Initially, after the Chinese communists came to power, the situation in Xinjiang developed according to the Soviet patterns of building "national and cultural autonomy." Even the Uyghur alphabet was officially Arabic letters translated into Cyrillic according to the developments of scientists of the USSR. But soon Beijing corrected the course, the Chinese began to resettle in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), this policy continues to this day.
Now this movement is not the only one that represents the cause of the Uyghur. Some of these groups also do it with weapons such as the Islamic Reform Party or the Alliance for National Unity of East Turkestan, but others do it peacefully.
However, this peaceful work also did not go well with Beijing, as the Chinese executive has not only hesitated to include this and other similar groups that are helping to give visibility to the action of Uyghur reality in their specific registration of terrorist organizations, in addition, he urged to important diplomatic and economic efforts to try to silence them.
The number of ethnic Han people living in the XUAR increased from 4% in 1949 to 40% by the end of the 20th century.
Chinese colonization was mainly carried out by military-administrative methods. The divisions of the Chinese communists that entered Xinjiang were reorganized from the early 1950s into the so-called Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (SPSC), numbering over 200 thousand people - 13 agricultural and 3 labor divisions began to develop virgin lands, build roads and other infrastructure. The soldiers combined work in the fields with combat training. Soon, by a directive of the CPC Central Committee, the soldiers of the corps were allowed to marry, establishing a flow of women from central regions China. By the 1970s, this "labor army" had increased to 700 thousand people, it built over 20 thousand new Chinese settlements in Xinjiang.
The scope of the Uyghur question
China views the Uyghur issue as strictly a domestic issue, but the presence of important Uyghur communities and groups in different countries has led the Chinese authorities to become increasingly concerned about the international dimension of the problem, as there is a problem that ethnic minority groups are using their cross-border ties to have a rearguard from which to organize their activities, and that Uyghur organizations operating outside Xinjiang itself are causing damage to China's interests abroad.
All these decades of the Chinese development of the XUAR did not go without clashes between the Uighurs and the Han people, most of such facts remain almost unknown due to the total closeness of Maoist China. It is known about the riots in 1962 in the Ili-Kazakh Autonomous Region of Xinjiang on the border with Soviet Kazakhstan. In Chinese official history, these events are referred to as "nationalist rebellion." The vanguard of the protest was the workers of the oil fields, among whom were many veterans of the anti-Chinese uprising of the 1940s. During the suppression of the rebellion, over 5 thousand people were shot and imprisoned in camps, from 60 to 100 thousand Uighurs and Kazakhs fled across the border to the USSR. Then the XUAR left and went to Soviet Union most of the Russian officers who served in the Chinese army.
In this sense, it can be said that the first area of interest to China was Central Asia. In this region, the presence of the Uyghur minority is significant, and therefore Beijing has sought to quickly approach the republics of this zone, including resolving extensive border disputes, economic investment and the creation of cooperation organizations.
Another area of interest for People's Republic in connection with the Uyghur case, there were Afghanistan and Pakistan. In these border countries, Uyghur activists are fleeing and fighting this ethnic minority, which is perceived by the Chinese administration as serious cross-border threats. For this reason, the Asian giant has also accelerated the consolidation of its strong alliance with Islamabad and has tried to prevent some groups from having a base in the Afghan area through economic investment.
Among the few facts of ethnic clashes in Xinjiang that have become known outside of China, there is one - in 1967 in the city of Shihedzi, the second largest in the XUAR, the Uyghurs killed over a hundred and wounded over a thousand "Red Guards" who came here from China to deepen the "cultural revolution" ...
In the 60s and 70s, on the border of Xinjiang and the Kazakh SSR, there were several armed clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops. The most famous of them is the battles near Lake Zhalanashkol in August 1969. Since the end of the 60s, the Central Asian Military District of the USSR was preparing to fight in Xinjiang, carefully studying potential opponents and allies in this territory.
This rapprochement with both countries soon gave China the support of Pakistan for its position on Xinjiang and helped allay Beijing's fears that some organizations might operate from this convulsive zone. However, the Chinese government is not only interested in countries bordering its autonomous region, but is also starting to look for other, more distant countries that have some connection with the ethnic minority of this vast territory.
In this sense, we can say that China is following with particular interest what is happening in Turkey. This country, which was the destination that many Uyghurs chose when Chinese troops took control of Xinjiang, today hosts numerous organizations that bring international prominence to the cause of this ethnic minority and support the position of this community, even coming into confrontation with China to determine the situation. Uyghurs living in this country "close to genocide."
