"No-one's done anything, we are still there with our sea walls. It's an everyday thing you know, when you are on the island you just live with it, nothing you can do ... It's a very big problem, the Government isn't doing enough. We're a minority. I guess that's how they see us," said Sally Arehu, Taku Atoll expatriate who presently lives in Port Moresby. (ibid).
The Uyghur (Uighurs, Uygurs) are a Turkic, ethno-linguistic group who lives in East and Central Asia. They speak Karluk, a branch of the Turkic languages. Uyghur are also found in other parts of Asia, and in Europe, and North America. Most Uyghur live in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They’re one of China’s many officially recognized ethnic minority groups; the Uyghur are not recognized as indigenous to Xinjiang. There are about 15 million Uyghurs in China, and more than 1.5 million in the rest of the world. Most of Xinjiang’s Uyghur live in Tarim Basin. The rest live in Urumqi. Before living in the Tarim Basin, Uyghur spoke Tocharin, Saka, and Gandhari. When the Turks entered the region they brought their languages with them which supplanted the native languages. Within a few generations, Uyghur were speaking an unmixed Turkic language.
The musical technique of the Uyghur is known as Muqam. This style evolved in Northwestern China and Central Asia. A dozen muqams were recorded by traditional-style performers. This age-old musical style was labelled by UNESCO as a part of the intangible Heritage of Humanity. The folk dance of Sanam, is mainly danced at weddings, parties, and celebratory occasions.
Uyghur eat a combination of Chinese and Central Asian foods. A favourite dish is the pilash or polu, eaten regularly in Central Asia. It is prepared by frying sheep with carrots and onion in oil, water and rice are then added. As a predominately MuslimTurkic, ethnic group with their own culture, Uyghur are considered a nuisance, and labelled as a threat by the Chinese authorities. For millenniums, leaders, tribes, and Chinese imperial dynasties have gone to war for control of the resource-rich region of the Uyghur. Uyghur have been Muslims since the 10th century. It was in the late 1800s that the region was given the name ‘Xinjiang’, meaning ‘New Frontier’ in Mandarin.
Today, life for the Uyghur people in Xinjiang is very difficult. They’re forced to endure a complete, extensive, targetted series of operations of intrusive surveillance, intimidation, and control. Up to 2 million Uyghur have been sent to Chinese concentration camps; it appears that more could be on their way.
During the Chinese civil war, lasting intermittently from 1927 to 1949, the Uyghur enjoyed a short period of independence, using the name East Turkestan. Sadly, for many Chinese people the dreaded day came on October 1, 1949. A man who was responsible for the killings of an estimated 55 million Chinese people (some estimates go even higher), and the ruining of GOD knows how many others, declared the People’s Republic of China (China), incorporating Xinjiang into the newly formed nation, without the permission of its inhabitants, of course. The man was Mao Zedong, Chinese Communist Party leader.
In 1955, China ‘authenticated’ the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In reality, the Uyghur were given no political legitimacy. In 1966, a sickly, aged Mao was intent and adamant about crushing any form of resistance or defiance to his rule or policies. His intent was to reawaken the communist revolution and obliterate any trace of capitalism or traditional ways. He ordered the Communist Red Guards to ravage the ‘four olds’, including old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.
In Xinjiang, Uyghur life was horrifyingly altered. Mosques were obliterated or converted into Communist Party buildings. Religious documents and content, and Uyghur-language books were labelled anti-revolutionary, confiscated and burned. During this turbulent period, Mao sent millions of China’s educated, young urbanites to the countryside to perform hard labour on the land. Many were sent to Xinjiang. Mao referred to this as a ‘re-education program’, which is still haunting the region till this day.
Beginning in the 1950s, the communist party began a process of sending Han Chinese settlers and workers into Xinjiang. This colonization was intended to alter the demographic structure of Xinjiang; it’s still going on. The Han were enticed with promises of employment, housing, and an improved lifestyle. Skilled Han migrants were sent to, and placed in better jobs than the indigenous Xinjiang Muslims. The oil, gas, and cotton industries were the main targets. Han were granted special status and were given first choice for better jobs, promoted, and treated better by the Chinese authorities. Inequality and segregation gradually took form. Following Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping, improved the situation for the Xinjiang and other minorities in the region, but it was neither true justice, or everlasting.
The 1990s witnessed a period of instability in the region. Political activism and open protests against the Communist regime and their brutal rule became more common. Some protesters demanded Uyghur independence. The Chinese authorities re-ignited their brutal-ruthless pre-emptive strikes and responses. A surge in brutality began following the 911 terrorist attacks; it was relatively easy to take advantage of the new paranoia. Uyghur who are demanding independence, their human rights, protesting the communist authorities in any way, shape, or form, or who are not behaving as Chinese communists should, are labelled extremists, terrorists, and a danger to the nation. Amnesty International reported the 1997 protests in the city of Gulja as peaceful, turned massacre.
“I have never seen such viciousness in my life.” “Chinese soldiers were bludgeoning the demonstrators,” said Rebiya Kadeer. (By Isabel Cockerell, March 11, 2020; codastory.com: China’s Oppression of Xinjiang’s Uyghurs: A Visual History).
The cause of the late June, 2009 riots in Urumqi was a fight between Han and Uyghur workers at a toy factory in the city of Shaoguan, Guangdong Province. Two Uyghur died, 120 people, the majority of which were Uyghur, were injured. Uyghur from around the region were shocked at the news, seeing it as yet another case of injustice among many others. Confrontations between protestors, police, and Han residents rapidly worsened. Protestors threw rocks and burned cars, soldiers and paramilitary police fired bullets. Scores of people were killed and wounded, no one on the outside knows how many Uyghur were arrested. For days thereafter, armed Han hooligans strolled through the city, seeking vengeance upon the Uyghur. The authorities cut-off the internet in Urumqi. This practice has been repeated by brutal regimes elsewhere. No one on the outside knows how many of the hooligans were in fact government agents posing as civilian Han. This is another common practice by brutal regimes.
The rise to power of Xi Xinping was a horrible nightmare for the Uyghur, Falun Dafa, Christians, and other groups deemed enemies or a threat to the communist regime. Following several attacks initiated by Uyghur militants, Xi initiated a ‘Peoples War on Terrorism’, in 2014.
Shortly thereafter, Chinese authorities began the process of large-scale intrusive surveillance throughout the region. There was hardly any freedom of speech and assembly beforehand; this series of actions turned Xinjiang into a living hell for the indigenous population. It was done to ‘counter terrorism’. Numerous, quite intrusive police checkpoints were set up. Xinjiang residents were required to take iris scans, blood samples, DNA and voice samples, and facial scans, to be given to the authorities without hesitation. Today, there are millions of cameras and upto-date facial recognition technology apparatus installed throughout the region to spy on people. Chen Quanguo, a ruthless hardliner, whose previous job was that of enforcing a brutal security crackdown on Tibet, was appointed regional boss. Shortly after his appointment he gave an order to ’round up everyone who should be rounded up’.
"China's systematic campaign against the Uyghur population is characterised by mass detention, forced labour, and discriminatory laws, and supported through hightech manners of surveillance ... There are reasonable grounds to believe that China is responsible for crimes against humanity. It is important to recall that crimes against humanity were born out of the experience of the Holocaust and first were prosecuted at Nuremberg,” said said Naomi Kikoler, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in March, 2020. (June 29, 2020; abc.net.au: China Imposes Forced Abortion, Sterilization on Uyghurs, Investigation Shows).
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