Writing in El País today, Moisés Naím condemns the silence of the Muslim world in the face of Chinese repression of the Uighurs and contrasts it with the indignation produced the the publication of a few cartoons in Denmark. Readers will be able to figure out for themselves the relevance of all this for the themes with which this blog mainly concerns itself. The following is my translation of Naím’s article.
Where are the fatwas? Where are the huge protest marchs? Where are the protests in front of the embassies? What happned to the indignation laden speeches? What does Al Qaeda have to say? In other words, what does China have that Denmark didn’t? In China they discriminate against and kill Muslims and in Denmark a newspaper published cartoons which were considered offensive with regard to the prophet Mohamed. The same Muslim world which in 2005 reacted with indignation and fury to the publication of the cartoons is now playing it deaf, dumb and blind with regard to the violence and discrimination suffered by the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, at the hands of the Chinese government.
The reaction to the publication of the cartoons was instantaneous. Eleven ambassadors of Muslim countries formally protested to the Danish government. The prime minister explained to them that there existed freedom of the press in his country and that the government had had nothing to do with the decision to publish the cartoons. His response had no effect. Days later the Danish consulate in Beirut was burned down and a number of people died in violent demonstrations against the cartoons in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Newspapers in Norway and other countries republished the cartoons in a gesture of solidarity with their Danish colleagues. In Damascus thousands of demonstrators rushed to set ablaze the embassies of Denmark and Norway. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad decided to respond to the cartoons by putting on a cartoon exhibition of his own. The theme? Making fun of the Holocaust. Al Queda mentioned the cartoons published in Europe as being yet another example of the new western crusade against Islam. Fatwas ordering the severest punishments for those who drew and published the Danish cartoons were not long in coming.
Meanwhile…
Since the 1990s the government of China has applied severe repressive measures against the Uighurs. Education in their language is forbidden and civil servants are not allowed to wear the beard favored by some Muslim, pray at work or fast, and female civil servants are not allowed to cover their heads, Uighurs are discriminated against with regard to access to health, housing, education and employment. Young Uighurs are frequently sent to work in distant provinces while people from the rest of the country are encouraged to settle in Xinjiang with promises of employment and other incentives. Some two million people have responded positively to these stimuli.
Those Uighurs who dare to protest against this discrimination and ill-treatment are arrested. Protests are brutally repressed. In Yining, in 1997, government forces reacted violently to street demonstrations and killed a great number of people. After 9/11 the repression of the Uighurs by the Chinese government intensified and some of their leaders were accused of having links with Al Queda and jailed. The repression of any group of Uighurs suspected of terrorism, religious extremism or separatism is implacable, systematic and permanent.
The clashes of recent days on the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, have left 184 dead, nearly 1000 injured and nearly 1400 detained according to official figures, Uighur organizations say that the real numbers are much higher.
All of this has been going on for decades. What have the political and religious leaders of the Islamic world had to say about it? Not much.
In various countries Muslim clergy have found the time and energy to speak out against Pokémon cartoons, having sex while fully unclothed, vaccination against polio and Salman Rushdie. Have they had anything to say about the Uighurs? No. What about the Arab League, the governments of Muslim countries and European and Asian Muslim organizations? Nothing from them either.
Neither have the Uighurs, who have deep ethnic links with Turkey and who speak a Turkic language, been able to count on the same solidarity from Turkish prime minister Recep Tayep Erdoğan that he expressed towards Palestinians during the most recent Gaza crisis. While promoting the international recognition of Hamas, Erdoğan denied an entry visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighurs leader in exile. However, he recently changed his mind and said that Kadeer would be allowed to visit and Turkey has increasing the force of its previously modest expressions of concern about the situation in Xinjiang. About time too.
The following is the reaction of an official Chinese newspaper. “The support of Turkey for the Uighur terrorists and separatists can only cause indignation in China. If it wants to maintain good relations with our country it ought to end support for these separatist mobs. It must stop being the axis of evil. “
In politics, deafness and blindness are not illnesses, they are the product of interests. In the weeks to come we’ll see with what level of effectiveness China clarifies for the leaders of the Muslim world where their real interests lie. And the silence in the face of the tragedy of the Uighurs will very eloquent.
It’s a sad world that puts the desire for cheaply-produced goods before the rights of an oppressed people. Once again, we see little action on the Muslim World to help their fellow man. Do we only choose to support nations with oil and an abundance of other resources? Why do countries even bother to allow news coverage on marginalized populations if it so obvious that these people are meaningless? The consumers of the world are rewarding bad behavior by continuing to purchase products from China. All of us are guilty if we stand by and do nothing. Total disregard for the Uighurs is not the ideals I wish to pass on to a younger generation. This line of thinking is from a past millennium, whose mistakes we will continue to live with until all of us embrace the new millennium mindset.