Soviet soldiers during battles near Lake Zhalanashkol, August 1969. Photo: armyman.info
In 1980, a closed reference book for Soviet officers of the Central Asian District, quite in the spirit of the "oriental" descriptions of the 19th century, gave the following characteristics to the indigenous population:
However, this misunderstanding did not stop the Asian giant from starting to mobilize its capabilities to try to settle the Turkish government in the same way as it has done in Central Asia, and thus contain the Uyghur problem. However, Turkey is not the only country outside of Xinjiang that attracts the attention of the Chinese authorities.
Europe and North America are also areas of particular interest to China in relation to the Uyghur issue. In countries on both continents - especially in the United States - ethnic minority groups are trying to bring their position and the difficult problem of Xinjiang closer to the circles of power in order to gain political and economic support, a semblance of a Uyghur cause.
“Uighurs are one of ancient peoples Central Asia have rich and ancient culture... National features are hospitality and courtesy. However, the Uyghurs are very flexible in dealing with people and by no means everyone who enters the Uyghur's house will find a warm welcome for himself.
The Uyghurs are very superstitious. They believe in conspiracies, witchcraft, talismans, in the existence of witches and brownies. Concentrated and serious in everyday life, the Uighurs live up to the sound of music and songs and indulge in fun with enthusiasm. Among Uighurs-men, in spite of the fact that it is prohibited by Muslim laws, smoking of anasha is widespread ... "
These attempts by Uyghur organizations to lobby and engage Western powers in this moment did not lead to further support for the Uyghur movement, but despite this, Beijing is uncomfortable in the center of gravity of activating this community to move to the West, as it would make it difficult to contain the problem within its confines.
In Xinjiang, the Chinese authorities face a complex ethnic issue that is increasingly prevalent internationally. However, Uyghur lace is by no means the only problem with visible ethnic shrinkage on the outside that remains exposed in the Asian giant.
Military settlements
In the course of the protracted Soviet-Chinese political confrontation, the Beijing authorities quite seriously considered the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan as a preparation for the Soviet annexation of Xinjiang. As a result, the number of Chinese troops in the XUAR increased sharply, and by the beginning of the 1980s the Xinjiang production and construction corps numbered over 2 million 250 thousand people, making up one-sixth of the XUAR population. The corps produced a quarter of all the products of the Autonomous Region, doing everything from mining to growing cotton. The corps included agricultural, engineering and construction and even hydrotechnical divisions.
However, despite these similarities, China has decided to tackle the problem that each ethnic minority faces differently. Graduated in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Rey Juan Carlos and Specialist in International Affairs at the University of Ponticia de Comillas.
No one could have imagined that such a violent interethnic confrontation was about to erupt. However, one could already feel the anger that gripped the Uyghur community, always humiliating and constant purpose of persecution. The Muslim minority, its members, face unequal conditions of survival in China.
The corps is a huge socio-economic corporation that includes individual cities, rural areas, many industrial production and even two own universities. At the same time, the corps spread throughout Xinjiang remains almost entirely Chinese - among its military personnel over 88% of the Han Chinese and less than 7% of the Uyghurs.
With a frightened look and trembling hands, the Uyghur, accompanied by a French civilian in plain clothes, face in front of him, came to interview him. A man who is a member of the World Uyghur Congress, which brings together dissidents in the province overseas, 1 just learned that France has granted him political refugee status. His story is trivial: he organized injustice protests at his workplace in Xinjiang, was interrogated, arrested and fled. That's all there is to know about it.
Your fear is in this quiet place seems almost ridiculous. But this is, in fact, a clear reflection of the moral and physical pressure that the Thai Muslim adversaries in China have been targeting. A few days later, in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, about 4,000 kilometers from Beijing, there is nothing to suggest that there is any tension. Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz - Muslim minorities - and ethnic minority families live in China and Urumqi, but they are a minority in the province.
Among the entire population of the region, only 40% are Chinese and 45% of Uyghurs, but in the capital of the XUAR, Urumqi, there are 80% of Chinese, and only 12% of Uyghurs, and even those mostly live on the outskirts of their capital.
