Introduction
The value in learning history is the value that you obtain to make sure that history does not repeat itself, but also learning how the politics of power has created and contributed to the insubordination of races, genders, religions, etc. In learning about the Holocaust we learn about the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler and the six million people he killed. It is pertinent that when talking about genocide we recognize these patterns that lead to the insubordination of minorities or those perceived as socially deviant, in order for genocide to not be committed again. The problem with this prospect of learning history is that individuals either do not recognize these actions when it is implemented within present-day society or simply do not feel as if they can do anything to help.
Countries can change the world through cultural and racial perceptions, when these perceptions become discriminatory against one group or another we must recognize that, even if it is not domestic to us, it is domestic to this earth. Perception of society, leaders, and yourself can affect masses of people negatively and positively; but have always resulted in the superiority of one, and the oppression of another. This is what has led to the Uighur Muslim population of China fearing for their lives. The power of perception allows us as individuals to hold countries accountable for their actions. Throughout this essay I will examine five essential questions; What is the background between China and the Uighur people; Why are the Uighurs being arrested; What is happening in these camps; Why is China doing this; and Why is no country or citizen doing anything about this.
Uighur-Chinese Government Relations; How did this Start?
No story in history has ever been created out of thin air, there is always a lead-up to every situation, and then a release that results in major events. Tensions having to do with China and their dominant Muslim population is the same way. The Uighurs have resided in China’s northeastern region Xinjiang, and are on record of residing in China since 3CE (Dillon). It would make sense to many that tensions started to arise as the racialization of the modern Muslim body started to form after the September 11th terrorist attacks in America, but this conflict goes deeper than that. Though the Muslim religion has been afforded the stereotype of producing terrorists among many countries in wake of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS in recent years, tensions between the two groups have been festering since the 1950s (Hughes).
The history of the Uighur Muslim people in China makes it important to note where they ethnically derive from, ethnically these people are Turkish and are often treated as a different race, given how homogeneous China is perceived to be. Historically the Uighurs have created their kingdoms along the Orhon River in what now is northern Mongolia until it was invaded and overrun by Kyrgyz, as a result, the Uighurs migrated south western around the celestial mountains forming another independent kingdom known as the Turfan Depression region which was later overthrown by the Mongols, which has now left the Uighur people to reside in Xinjiang (Dillon). After Xinjiang declared itself an autonomous region in the 1950s, the Han Chinese, or those who are considered ethnically Chinese have been participating in a state-sponsored migration to the Xinjiang region in order to match the population of the Uighurs (Dillon). As an autonomous region, it - in theory at least - has a degree of self-governance away from Beijing’s government, but in modern times this does not stand (Hughes). This influx of Han Chinese has resulted in the Han being 2/5th of Xinjiang's population around the 1990s and economic problems for the Uighur people. With demographics changing this has resulted in an influx of tensions that the Uighur people have started to protest and hold various demonstrations. One of the most notable being held in July 2009, in which 200 people lost their lives and 1,700 people were injured. Other attacks taking place such as The Baren Township riot, the 1997 Urumqi bus bombings, as well as the April and May Urumqi attacks. These protests have resulted in the Chinese government getting involved through the May 2014 Strike Hard Campaign which has treated the Uighur people as terrorists and implementing more security in the forms of, cameras, checkpoints, police petrol, and even detention camps (Dillon). As the government shows their feelings through policy the Han Chinese show their feelings through violence and discrimination.
Within more recent history the Uighur people have lacked political unity for the most part, which makes it harder to start political movements and present a united force. This has allowed Chinese policy promoting cultural unity to be implemented against the Uigur people that has erased much of their identity and has had harsh responses to separatism. As most organizations would, major Uighur organizations have stated that they denounce terrorism, but with this, they have offered a critique of the Chinese government by also denouncing the religious intolerance placed upon them and totalitarianism which is what China seems to be turning into (Dillon). Without being politically unified and having to scramble to defend themselves this has left the Uighur people at ample opportunity to be exploited and aid in their subordination.
Reasons for Arrests
As history progresses through time we see it repeating itself, in Natzi Germany we saw eugenic-based laws, dehumanization, and arrests based on religious practices or stereotypes associated with religion. Today it is not hard to draw eerie parallels between the two countries with statistics such as one in every ten Uighur Muslim finding themselves in a reeducation camp ((www.dw.com)).