The Jerusalem syndrome / Andre Glucksmann
“The outrage of so many outraged people outrages me. On the scales of world opinion, some Muslim corpses are light as a feather, and others weigh tonnes. Two measures, two weights. The daily terrorist attacks on civilians in Baghdad, killing 50 people or more, are checked off in reports under the heading of miscellaneous, while the bomb that took 28 lives in Qana is denounced as a crime against humanity. Only a few intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Lévy or Magdi Allam, chief editor of the Corriere della Sera, find this surprising. Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don’t count - whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the west? This conclusion has its weak spots, because if the Russian Army - Christian, and blessed by their popes - razes the capital of Chechnian Muslims (Grosny, with 400,000 residents) killing tens of thousands of children in the process, this doesn’t count either. The Security Council does not hold meeting after meeting, and the Organization of Islamic States piously averts its eyes. From that we may conclude that the world is appalled only when a Muslim is killed by Israelis.”
http://www.signandsight.com/features/894.html
Against Academic Boycotts / By Martha Nussbaum
“Second, I am made uneasy by the single-minded focus on Israel. Surely it is unseemly for Americans to discuss boycotts of another country on the other side of the world without posing related questions about American policies and actions that are not above moral scrutiny. Nor should we fail to investigate relevantly comparable cases concerning other nations. For example, one might consider possible responses to the genocide of Muslim civilians in the Indian state of Gujarat in the year 2002, a pogrom organized by the state government, carried out by its agents, and given aid and comfort by the national government of that time (no longer in power). I am disturbed by the world’s failure to consider such relevantly similar cases. I have heard not a whisper about boycotting Indian academic institutions and individuals, and I have also, more surprisingly, heard nothing about the case in favor of an international boycott of U.S. academic institutions and individuals. I am not sure that there is anything to be said in favor of a boycott of Israeli scholars and institutions that could not be said, and possibly with stronger justification, for similar actions toward the United States and especially India and/or the state of Gujarat.”
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=811
I like that Nussbaum quote, Noga. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the brand of ‘cosmopolitan humanism’ she promotes, but Nussbaum clearly reveals herself to be a fair-minded observer and commentator. Thanks for sharing that.
As for the lack of response to Chinese repression of ethnic Uighurs on the part of Muslim states, it’s pure, cynical realpolitik. No surprise there.
Caroline Fourest wrote in Le Monde (my translation):
“The Arab world gets inflamed over the Palestinians but never over the Uighurs. Rebiya Kadeer [the Uighur leader who lives in exile in the U.S.] has an explanation: “In their eyes we are just Asians, and foremost, we are not oppressed by either the United States or Israel, therefore they are not interested.” Whereas 12 small Danish drawings sent shockwaves, the fact that Korans are burn by Chinese officials in Xinjang (information given by Rebiya Kadeer which I have not been able to verify) doesn’t give rise to the slightest of murmurs. When Uighur dissidents seek refuge in Muslims countries, they are immediately sent back to the Chinese authorities.”
“Le monde arabe s’enflamme pour les Palestiniens, mais jamais pour les Ouïgours. Rebiya Kadeer a son explication : “A leurs yeux, nous ne sommes que des Asiatiques, et puis, surtout, nous ne sommes pas opprimés par les Etats-Unis ou Israël, alors cela ne les intéresse pas.” Alors que douze petits dessins danois peuvent mettre en émoi, le fait que des corans puissent être brûlés par des officiers chinois au Xinjiang (une information donnée par Rebiya Kadeer que je n’ai toutefois pas pu recouper) ne donne pas même lieu à une rumeur. Lorsque des dissidents ouïgours tentent de se réfugier dans des pays musulmans, ils sont immédiatement renvoyés aux autorités chinoises.”
La cause oubliée des Ouïgours, par Caroline Fourest
http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/07/10/la-cause-oubliee-des-ouigours-par-caroline-fourest_1217513_3232.html
“One inmate told the BBC the guards had roughly treated the prisoners during the raid.
“They shackled our hands behind us, confiscated our clothes and possessions, and beat us. And they insulted the Koran, they trod on the Koran,” he told the BBC’s Arabic service.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7491422.stm
Some Arab voices try to be heard:
“In an August 6, 2008 column in the UAE daily Al-Ittihad, Dr. ‘Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, former dean of Islamic law at the University of Qatar and prominent liberal intellectual, attacked the Arab lawyers’ unions for defending oppressors like Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and Iraqi president Saddam Hussein while ignoring their victims in Darfur and Halabja.
“The excuses and justifications offered today in defense of Al-Bashir and his policies are [the same as] those offered in defense of Saddam and his escapades, all of which were in vain. They repeat the same canned excuses, such as ‘the politicization of standards of justice,’ ‘judging by a double standard,’ ‘justice biased against the Arabs,’ ’selectivity,’ and ‘the service of American schemes.’ The most recent of these accusations was expressed by one reader in Al-Ittihad, who said: ‘What kind of international justice is this, that holds [Sudan] to account for a domestic crisis in Darfur that has lasted less than five years, while continuing its policy of turning a blind eye to the most heinous crimes in Palestine, which have lasted for 50 years?’
“It is their right to defend Al-Bashir as they defended Saddam. And it is their right to demand universal international criminal standards and that they be applied in the case of anyone suspected of perpetrating similar crimes, as Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim says. But what these people always try to ignore is the victims.
“We will not be hearing the voice of the Lawyers’ Union, which mobilized to defend accused presidents, [speaking out] for the weak and the marginalized. … It is the victims of Darfur and the millions of the crushed and pulverized who are most in need of the legal support of masses of lawyers.”
“… 300,000 people were killed in Darfur, and … two million fled their homes after their villages were destroyed by the Sudan-backed Arab Janjaweed militias. Who is for them? Who is for the widows? Who is for the orphans? Who is for the displaced?
“These victims are all Muslims, and their only offense is that they are not Arab, the ethnicity of their rulers! If they find no support among those who are supposed to defend rights and help the weak, then to whom can they turn for shelter and protection? Is the international community to be accused if it intervenes to extend a helping hand?
“For five bloody years, the people of Darfur have been ruined and expelled, and the satellite television channels have broadcast horrific scenes that tormented the hearts of the world and make their consciences bleed - except for the Arab conscience, which was on vacation, and except for their [Arab] League, which remained comatose, and except for their media, which neglected to cover and broadcast the facts. ”
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD203508