Thursday, July 9th, 2009
By Mona Eltahawy
July 8, 2009
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 singly 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.
Comments (17)
moi said:
Mona– I share your dismay at both sides.
But I wonder– if Muslims came out in huge protests, wouldn’t you be the one to criticize them for only protesting when Muslims are being persecuted in countries like China, while not protesting when other minorities face the same fate?
And when they don’t protest, you criticize them like you have in this piece for being silent…
Lose-lose situation?
July 9th, 2009, 11:15 am
AM said:
Brilliant article Mona. I find myself disagreeing with you on alot of issues, but this is one story I whole heartedly agree with. My dad was shocked when I condemned China as a regime that suppresses the rights of Muslims in a more gruesome manner than the Israelis do to the Palestinians (not that the Israelis are angels or anything), but the only difference is that the Muslim world is largely silent when it comes to condemning the Chinese, why? Well, politically, China has brilliantly grasped Muslim economies by buying oil in return of development, military aide, and selling cheaper Chinese products.
Where is the Western media’s reporting of the Chinese response to the protests in Xinjiang which is 100 times worse than the crackdown by the Iranian government on the protesters in Tehran. I remember during the events leading up to the Olympics last year, there were thousands of protesters lining the streets for Tibet, but there was no violence at the time in Tibet, the Chinese government had begun a crackdown in Xinjiang in order to ‘make sure’ no protests would take place.
July 9th, 2009, 6:29 pm
AM said:
One part of the article I do disagree with is the part where it was stated that Imran Khan supported militant movements, and I must say that its a false allegation. He has spoken out against both the militant organizations operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan but has blamed their presence on the mishandling of the so called ‘war on terror’ by the US government over the past 7 years. He is one of the strongest philanthropists in Pakistan today and has worked vehemently for peace between India and Pakistan. I’m stating this as a non-Pakistani. Aside from Mr. Mahboob’s blog, I have heard no where else the allegations that Imran Khan had either stayed silent or even spoke out against China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.
I’ve always wondered as to what the reaction of the Han Chinese Muslim community of Xinjiang is at this point. Its a shame that we may never find out.
July 9th, 2009, 8:19 pm
Craig said:
Mona, on the one hand you seem to be condemning the West for not being sufficiently outraged by injustices against a group that doesn’t have the same religion we do, and on the other condemning Muslims for not being sufficiently outraged about injustices against a group that DOES have the same religion they do. I’m confused. If we are only supposed to care about people who share our religion, than the West is off the hook for not caring enough about Muslims, right?
July 10th, 2009, 4:36 pm
anonymous said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8145451.stm
July 10th, 2009, 4:52 pm
Dale said:
The short answer? Leaders of political groups don’t give a rat’s behind about anything that doesn’t affect their own agenda. Radical Islam wants the Jews pushed into the sea and America reduced to third world status.
Jews want themselves on top of the food chain.
The shadowy figures who pull the levers, push the buttons, and CONTROL THE MEDIA want all of us fighting each other so when the world’s population is low enough (another one of their goals), they can actually come out of the shadows and rule the world.
The fate of a minority Muslim group in China really doesn’t enter into the equation much one way or the other. They, like all people, will have to fight and die for their freedom.
Then again, perhaps I am only another right-wing radical paranoid doomsayer. Hope springs eternal.
July 11th, 2009, 11:22 am
Craig said:
They, like all people, will have to fight and die for their freedom.
They can’t, Dale. They have 0 chance of doing that successfully.
The main reason I don’t talk about this is I don’t know enough about what’s going on. If it was just a Chinese Government crackdown I’d have no problem with condemning it even without understanding what caused it, but that’s not the case here. It seems to be actual race rioting. I’ve never met an Uighur and don’t know anything about them, but I have considerable experience with Han Chinese. They are about the most non-violent and the most adept at getting along with other cultures as any people I’ve ever met. I can’t even imagine what would make Han Chinese riot in the streets against a different ethnic group. So, I’m not really willing to say that they are wrong, without any facts at my disposal. Especially when Muslims (sorry Mona) have the exact opposite reputation.
July 11th, 2009, 1:35 pm
Dale said:
Craig:
No such thing as zero chance… though I will certainly admit that the odds are agin ‘em.