What is important to start with is how these people got there. Within China, the Uighur citizens are subjected to spy apps, facial recognition, party informants, spying neighbors, regulation through social scores, etc. The social scores imparticular will affect whether you can buy plane tickets, what real estate you can buy, your internet, and what cars you can buy.The concept of social scores reaches further than just the individual, if you are in contact with someone who has a low social score you are then deemed suspicious by the government and are subjected to negative treatment and higher security (Buckley). Though the Chinese government would argue that everyone is subjected to the same treatment, there are systematic differences and differing demographics within these camps and China itself, only 1.5 % of China’s population lives in Xinjiang but accounts for more than 20% of total arrests throughout the country (Buckley). Along with Xinjing having disproportionately more arrests than any other region, it is important to note that the majority of the population is Uighur, creating a correlation along with other facts that these arrests are simply based upon the religion of individuals. While this genocide persists the government created and continues to keep records of the prisoners family members (Buckley) in order to control and cleanse China of deviant cultures or religions.
While all of these reasons seem nominal, reasons for arrests get more and more specific as time progresses. Arrests are based around ideas of discrimination and prejudice towards the Muslim religion which promotes ideals of Islamophobia. Reasons for arrests consisting of the actions of simply praying too much, having too many children, wearing veils and traditional clothing, growing beards, fasting, applying for a passport, all reasons are covered under the categorization of “illegal religious activities” ((www.dw.com)).
What is Happening in these Reeducation Camps
Eugenic laws have a significant part in structuring the re-education camps and framing personal experiences that people have had in these camps. All outline the same concurrent realities that, the Uighur people are subjected to brainwashing, through various modes of forcibly denouncing the Muslim religion, watching communist propaganda videos, self-critiquing, studying the leader’s thoughts, and being forcibly sterilized ((www.dw.com)). Within these camps, the Uighur’s are heavily surveilled, more so than when they are considered “free” within their homes, all setting the bases for complete and utter control while backing an idea of a model citizen. The obtainable goal the government seems to have with these reeducation camps is to mentally and physically torture the Uighur people into fully assimilating with the majority of Hun Chinese. In doing so the Uighur people are tortured physically and mentally (Hughes).
As women are forcibly sterilized this adds to the implications of procreation and future continuance of the Uighur people, by sterilizing the Uighur people the government has inherently perpetuated the continuous insubordination of the Muslim minority. The women within these camps have testified to receiving mandatory shots once a month, after receiving these shots the women noticed that they have discontinued having their periods. Without knowing what these shots contained it is hard to say whether this is merely experimental in the forms of birth control or irreversible sterilization. Either implication is a dabble in eugenics and still a human rights violation.
As the entire region is subjected to a complete survallience, inside the reeducation camps it only gets worse. The intense survallience is issued under the guise of physically seeing what the people are doing and further collecting DNA and biometric samples (Hughes). The Uighur prisoners are subjected to a strict regiment as outlined by various survivors from these camps. They are forced to jog every morning for physical activity, then in order to eat they are forced to sing patriotic hymns such as “Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China.” If the prisoners do not sing these hymns, or could not remember the words they were then denied food, making it so the prisoners would either learn, or stave (Buckley). As the Uighur people were made to sing before every meal, in between meals they were taught Mandarin and would write “self-criticism” essays, which are ploys used in silencing, cleansing, and brainwashing these individuals (Buckley). Throughout their time at these camps, detainees speak of the physical and verbal abuse that was suffered at the hands of camp guards.
Why is China Doing this?
Many theories are suggesting as to why the Chinese government is committing this genocide, reasons lying in economic, cultural cleansing, the war on terrorism, etc. All theories consist of some truth which is why it is important to examine all.
Belton Road Innitative- Economic Motivation
Economically China is the United States top competitor. Historically one of China's most notable and recognizable contributions is the Silk Road, for its time the silk road allocated for China to obtain a booming economy and many trade partners. Following China’s glorious past, China is looking to follow this guise and repeat history through initiatives like the belton road initiative. The initiative is said to be linking some 78 countries across land and sea (Ma). Mainly connecting itself with Africa and Europe through multiple facets of trade routes, including railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings, through former Soviet republics as well as through Pakistan, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia (Chatzky and McBride). Where the problem comes in with this is that the Chinease government needs the Xinjing region as a unifyier of land in order for these quota’a to be successful. As it has been stated previously, this region is Uighur land, as the Uighur people have a history of causing protests which this history has implicated problems in allowing for a stable foundation for this initiative perpetually resulting in the genocide of innocent people (Chatzky and McBride).
