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Luke P

The Uyghurs of of East Turkestan

Back in the news, disturbing clashes between ethinic Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang province. Who knows anything about the situation? Not many of us. Unlike the situation in Tibet, of which most of us have a passing familiarity, Xinjiang is ill-covered in our media.

The name preferred by the autochtonous Uyhgurs is actually East Turkestan or even Uyghuristan although the full title is the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang. It is the largest of the Chinese regions, an expanse of mountain and steppe six and a half times the size of the UK. The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking group, of Muslim faith, that once held an empire that dominated central Asia and western China.

Although coming under the hegemony of various Chinese dynasties over the centuries they have maintained a polite autonomy until modern times, enjoyed an abortive independence at the start of the 20th century, finally under the yoke of the luvverly PRC in 1959. Since then the government has encouraged millions of Han Chinese to migrate to the region. The Han population has grown to 40% of the population (about 8 million) in just 2 or 3 decades. Uyghurs will soon be outnumbered.

The Han immigrants are actually taught that the land is theirs, that they were there first and the Uyghurs are in fact immigrants from the west...

The other ethnic group of note are the Kazakhs, the very same Turkic nomads that inhabit Kazakhstan, although bearing no resemblance at all to creations of Sacha Baron Cohen. They account for about 6%.

China as we know is not democratic, nor does it have the best of records when it comes to human rights. Freedom of faith is questionable and minority groups are not particularly encouraged. Images of '000s of riot police bearing crossbows adds no floral border to the image. Added to that is the sheer size of the place and the nuclear deterrent. No-one messes with China.

With no charismatic Dalai Lama to speak up for them the Uyghurs have let frustration boil over as they see their land, culture and businesses overrun by the Han immigrants. Images of desperate women confronting armed police poignantly remind us of Tiananmen Square. There is allegedly an East Turkestan Independence movement, a group held responsible for various attacks pre-Beijing Games. With Muslim connections, the US has declared them a terrorist organisation. Like I said, no-one messes with China.

Uyghur independence is a cause I would certainly support. At the very least, I hope through the current troubles they will obtain some international awareness.

Dave Coull

Re: The Uyghurs of of East Turkestan

Luke P wrote:
disturbing clashes between ethinic Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang province
Very, very nasty. Nobody was asking "Do you support Chinese government policy?" or anything like that, it was just a case of "you look and sound wrong, so I'm going to kill you"
Luke P wrote:
The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking group, of Muslim faith, that once held an empire that dominated central Asia and western China.
The territory controlled at one time by the Uigurs extended into a lot of present day Russia. The English word "ogre" comes to us from Russia, from Russian fairy tales about the Uigurs. "Be good or the uigurs/ogres will get you."
Luke P wrote:
Uyghur independence is a cause I would certainly support.
They certainly won't be getting any support from Russia, across the border. Unfortunately for the Uigurs, it is very difficult to define exactly what the extent of their "homeland" is. There are few clear boundaries in the wide open spaces of the Asian interior. Once again, we in Scotland should be thankful that we are mostly surrounded by sea, with only one very short and long-established land border.
Luke P

The Uyghurs/Uigurs suffer a similar fate to the Kurds. They are dominated by powerful states who no-one cares to upset.
Luke P

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8147657.stm

More details emerging of the violence, but what is true is hard to say!

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