The thing is that people have to solve their own problems if at all possible. Yeah, I know, the French aided us in our own revolutionary war, but they certainly had an agenda in doing so. Agendas abound when the bullets start flying.
Anytime anyone gets persecuted… the world seems to expect the US to go in and do gunboat diplomacy and then give aid until a fledgling government is ready to fly on its own. We are not, or at least should not be, the world’s policeman.
If the rest of the world wants the freedom we seem to have here, then they will have to pay the price.
July 12th, 2009, 7:36 pm
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July 13th, 2009, 3:26 pm
Joachim Martillo said:
One Arab Islamic ideological current cares immensely about Muslims oppressed by non-Muslims.
From http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/03/zionizing-muslim-via-interfaith.html :
Arab Jihadism was not founded by Bin-Ladin, who was basically the money guy/fundraiser, but by the Palestinian Abdullah Azzam and the Egyptian Kamil al-Sananiri. Azzam modeled his ideology on a somewhat mistaken understanding of Zionist history and politics with contributions from Sananiri’s revision of Qutbism. The key point is a modernist reinterpretation of individual and collective obligation with regard to Jihad. Azzam claimed Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Baz approved Azzam’s fatwa, but bin Baz never signed it.
In essence Azzam and Sananiri gave up on Qutb’s ideas about overthrowing Muslim governments that were insufficiently Islamic and argued that every individual Muslim had an obligation to undertake personal jihad on behalf of oppressed Muslims everywhere, whether they are Palestinian, Afghan, Kosovar, Bosnian, Thai, Filipino, Chechen or whatever.
Because Arab Jihadis had no interest in overthrowing “Muslim” governments and because there was considerable overlap of their program with that of the US government and even of the Neocons, they worked in an essentially frictionless environment of International Islamic Organizations mostly headquartered In Hijaz while they traveled effortlessly throughout the world from Peshawar to Hijaz, and thence to the USA (especially Boston). While the US and Saudi governments mostly ignored them, the Afghan Mujahidin were at best uninterested in Arab jihadi help and generally considered Azzam’s group to be more trouble than it was worth.
The Taliban Organization, which succeeded the Mujahidin was more open to collaboration with Arab Jihadis even though Taliban ideology is probably closer to an anti-modernist Qutbism than to Arab Jihadism.
In general Azzam rejected terrorist attacks on civilians and had reservations with regard to the ideas of people like Taqi Usmani about offensive Jihad, which is — to be frank — is far less radical a concept than the Bushite/Neocon policy of aggressive preventive war.
Both Sananiri and Azzam were killed and left Bin-Ladin as the titular leader of the very informally or barely organized Arab Jihadi movement.
Bin-Ladin was less of a purist and seems gradually thanks to his power of the purse to have steered the “organization” in a new direction especially when he and his colleagues became more aware of American views of legitimate military targets during the NATO intervention in Bosnia.
Are Azzam, Sananiri and Bin-Ladin heretics? Only God knows for sure, but it is much easier to make the charge of heresy against Zionism from the standpoint of traditional Judaism, for I have a long list of late 19th and early 20th century Orthodox Rabbis who put Zionists in the category of the worst heretics.
In any case we can be quite certain
* that Arab Jihadism is more of a political than a religious movement and
* that the ideology clearly developed primarily as a response to Zionist criminality and genocidalism in Stolen and Occupied Palestine.
No one should be particularly surprised that members of Abdullah Azzam’s family in Gaza are strong supporters of Hamas even though Hamas’ ideology is probably best characterized as realist Qutbism.
July 13th, 2009, 3:47 pm
Craig said:
Joachim Martillo, murder is murder. I don’t really give a damn what the ideology of a mass murdering cult is. Unless you are going to dispute the fact that they have a long history of committing heinous atrocities against innocent human beings, then as far as I’m concerned there is nothing to talk about. Unless you’ve got a helpful suggestion on how to destroy them? Rather than try to “understand” them. I don’t feel any need to understand Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, so why would I feel a need to understand their Islamic equivalents? A bullet in the head, for them and for their followers. Let them understand that.
