Uyghurs in the news, Part 2

I was able to speak to a friend in Urumqi today. He says that his neighborhood is quiet. Children are playing outside. He is grateful that order has been restored, though some of his friends are still afraid to leave their apartments.

No one is very surprised that the government is back in control. Last year when I was in Sichuan after the earthquake, the other aid workers were stunned by its capacity. They had read about China's rise, but still couldn't believe their eyes. Cell phone towers up in no time (and free calls); seas of blue tents for shelter. When our logistics team tried to make an emergency purchase of tents near Beijing, the company said, "Sorry, the government has already claimed them."

Whether you're a fan or critic, or hopefully something in between, this is a fact of contemporary China. The Christian Science Monitor provides an apt quote from Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, "The Chinese have time, power, resources – everything is on their side." Barring some major change in global political and economic structure, the government will continue to use its advantages.

In my previous post, I said that the most unfortunate blind spot is historical. The past is always in the present, but which past? To many Han Chinese, Xinjiang has been a part of China since the eponymous Han dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE). Many Uyghurs point to periods of independence as recent as the second East Turkestan Republic (1949-9) and as far back as the 9th century Uyghur state. Though the myth of a fully objective history is exactly that, too often people on both sides see in the past only what they want to. (If you are interested in reading more, a good place to start is James Millward's history of the region.)

All individuals and groups struggle with the question of how to relate to difference - which kinds are threatening, which kinds are the basis for solidarity. A systematic and open-minded reading of history can tell us how those lines have been drawn and, more importantly, how they have shifted over time. It is the shifting that is the most instructive. When that which is solid melts, if only a little, you begin to see that there are other possibilites. Other ways of relating to your personal and communal past, and thus to your present and future. I know this doesn't constitute a policy platform, but it's an important message that bears repeating. Incidentally, it applies just as much to the East/West as to the Uyghur/Han divide.