When I, from a land of a billion people, am a rare ethnic representative on campus, a Uyghur student at our university was beyond my wildest imagination. So, naturally excited am I!
Up until this term, the Uyghurs (also spelt Uighurs) had been only an academic concept to me ever since reading about Muslims in China, in the far western province of Xinjiang. Not anymore—I am now able to identify this academic concept with a real person.
As a graduate student many years ago, one of the first things I did upon reading about the Uyghurs was to play my favorite game in such contexts, which is to establish a connection to India! It turned out that it was not a difficult process at all, and it did not involve very many degrees of separation.
In the English language, we use a word "mogul" when we refer to highly powerful businessmen. Well, this word reflects the powerful and influential "Mughal Empire" that ruled over a large part of the Indian subcontinent, until it was replaced by the British.
The Mughal dynasty began in 1526, when Babur defeated the reigning sultan in Delhi. The empire had some of its glorious years under Akbar and Shah Jahan--it was Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal. Babur descended from Timur (also known as Tamerlane), who was Turkic, with some Mongol heritage. The Uyghurs also speak a Turkic language. Aha, I had linked up the Uyghurs to India!
But, I was not happy once I understood that the Uyghurs were pretty much in the same situation that the Tibetans are, and fear the loss of language, culture, and traditions under the heavy-handed rule of the Chinese government.
A reader might wonder why we should care about some eight million or so Uyghurs in a remote part of China. Well, we in the US have even fewer degrees of separation, through a direct and controversial connection—Guantanamo.
Soon after the US and NATO forces liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban regime, the US picked up a number of people while sweeping the area for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. In the process, we apparently also picked up a few Uyghurs who happened to be in that area. Their presence in Afghanistan is not that difficult to imagine, given that Xinjiang is so much out in the west of China that its borders abut Afghanistantoo.
Designated as enemy combatants, these Uyghurs were confined to Guantanamo. However, as it became clear that the Uyghurs were not involved with any militant activity directed against the US, five of them were released from Guantanamo. But, they did not want to be sent back toChina out of a fear that they might be tortured there. No other country offered to take them either, except Albania, which is they are since their release in 2006. What a strange story of globalization!
Meanwhile, another fifteen of the remaining seventeen Uyghurs in Guantanamo have been cleared for release, but more than a hundred countries contacted by the US have refused to take them. While Uyghur families in the US have offered to house and help rehabilitate them, our government is not in favor of fifteen Guantanamo alums living within our borders.
The status of the Uyghurs in Guantanamo will soon have to be addressed by the Obama administration. The fundamental issue though is the Chinese government that continues with its policies of denying rights, particularly to minorities. The Tibetan story is all too familiar to us; the situation in which the Uyghur are trapped in is very similar, which is why it is also referred to as China’s other Tibet problem.
The slide from Timur’s expansive empire, which provided an environment for Turkic culture to flourish, to having a few of their people locked up inGuantanamo, has been quite a tragic tale for the Uyghur people. I suppose life is not always a box of good chocolates.
No comments:
Post a Comment