Hundreds are believed to be killed after riots in the capital of Xinjiang on the 5th of July. There are reports of Han police firing indiscriminantly into crowds of protestors armed with knives and other weapons.
This is developing, and Almaty may not be the best place to get ‘frontline’ news – still, I’m posting links for those who haven’t caught up with this yet. My main concern is that the stupid Michael Jackson memorials swallow this whole in the West, relegating the newest attempt for the fair treatment of the Uighurs to the News Scrawl under Wolf Blitzer. The background is almost as contreversial as the riots themselves – this being either the result of ethnic discrimination at a factory co-staffed by Han and Uighur, or the result of the “rape of two innocent Han girls by Uighur youths.” In general, the internal reporting is as biased as ever, with Han participants described as ‘innocent’ and ‘ordinary.’
Three “ordinary” Han Chinese people died in the violence, an initial Xinhua report said, while a later dispatch said a “number of civilians and one armed police officer” were killed, without clarifying the death toll.
VOA News: Ethnic violence, over a hundred believed killed
Reuter’s Factbox: China’s restive Xinjiang province
AFP: China Blames Muslim Uighurs
{ 18 comments }
can u distort the fact much more?
idiot?
protestor?
Uighur killed han, raped han girls,
they are criminar, u r a distorted mouth full with shit
The above is too moronic to waste any more bites on. The racist Han basically reap what they sow (and please, no hypocrite liberal finger-wagging). Of course, as usual, they’ll blame it all on ‘criminals’ and ‘evil international conspiracies’ against China but once more we see that Uighurs are sick of being humiliated. Allah biz bilen, Uiğurstan!
when they are killing Chinese, you do not care about those killed at all, but so merciful to give opinion on this issue. You are not biased?
No I’m realist.
Guys, this will not be a flame war over the Uighurs.
Meanwhile, it is VERY interesting to note that Cina has not frozen out the foreign media this time around. What do they not have to hide this time? Or are they worried about repeating an Iran?
Interesting remark Joshua. One explanation could be, that the Chinese government is less worried about an international fuss since the Uighurs can rely on far less sympathy in the West and in international opinion than the Tibetans do? Also, there are no more olympics and no mega pr-buildup this time.
There’s also another thing IMO… In contrast to the nineties, when it was indeed trying to sweep all Uighur unrest under the carpet and minimise it all, since 2001 and 2002 China has been keen to sell all oppression of/crackdown against the Uighurs as its part in the so-called ‘war on terror’.
Racist Han? Laughable. The Uighurs are like American blacks blaming the White man for anything and anything. Rioting? Whitey made me do it! Murder? It’s all Whitey’s fault! Theft? Whitey made me poor! Except in Turgai’s case, substitute the white man for the yellow man.
Funny he should mention liberal hypocrite finger wagging as he is practicing precisely that. No one wants to examine the attitudes of Uighurs towards Han Chinese (or American blacks towards Whites for that matter) because they want to ignore the uncomfortable truth. The Uighurs are an order of magnitude more racist towards Chinese than vice-versa. The Chinese regard the Uighurs as thieves (which they disproportionately are), prone to criminality (arrest rates don’t lie), and violent (140+ dead in a riot anyone?). The Uighur’s seethe with a deep resentment and contempt and racial animus whose closest comparison is that of Arab muslims towards Israeli Jews. Besides the flame of Uighur hatred for them, Chinese patronizing contempt for the Uighurs is a petty and small thing.
Josh and Nathan, Do you have any statistics about how many readers Registan has in China? These comments are interesting, somehow something new…
Normally we don’t have many readers in China. For July 1-4, we had 13 visitors from China. So far we have 148 today. The Chinese and the Russians are pretty much the same on the internet. Any time they feel that they are being and/or will be criticized for something, the volunteer propaganda battalions mobilize.
AHA! There we have it. The deep resentment is definitely a fact in both cases, with which you seem to be familiar. It would be surprising if it was not, really. Ever wondered *why* it became that way? OK right: an “evil terrorist conspiracy”, “destructive propaganda” etc etc… (for more info, e.g. click here http://cpc.people.com.cn/). Anything more, maybe…?
All this being said, granted: ‘racist Han *policy*’ would maybe be better. Even though Han culture has a substantive to strong supremacist element, let us assume that a certain percentage of Han do not think and behave along the same lines.
Finally, Mr. Koschei, admit that Uighurs have far more ground for existential uncertainty/anxiety than Han have and ever will have.
