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The forgotten Muslims of
Xinjiang
by Ahmad Faruqui* - Posted August 15, 2002
As the US prepares to take on Iraq, while the West Bank and Gaza continue to
burn, it is easy to forget the plight of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang.
Islam is inextricably linked to their culture and identity.
Unfortunately, recent events have increased Beijing’s resolve to destroy
this very identity. Religious schools are banned. Many mosques have been
closed and the building of new mosques is restricted. Imams, indoctrinated
in communism, deliver the Friday sermons. Private religious services cannot
be held without the permission of the Communist Party. The police have
raided peaceful but ‘unauthorised’ religious gatherings. Those found to be
leading the gatherings have been sentenced to long-term imprisonment.
Government employees risk being fired if they go to mosques.
Xinjiang, located beyond the natural boundary of China, the Great Wall, is
an integral part of the history of Central Asia. For centuries it was called
East Turkistan. The Uighurs, who are ethnically Turkic, have lived in the
region for more than four millennia. Located along the famous Silk Road,
Uighurs played an important role in cultural and mercantile exchanges
between the East and West.
Islam came to the region in 934 AD, and soon thereafter Kashgar became one
of the major Islamic centres of Islam. As the centuries rolled by, Xinjiang
fell under the control of the Manchu emperors of China. During the 1860s,
Muslim uprisings erupted across western China. In 1865, a Kokandi officer
named Yakub Beg seized Kashgar and proclaimed an independent Turkestan. He
also made diplomatic contacts with Britain and Russia. A few yeas later, the
Manchus returned, Beg committed suicide, and in 1884 Kashgar was absorbed
into a new province called Xinjiang meaning "New Territory". Uighur culture
went into a steep decline.
After the Chinese Nationalists overthrew the Manchu Empire in 1911, Xinjiang
fell under the rule of the Kuomintang. The freedom-loving Uighurs staged
numerous uprisings against the Kuomintang and twice, in 1933 and 1944,
succeeded in setting up an independent republic.
In the 1940s, a Kazakh named Osman led a rebellion of Uighurs, and
established an independent republic of Eastern Turkestan in southwestern
Xinjiang. The Kuomintang government convinced the Muslims to abandon their
republic in exchange for real "autonomy". A Muslim league opposed to Chinese
rule was formed. In August 1949, a number of their leaders died in a
mysterious plane crash while en route to Beijing to meet with Chairman Mao.
Muslim opposition to Chinese rule persisted on an intermittent basis until
Osman was captured and executed by the communists in early 1951.
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is China’s largest province, accounting
for 16 percent of the landmass. Even though it is home to only 1.6 percent
of the population, Xinjiang has tremendous strategic significance for China.
Nuclear tests have been conducted at the Lop Nor range. The northwestern
province borders eight nations, and contains a large portion of the
nation،’s mineral resources including 38 percent of the coal reserves and 25
percent of the petroleum and natural gas reserves. Construction has begun on
a new 4,200-kilometer pipeline for transporting natural gas from Xinjiang’s
Tarim Basin to Shanghai on the Pacific coast. To be completed by the year
2005, the $5.6 billion pipeline will be the second largest project in
Chinese history after the Three Gorges dam.
Despite the mineral wealth of Xinjiang, more than 90% of local Muslims live
below the poverty line. China is pouring money into the province, but the
investment has mostly benefited the Han Chinese population. At the time of
the Communist revolution in 1949, Xinjiang was home to five million people,
of which only six percent were Han Chinese. Now, it has a population of 19
million, of which only 42 percent are Uighurs. Beijing has resorted to a
policy of ethnic flooding, similar to what was employed in Tibet. In most
cities, the ratio between the Uighur and Han populations has gone from being
9:1 to being 1:9.
Uighur kids are no longer taught their history and traditions in school.
Places and monuments representing the Uighur heritage have been destroyed.
In most of the big cities there is nothing left to indicate any presence of
the Uighur culture.
In a report released in 1999, Amnesty International recorded 210 death
sentences and 190 executions in Xinjiang since January 1997, mostly of
Uighurs convicted for subversion or terrorism after unfair and often summary
trials (This report can be accessed at http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/ASA170181999
). Amnesty concluded that the Uighurs, who have long been experiencing
economic marginalisation, social disadvantage and curbs on political and
religious freedoms, "are also the victims of state violence, from torture to
arbitrary and summary execution." The report, based on interviews with
former prisoners, relatives of prisoners, and on official Chinese documents
and media reports, said the government had violated its own laws in its
self-declared mission to crush separatism.
The US-led global war against terrorism has given Beijing an opportunity to
brand Uighurs who are asking for human rights as "terrorists" and to arrest
them in large numbers. Trials are swiftly concluded within days, often
resulting in the death sentence being meted out on the same day that it is
handed down. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, the
Uighurs are now "afraid to talk, not just to foreigners but even to each
other."
More sensitive to the concerns of Muslim countries than some of the
rightwing politicians in Washington, the astute gerontocracy in Beijing has
been careful to not associate the terrorists with Islam. Writing in a Saudi
magazine in June, Foreign Minister Tang said that selfish politicians who
wanted to further their own agenda were carrying out terrorist acts in
Xinjiang. Beijing has effectively pre-empted Muslim countries, which rely on
China for political, economic and military assistance, from speaking out
against its repression of their fellow Muslims in Xinjiang.
The OIC countries should send a delegation to Beijing to draw attention to
the plight of the Uighurs. They should demand that Muslims be given the
right to practice their religion as they choose fit, in addition to being
granted all the other civil rights that have been given to the Han Chinese.
Perhaps the new crop of Chinese leaders will realise that the previous
generation of leaders erred in thinking that they can suppress the genuine
aspirations of the Uighurs by submerging them in a climate of fear.
Continued oppression will merely raise the odds that Xinjiang will go the
way of the Central Asian states, and attain independence in the not
too-distant future.
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*Dr Faruqui is a fellow of the American Institute of International
Studies, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of Rethinking
the National Security of Pakistan, by Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming 2002.
This article was first published in the Pakistan Daily Times.
Source:
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/xinjiang.htm |
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