Wild Bactrian camels, Kyrgyz yurts, Tajik music. The far western frontier of China is as much a separate country as Tibet.
The term in the title is not mine, but one used by Matthew Teague in his article in last month's (Dec. 2009) issue of National Geographic:
The Uygurs, Muslim people of China’s resource-rich far west, are becoming strangers in their own land as Han Chinese pour in. Like the Tibetans, who face similar pressures, some Uygurs see a chance for a better life, but others protest the disintegration of their culture, even at the risk of death.
The massive western region has become a flashpoint for unrest in modern China. Its natives, the Uyghurs, are increasingly unhappy with the heavy-handed governance by the Communists despite the dubious "autonomy" afforded to the region.
Join me for a look at the the Uyghur people, their ancestral land, and the current state of their plight.
Also posted at The Laughing Planet
All photography by LaughingPlanet
The large arid territory is best known for its historic importance as a central part of the Silk Road, the crucial transit route of past millennia.
The Guardian puts "Xinjiang and Tibet" as #7 on its list of "The world's most likely trouble spots in 2010":
Tensions between majority Han Chinese and predominantly Muslim Uighurs in north-west China, which erupted into lethal rioting in 2009, will provide further flashpoints in 2010.
Here is a 6 minute video of traditional Uyghur music that should suffice as a soundtrack for this diary:
More from the Nat'l Geo piece:
The Tibetan struggle for independence from China has long captivated the West. Fewer people are familiar with an arguably more critical struggle in a neighboring hinterland: that of the Uygurs. Their anonymity is ironic because the West has played an unwitting role in their current crisis—and because the Uygurs, whose culture is fading toward obscurity, once occupied the center of the known world.
For decades, the Uyghur were lacking a face that defined their struggle. In the 90s, however, they seem to have found one. Thanks to the Communist policy of brutally punishing dissent, a sort of Uyghur Nelson Mandela emerged in the form of Rebiya Kadeer:
Photo Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters
Rebiya Kadeer (Uyghur: رابىيه قادىر,) is a prominent Uyghur businesswoman and political activist from the northwest region of Xinjiang in the People's Republic of China (PRC), also known as East Turkestan. She has been the president of the World Uyghur Congress since November 2006.
The NY Times profile describes her "the public face of an ethnic group that is little known in much of the world."
Ms. Kadeer has come to personify the Uighur cause, and that status may only grow with China's denunciations.
Kadeer has been active in defending the rights of the largely Muslim Uyghur minority, who she says has been subject to systematic oppression by the Chinese government. Kadeer is currently living in exile in the United States.
Kadeer was convicted of "endangering state security" and subsequently spent fully two years in solitary confinement after sending newspaper articles about oppression of Uyghurs to her husband in the U.S. She was eventually released due largely to efforts by American politicians. From Amnesty Int'l:
Attention by the US government and the scores of Members of Congress who had called for her release was critical to winning Rebiya's freedom.
She has recently received words of support from the most famous person living in exile in the modern world, His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
(Australian) Federal Labor MP Michael Danby says he discussed Ms Kadeer with the Dalai Lama recently. "He asked me to convey to you in Melbourne that she is another one of the national leaders who is a paradigm of non-violence," he said.
"He wanted to make it very clear to people that the claims of this woman being a violent person or instigating violence, is from his point of view, and with all of his authority, wrong."
The riots in the summer of 2009 were one of the rare times the region attracted attention from around the world. Since then, the central government has executed at least 9 people for their roles in that violence: (my bold)
In October, officials announced that 12 convicts had been sentenced to death in several separate trials. Three of the convicts had their sentences suspended for two years. Of the 12, all except one had Uighur names.
Kadeer penned a good op-ed about Uyghur unrest in July.
The Real Uighur Story
Chinese propaganda obscures what sparked Sunday's riots.
When the Chinese government, with the comfort of hindsight, looks back on its handling of the unrest in Urumqi and East Turkestan this week, it will most likely tell the world with great satisfaction that it acted in the interests of maintaining stability.
What officials in Beijing and Urumqi will most likely forget to tell the world is the reason why thousands of Uighurs risked everything to speak out against injustice, and the fact that hundreds of Uighurs are now dead for exercising their right to protest.
The nature of recent Uighur repression has taken on a racial tone. The Chinese government is well-known for encouraging a nationalistic streak among Han Chinese as it seeks to replace the bankrupt communist ideology it used to promote. This nationalism was clearly in evidence as the Han Chinese mob attacked Uighur workers in Shaoguan, and it seems that the Chinese government is now content to let some of its citizens carry out its repression of Uighurs on its behalf.
News continues to trickle out about the region. And it it rarely, if ever, good news for the locals:
Xinjiang Enacts a Curb on Dissent
The government of Xinjiang, the restive, predominantly Muslim region in far western China shaken recently by ethnic strife, said Thursday that it had adopted what appeared to be a sweeping law barring the spread of views deemed to threaten national unity. The government said on its Web site that the measure, a vaguely described law on “education for ethnic unity in Xinjiang,” was adopted Tuesday by the local legislature and would take effect in February.
Another recent news item:
By David Neal
Thursday, 31 December 2009, 13:30
Internet will return to Xinjiang
INTERNET SERVICES are gradually being restored in western China after the government hit the off switch during civil unrest earlier this year.