July 13th, 2009, 5:03 pm
Joachim Martillo said:
Dear Craig,
Apparently crimes are crimes except when committed by Jews. Jews have been exploiting and abusing non-Jews for hundreds of years in C. and E. Europe. Circa 1850 ethnic Ashkenazim upped the ante by adding sabotage, revolutionary violence, and targeted assassinations to major financial crimes and economic exploitation. In the 20th century Jews added subversion, bloody coups, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The history provides perspective, but the real issue for those of us in the USA lies is the ruination of the political and economic system by Zionist subversion.
I know that Americans are so brainwashed by a false version of Jewish history that I could not undo the misunderstandings in one comment, article, or book, but I have constructed a web site with the mission of providing Jews and non-Jews with the intellectual tools to stand up to Zionist intimidation and manipulation.
Here is a good blog entry with which one may start: http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/07/herzl-and-normalizing-jewish-power.html . It provides backwards links so that an interested reader may thread his way backward through the blog.
So let’s just cut out the crap about “long history of committing heinous atrocities against innocent human beings” until we examine the last 150 years of Jewish financial criminality, economic exploitation, sabotage, revolutionary violence, targeted assassinations, subversion, espionage, mass murder and genocide in Europe, the Czarist Empire, N. America, and the Middle East.
As for issues of Arab Jihadism, Palestinian suffering, and Zionist crimes against humanity, ss soon as murderous genocidal Zionist state
1. repatriots the ethnically cleansed native population
2. reconveys stolen properties to their rightful owners
3. compensates the native and surrounding populations for approximately 100 years of Zionist atrocities,
4. turns over the leaders and perpetrators of Zionist genocide against the native population, and
5. abolishes itself, a major incentive to conflict between Arabs or Muslims and the West will diminish greatly.
In simple terms under Nuremberg Law, Palestinians have the right to kill every member of the criminal Zionist conglomeration of racist, murderous, genocidal, Zionist invaders, interlopers, and thieves in Stolen and Occupied Palestine.
As signatories to the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the USA has the obligation to provide relief to the native Palestinian population up to and including obliteration of the criminal Zionist conglomeration.
July 20th, 2009, 4:14 pm
Craig said:
Wow, man. I don’t think I even want to try to engage in a discussion with you. I’m just gonna hope you are posting this stuff from a rubber room, someplace.
July 20th, 2009, 7:04 pm
Joachim Martillo said:
Racist supporters of Zionism are unable to dispute the facts rationally, but instead resort to slurs on the sanity of scholars that have actually studied the history that belies Zionist propaganda and the lies of Jewish studies: http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/01/facts-versus-delusions-in-jewish.html .
July 21st, 2009, 2:41 pm
Thom said:
Look, Joachim, if you are going to post nonsense, post it to Mondoweiss. They now require registration and ban dissenters so there will be no one to challenge your made up “history” or your made up rights of Palestinians to murder Jews. BTW, go look up “Nuremberg Laws” they were anti-Jewish laws passed by the Nazis before WWII. You are thinking of the Nuremberg trials. And they did not say the Palestinians (or anyone else) has the right to target civilians.
August 4th, 2009, 2:05 pm
Joachim Martillo said:
For Craig:
Because racist Zionists are so far beyond extreme that they are psychotic, there is no rational debate with them, and they just cast aspersions on the sanity of anyone that dares argue with them on the basis of facts.
For Thom:
Nuremberg Law is International Law derived from the precendents and decisions in the Nuremberg Tribunals.
These precedents and decisions clearly define the right of an occupied population whether in Poland, France, Bohemian, Moravia, etc. to kill occupying personnel whether civilian or military.
As far as I can tell, the Nuremberg tribunal did not recognize any German occupiers as protected non-combatants. Likewise, no Zionist interloper, invader, thief or usurper has any right to security or safety in Stolen or Occupied Palestine.
Even international protection of the sort Germany received for the annexation of the Sudetenland provided no right of safety or security to occupying German population and local allies. Thus Zionist interlopers in Stolen Palestine (pre-1967 Israel) have no right of safety or security.
August 9th, 2009, 5:19 pm
Buddhism Facts said:
your article seems to be interesting….If Only the Uighurs Were Buddhist and China Was Israel…..Keep on posting….Thanks for sharing your ideas….
September 10th, 2009, 1:45 am
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