UIGHURS: Last Post

Monday, August 11, 2008

Last Post

I met Rebiya Kadeer in October 2007 and started this blog soon after. I said I would continue this blog until the start of the Olympic Games - and here we are.

A lot of things have happenned in the intervening months. Detainees at Guantanomo Bay are being found innocent - after 7 years of incarceration - some of them have been Uighurs. China has been exposed for the paranoid nation it is. Tibet is on the lips of many more people. Uighur exiles are coming out of their silences and daring to communicate.

Some things have not changed in these months. Politicians in search of power have been responsible for the deaths of thousands. War is stupid. Rebiya has heard no news of her children. It is assumed that they are missing or dead. Confessions under torture remain a viable option for all -the UK included.

The world will not change on its own. It needs the young people to engage, but for as long as so many remain glued to their virtual worlds the risk is that they won't be looking in the right direction and the freedoms we do have will dissipate for want of precious youthful energy.

Our lives are stocked full of answers. Everything from a TV dinner to outright war is sold as a solution. What we need are questions.

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I met Rebiya Kadeer in October 2007

Her brave diminutive form spoke in a language of passion and grief and hope.

Like many others I was moved by her plea to help her country, (East Turkistan, now known as the Xinjing Autonomous Region) to survive the cultural and cruel vice of insidious Chinese occupation. She has quite literally sacrificed her children to come to us, to plead with us, and our option cannot be to do nothing.

I have been to China. As a tourist I have faced fixed bayonets in Tianamen Square for simply wanting to enter at the wrong time of day. I have no difficulty imagining the inscrutable rule of this ambitious race as they slowly but surely spread their unyielding muscle across the less aggressive nations within their reach.

The Olympic games will be upon us soon, and the democratic world is turning a blind eye to the grotesque abuse of human rights in China. The Olympic games were supposed to encourage China to become more aware, instead they are encouraging us to put on the blindfolds and become less aware.

The media circus will not want to highlight the issues. They will be far more interested in getting their investment returns. The athletes – with some reason – will not want to be involved in politics. My voice is small, but if you read this, you are joining me on the stage.

Potted history of the Uighurs

During the mid-1700s and mid-1800s, China and the Soviet Union conquered a large region north of China which included the peoples of Central Asia - Kazakh, Uzbk, Turkmen, and Uighurs. The Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region was created by China on October 1, 1955.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, all of these people regained their freedom except for the Uighurs. In order to prevent an uprising for independence among the original people of the region, the Chinese infiltrated the country with millions of settlers and have taken measures to obliterate the language, religion, and traditions of the Uighurs. The Uighurs are repressed as much as possible and kept at minimum subsistence levels.

Xinjiang is an area rich in natural resources. This is the main reason that China seeks to hold on to it with such tight reins. Xinjiang contains one-third of China's total oil reserve. The country is rich in gold and coal as well as steel, yet the region remains poor because the rightful owners are being exploited and degraded.

Despite these abundant resources, the "wealth gap" has significantly widened between the minorities and ethnic Chinese of the region. Most of them are farmers, only averaging an annual income of £45. Nearly 80 percent of Uighurs live below the poverty level. Less than a quarter even have running water.

Each year, the Party Committee asks each citizen of Xinjiang to work anywhere from 45 days to six months without pay. Many benefits, such as job incentives are only available to the Chinese, not the Uighurs .Without being able to speak Chinese, these people are at a major disadvantage - they cannot get jobs. Many are left unemployed.