According to reports the Chinese government plans to slowly make online services available again to the computers of the citizens that it cut off this summer, and will widen availability if users behave themselves.
Turpan: Making hell seem downright chilly
The town of Turpan lies 80 meters below sea level which invited melting heat during the summer months, around 45 degrees C (120 F?). When the wind blows it’s like a hair dryer on high heat. The ruined city of Jiaohe and the grape trellises above many of Turpan’s 1800-year-old roads were the highlights of my visit, but boarding the air-conditioned train out of town was big too.
The remains of a Buddhist stupa in Jiaohe:
Brit Hume was overheard suggesting this week that this structure would have endured if it had converted to Christianity.
Swarms of Chinese group tourists, seen here enjoying the shade the grapes provide, are easily identified by their uniform caps.
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Summary:
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This short paragraph from Teague's Nat'l Geo story really says it all :
In 1947, during the second incarnation of Uygur independence, about 220,000 Han Chinese made up 5 percent of Xinjiang's population. Uygurs numbered about three million, or 75 percent, the remainder being a mix of Central Asian ethnicities. By 2007 the Uygur population had increased to 9.6 million. But the Han population had swelled to 8.2 million.
So in 50 years, the percentage of Han in Xinjiang has increased tenfold, but the total Han population numbers have increased by a factor of forty. Yes, there are 40 times as many Han living on Uyghur land than there was before the Communist revolution 60 years ago.
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Photography Bonanza
Think of it as a grand finale like @ a fireworks show.
Chinese propaganda looms large. The billboard in Kashgar shows Mao, Deng, & Jiang gleefully approving the economic progress that has been made.
But for whom?
The Id Kah mosque, built in 1442,
...was in 2004 flanked by brand-spankin’ new Chinese strip malls devoid of both character and reverence for the holiest building in the region. The widespread destruction of historic architecture here and everywhere in China causes one to wonder if the current decade isn’t more disastrous than the Cultural Revolution which ended 30 years ago.
The capital city of Urumqi has the largest Han population in Xinjiang. Its previous distinction was being the most inland city on Earth.
Despite its claim to fame as the city on Earth furthest from the ocean (2250 K), there is a sushi restaurant.
The Silk Road era trade continues to thrive.
Men barter over handmade carpets in a morning bazaar.
Double your pleasure. And yes, these girls do color in the space between the eyebrows with a makeup pencil to create a contiguous eyebrow. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect it is for the same reasons western women do the opposite...
Instead of plucking ‘extra’ hair, ‘missing’ hair is penciled in to create the coveted unibrow. In this case, beauty is in the eye(brow) of the beheld.
The hat makes the man
Square hats are en vogue as the choice of Uyghur Muslims.
Ethnic Tajiks make up a tiny fraction of the population...
...and Tajik men wear their own brand of head gear.
Would it hurt
if you had yogurt
in a yurt?
Sand or Snow? Frankly there is a whole lot of both in East Turkestan. Its largest feature is called "Taklamakan Desert" meaning "go in and you will never come out".
That's just nuts
The region also grow a large amount of grapes and dates with its ideal hot arid climate.
Like Tibetans, the people keep smiles on their faces a surprising percentage of the time despite their growing challenges as a result of Beijing's policies.
The average home is humble, bland & nondescript on the outside, yet colorful and ornate indoors.
Where I come from, "goat heads" are thorns that give your bike flat tires. In Xinjiang, they can be purchased on the streets for the right price.
Question about this handheld bird:
Worth 2 in the bush?
Red eggs = Hard Boiled
Craftsmen line the streets making their artifacts by hand with only the aid of machines reminiscent of the early days of the industrial revolution. The various musical instruments are particularly wild looking and sounding both musically and etymologically – khemuz, rabap, & surnai to name a few.
Selling silk tapestries can be exhausting.
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More good sources for info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
http://www.truexinjiang.com/
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Unsourced blockquotes come from writing published earlier on my blog, here.
See also: My two previous diaries about Uyghurs & Xinjiang-
A sad day in Muslim China
After surviving hundreds of years at the edge of the desert in a land more removed from the oceans than anywhere on Earth, the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar will soon be destroyed once and for all.
What endured the elements & foreign invasions for centuries failed to withstand 6 decades of Chinese rule.
In its place will rise a new Old City, a mix of midrise apartments, plazas, alleys widened into avenues and reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture "to preserve the Uighur culture," Kashgar’s vice mayor, Xu Jianrong, said in a phone interview.
Yes, yes. We are razing it to the ground in the interest of preservation. Everyone knows you cannot preserve something without completely destroying it first.
The root cause of unrest in Muslim China
One of many large companies seizing seemingly endless opportunity presented by China's booming economy, Baoheng Construction controls large contracts which add to Urumqi's ever-expanding skyline. Of course, under China's brand of Communism, larger businesses often get a helping hand from party cadres, in this case at the expense of poor local families.
The disturbing trend that is now widespread in the Xinjiang province involves the displacement of local people in the name of developing China's western frontier. Big businesses headed by China's majority ethnic Han population seek land occupied by the local Uyghur people for larger building projects. These highrises are usually subsequently rented to opportunity-seeking Han Chinese who migrate from the dangerously overpopulated areas of China's eastern provinces. Although this may sound like the typical result of development, there is one unusual element. The businesses never bother to pay the previous owners of the land.
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