Security of the People- Terroism/Exremism
Due to the events of 9/11 much of the Muslim community faced implications of orientalist tropes and lables of “Muslim Terrorist” this still being associated with the religion to this day. Conccurrent with these stereotypes is the Chinease government's claims after denying it for so long, that they are reeducating the Uighur population to fight against terrorism, extremism, and separatism, using recent demonstrations and terrorist events to back this narritive (Hughes). In reality no one is the worst of the group they reside with, in all actuality the majority of people are not extremist. No one should be labeled by the worst thing someone has heard or seen at their own hand let alone someone elses. By playining into these stereotypes this makes the rest of the world perceive China as “normal” and concurrent on modern beliefs even if it negatively affects China.
Transformation- A Homogeneous State
As China is considered a very homogeneous country the Uighur people and other ethnic minorities almost “ruin” this status. This being said China has made it its goal to transform the Uighur people in hopes to fully assimilate them to the Hun chinese culture. This entailing the Chinese government to erase the Uighur culture by bulldosing religious areas and significant cultural buildings, the goal being to remove Islam in its entirety (Buckley). In doing so the Chinease government perpetuated common Islamiphobic tropes such as Islam signifying “backwardness” this trope perpetuating with in the contries Hun supremacy (Buckley).
Why is no Country Doing Anything?
The largest concern within this situation is that no other country has come to stop this humanitarian crisis, only have there been the issuing of critical statements from few countries (Hughes). China has been questioned countless times on the status of these reeducation camps and the status of the Uighur people living in the Xingjing region. Historically China has denied reports of abuses (Buckley) and has been known to refuse a comment (Shih). The reeducation camps in question were first said to not exist and that these claims had “no factual bases'' later being stated that these camps were to provide “mild corrective institutions that provide job training” and that “there is no arbitrary detention” (Buckley). Some authorities within the state media have even stated that the country is due for ideological changes to fight against sepratism, this aligning with the fight against Islamic expremism and terrorism (Shih) or the “three fears”.
Prodominate Muslim Country’s Response’s
Prodomently Muslim countries responses are the most pertinent voices in this matter specifically of cultural genocide. Overall prodomently Muslim countries response has been silent out of fear of a loss of partnership and economic retribution that might be imposed on them by China (Ma). Within the past the predominantly Muslim country of Turkey has tried to stand up to China and as history has played out to be, this caused Turkey much trouble and a lingering resentment from China so much so that Turkey refuses to speak up (Ma).
American Response
As the United States evidently has a savior complex it is interesting to note that the only evident actions that the country has taken was under the Trump administration as former president Trump imposed sanctions because of the human rights abuses (Verma and Wong). But in classic Trump fassion, Trump proceed to discuss trade dealings while simultaneously encouraging President Xi Jingping to continue building the reedcation camps, even stating that he thought it was “the right thing to do” this evidently ignoring these human rights abuses and his own sanctions (Verma and Wong).
Conclusion
As individuals continue to deem history as irrelevant and insignificant they lose knowledge on valuable lessons that should have been learned. Many things including genocide are deemed as unimportant until is affects people domestically or personally, but once this happens it is too late. As the insubordination and discrimination against race, gender and sexuality continues so will history.
Work Cited
Buckley, Chris. “China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: 'Transformation.'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html.
Chatzky, Andrew, and James McBride. “China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 28 Jan. 2020, 7:00 am (EST), www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative.
Dillon, M. (2020, January). A Uighurs' History of China. History Today. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/behind-times/uighurs%E2%80%99-history-china.
Hughes, R. (2018, November 8). China Uighurs: All you need to know on Muslim 'crackdown'. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45474279.
Ma, Alexandra. “Why the Muslim World Isn't Saying Anything about China's Repression and 'Cultural Cleansing' of Its Downtrodden Muslim Minority.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 27 Aug. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/why-muslim-countries-arent-criticizing-china-uighur-repression-2018-8.
Shih, Gerry. “'Permanent Cure': Inside the Re-Education Camps China Is Using to Brainwash Muslims.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 17 May 2018, www.businessinsider.com/what-is-life-like-in-xinjiang-reeducation-camps-china-2018-5.
Verma, Pranshu, and Edward Wong. “U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Chinese Officials Over Mass Detention of Muslims.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 July 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/world/asia/trump-china-sanctions-uighurs.html.
(www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. Exclusive: China's Systematic Tracking, Arrests of UIGHURS Exposed in New Xinjiang LEAK: Dw: 17.02.2020. www.dw.com/en/exclusive-chinas-systematic-tracking-arrests-of-uighurs-exposed-in-new-xinjiang-leak/a-52397824.