqi a Uighur cab driver who had grown irate when
he saw a public bus being searched by PLA grew angrier, when arriving
at the Xinjiang Provincial Museum, he saw troops drilling in front.
Thankfully for his sake he was long gone when later in the afternoon,
due to rain, the troops took shelter inside the museum. While my bottle
of water had to be disposed before entering, teargas canisters and
dagger bayonets were blithely displayed as troops clogged the
facilities and crowded around the exhibits - including the Beauty of
Loulan a 3,000-year-old mummy whose long nose has been (against all
scientific evidence) claimed by Uighurs as proof of their Indo-European
roots and originary presence in the region.
In Hotan's central
square in front of its anatomically questionable statue that shows a
thick and tall Mao bending slightly to shake the hand of a short and
emaciated Uighur, PLA troops rehearsed Kung Fu routines, their shouts
echoing several blocks away. Even the signs the provincial government
put up were more provocative than informative. Warnings of severe
prison sentences for those who falsely reported being attacked by
needles rang false beneath most-wanted signs that listed only a few Han
fugitives amongst dozens of Uighurs. The only noticeable difference
between Urumqi before the Han protests and after were more troops.
Where about 30 troop transport trucks had sat in the city's People's
Square before, after there were more than 60. Formerly empty corners
were marked by new attachments of soldiers standing stolidly behind
sand-bag barricades.
As the Chinese government not only
continues, but intensifies the policies that have left it on edge for
several months, more tragic flare-ups like July 5th will be the
inevitable result. Han and the Uighurs alike are vexed and spooked. And
when ragtag lines of Uighur and Han Chinese Militia, many of whom are
sparsely trained State Owned Enterprise employees, patrol the streets
of Urumqi with truncheons, one gets the distinctive feel that the
government is smoking too close to the dynamite, and no significant
change in policy must represent an at best complacent and at worst
apathetic lack of executive imagination.
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The grim truth of war remains: hearts and minds are lost in the campaign to get the enemy by the balls
Washington challenges Beijing's hegemony over the South China Sea
The authority, “an important person”, consciously indulges himself in looking on tearing of the sort, instead of teaching his people to respect different cultures in his country. Tearing continues, so that some of us, the readers, employ word violence against each other. Bloodthirty authority. Most of us fall into the trap he sets. Bloodthirty authority likes to hear extremely-opposite voices, but not neutral voices, i.e. the ones from some of us or from the author. Bloodthirty authority always expects any conflicts. The bloodthirty authority finally will be the only one beneficiary from the conflicts. His strategy. The sum: the authority is unqualified, in this respect.
I live in Taiwan. China is just like the “Big Brother” who makes threatens against Taiwan when “he” feels unhappy. His hobby. Some politicos in Taiwan feel scared and then console the “Big Brother”. I really disdain them, though able to understand them. I’m a minority in Taiwan. From my point of view, Taiwan is not the Han’s, neither the China’s. Taiwan belongs to the aboriginal people and is also the homeland of the Austronesian people. But, the Han’s Big Brother doesn’t tell his people the common sense. Should I say all Hans in Taiwan go back to the Mainland? Or, “China, please take your people home!” I have many Han friends. We, the aborigines, and the Han, in the island don’t have conflict like before; each has his own life. In this respect, Taiwan government is qualified.
However, to be honest, it is not easy for an aborigine to survive among the majority Han. Would you spend time on trying to understand a person whom you are unfamiliar with? It is human nature. But how lucky I am! I was born in a “rich” family, compared with most aborigines. I am not “lazy”, too, so that I can have more opportunities to strengthen myself and then to compete with the Han. Moreover, I am so greedy that I often remind myself that laziness will ruin me. But as for most of aborigines, they are content with very little. It is the characteristic of an ethnic group. And, most importantly, they are willing to share their belongings. Naivete ruins them. Taiwan or capitalism doesn’t allow naivete of the sort to survive. But, municipality will keep the naivete alive. Our cultures and languages will then be maintained. (How ridiculous! I have to “purchase” my mother tongue. Petty cash for some poor elders.) In this respect, Taiwan government is really unqualified. So, the authority is the only enemy we, the aborigines, must fight against. Not the unimportant persons.
Same to the case in Xinjiang.
I don’t know too much about the Western. But some of them, the ones who seize political powers in particular, are indeed arrogant.
We are not stupid but should learn to be a smart and mature reader.
"Politics” should learn to hear alternative voices, though it is hard for IT.