It’s too bad that the message board so far has been mostly an insult contest between Han and Uyghur sympathizers. Perhaps this is a measure of the sheer lack of access to objective facts on this catastrophe. We don’t seem to know the identities of the people killed; how many were killed by rioting Uyghurs, how many by authorities and rioting Hans. However we feel about how to resolve the political situation in Xinjiang/Uyghurstan, we should all be disappointed that people have reacted to the situation with a massive loss of life.
The PRC doesn’t allow for the people of Xinjiang/Uyghurstan or Tibet to voice their opinion. We don’t if the majorities of either region really do want full independence or to remain in the PRC in some manner. And even if they do want independence, the indy side must address the PRC’s own security concerns, such as fear that Tibet and Uyghurstan could become Western or Russian client states.
Joshua, I wish, too, that this tragedy was leading the U.S. news, for the shear number of deaths. I’d wonder though about how the story would get covered: We’d probably get the same accusations lobbed during the Iran election crisis, of the U.S. media trying to make the opposition protesters look completely in the right.
Hate to sound whiny Inkan, but addressing Joshua is technically a mistake, since I wrote the post. I know I post less frequently, but assuming every post is Joshua’s cuts out the other regular contributors.
Phew, who started the insult contest?
Anyway: how can this evolve further? What is relatively new, though not surprising in se, is that it happens in Ürümqi this time (85% Han and Hui). Traditionally, Uighur uprisings happened in the south of Xinjiang (Baren, Kashgar, … ) or in Gülça (‘Yining’). Yet Ürümqi saw a lot of rural-ruban migration and social mobility there is high (i.e. mobility leads to competing expectations and thus frustrations, different groups are more closely confronted with each other in cities etc… )
An independent Uiğurstan is not for anytime soon, unless China balkanises which is not probable either. If I said that Uighurs have far more ground for existential uncertainty and anxiety than Han (should) have, it is because the options do not look very bright indeed. For a start, physically, they are confronted with a numerically vastly superior and agressive enemy.
What’s up then? Lets’ run the gamut: a) assimilation to remain a despised third-rank citizen anyway (‘the savage who learned good manners’); b) emigration from China (cf. India took the Tibetans in at the time, Uighurs will be more scattered); c) perhaps the most pathetic fate of all, end up like the (with all respect) native Americans in some sort of ethnological reserve where fluo-capped tour groups can toss coins, peanuts and bacon at those ‘backward Muslims’. Any surprise that some want to escape all of these fates by fighting themselves to death?
Let one thing be clear: no-one, I think, denies the right to the Uighurs to be modern. They themselves want that too. Yet what the Han compitalists do now is not a matter of ‘development’, ‘modernisation’ or ‘evolution’ but of sheer subjugation and humiliation. History has shown sufficiently than any ‘modernisation’ imposed by parties who think they know what is good for someone else leads to disaster.
Or else, who knows, some in the Han establishment will draw the necessary lessons from what happened lately. Let’s not dream though.
Re: Joshua’s point about increased foreign access, my guess is that they feel there is more evidence of rioting than there is evidence of the repression of protests, which i think makes sense- the only evidence of repressed protests would be Uighurs killed and/or beaten, whereas evidence of rioting would be damaged buildings, etc, which anyway take more time to clear up. The Chinese govt’s main goal here as in Tibet is to make the protesters/ rioters look bad and therefore delegitimize them, and so far they have succeeded, I would say.
Also, it is my impression that as in Tibet, they are running media tours, so the foreign media only sees what the CCP wants them to see.
I also agree though that it is impossible to draw conclusions about this, since we really only know about the CCP and exile version of events; we have no way of gauging what Uighurs in Xinjiang actually feel.
test
Seems I can post.Not so many Chinese readers here maybe because your advertising promotion is not enough
Very intense discussions here.Personally,I don’t think they could be called protestors who slaughter people.In first comment ,Mr. “u r shit” says some girls were raped,maybe that is the cause of this riot(we are still unaware of the truth in Guangdong Province).Maybe they are just taken advantage of.whatever,It was a national tragedy,and what these young people have done was inexcusable.Regardless of whether
he is Uighur or Han,killing is a not right way to show their discontent.Government should also take the responsibility of this riot.I wonder why police did not get any information,after all,it’s a pig plan with 3000 people.I see some pics on the web,and I have called some colleagues in Urumqi(some also Uighur,and i’m so happy they are all fine),it all shows that the destruction and the bodies of the victims are so appalling that one could hardly bear the sight of it.They are just innocent people.