The most important nuclear facilities for China are also located on the territory of the XUAR - it is here, at the bottom of the dried salt lake Lop Nor near the Turfan Desert, where a test site is located where nuclear weapons are tested. In 1964, the first Chinese atomic bomb... In 1996, China was the last of the world powers to conduct a nuclear test here before joining a moratorium on them.
A small mosque in this sector is open to visitors. In bustling alleyways filled with shops, not far from a large, recently renovated bazaar, merchants sell items of dubious value. In this and other neighboring areas, especially at Xinjiang University, unprecedented violence broke out between July 5 and July 8. For several hours, Uighur protesters armed with truncheons and knives set fire to buses, taxis, police cars, ransacked shops, and beaten and lynched khans.
They, in turn, gained the torch of vengeance the next day, killing and wounding the Uyghurs. The official balance showed 194 dead and 684 injured. Making an easy meeting with them, militant or not, is not easy: I had to call and organize several times in public places.
Modern Xinjiang is an important part of the PRC's economy. More than 3000 deposits of a wide variety of minerals are being developed here - from coal and oil to gold and rare earth metals. Coal reserves in Xinjiang are estimated at two trillion tons, the estimated oil reserves are also impressive - 30 billion tons. Almost all types of polymetallic ores and almost the entire periodic table are found here. According to the forecasts of American economists, in the first half of the 21st century Xinjiang will become one of the most attractive regions in Asia for world multinational companies. Fierce competition for the development of the richest deposits can unfold here. Naturally, Beijing cannot leave such a promising and problematic region unattended.
In some cases, like what happened to me, they represent a "foreign body" that accompanies them to the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in the city to show that they have nothing to hide. This is due to the fact that every person who receives a foreigner can immediately be suspected of "nationalist activities", which ultimately leads to job loss and even imprisonment. According to Abderrahman 2, a Uyghur, a civil engineer, "Suspicion and repression are the rule for Uyghurs, but can also be persecuted if they engage in political activities."
Islamism from Beijing and the collapse of the USSR
The Chinese authorities, fearing the ethical and cultural closeness of the Uyghurs with the Turkic peoples of the USSR, not only tightly closed the previously transparent border, but also translated the Uyghur alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin (all Central Asian republics of the USSR then used only Cyrillic), and then, in the early 80s , in general, officially returned the Arabic alphabet. This was the third change of the Uyghur language alphabet in XUAR in 30 years.
He decided to invite us to one of the most famous Uyghur restaurants in the capital, where Chinese Christians, Muslim families and foreign tourists... Abderrahman has nothing to fear as he runs a small company with five employees, all of whom are from ethnic groups in the region. However, when reporting on the discrimination experienced by members of his community, he speaks in a low voice. To make a more compelling complaint without risking hearing, he prefers to write in his hand, "This is brainwashing."
Vigilance is widespread, especially around mosques. The one in Kashgar, in the south of the province, is no exception. Friday prayer, which can hold up to 20,000 people, is closely monitored by camouflaged police officers who are very careful. The one who preaches, the imam, is named after the approval of the city hall authorities. With an ingenuity that borders on cynicism, the official website of the Xinjiang government publishes The History of Islam in China.
From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, China's entire policy was based on an open military and political confrontation with the USSR. Deng Xiaoping, even having started capitalist reforms, in relations with our country for a long time remained a champion of the toughest line of opposition. Therefore, especially after the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, the PRC authorities quite seriously feared that Xinjiang would become the next battlefield. Official Beijing tried not only to protect the Uighurs from any Soviet influence, but also to find allies among them against Soviet expansion.
Things weren't always like this. Religious freedom is inscribed in the Chinese Constitution of Ahmed, the guide of Kashgar, remembers very well his grandmother, who was wearing a veil when he was a child. In the dark years of the Cultural Revolution and its unfolding, mosques were now closed, now destroyed. Even in the intimacy of the house, it was impossible to display any religious sign. The persecution was stopped thanks to the economic opening started by Deng Xiaoping.
In the days after the Cultural Revolution, there were only 392 places of worship in the Kashgar region, one of the most important religious centers. Madrasahs began and the works of Muslim sages were saved. The religion developed as a Uyghur culture and personality. However, the situation is no longer so simple. Meshrep, a kind of religious district committee that often spread claims, began to multiply. At the same time, organizations such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, suspected of links to al-Qaeda, were created.
The Islamists, of whom there have long been many among the Uighurs, seemed to be possible allies for Beijing. Therefore, since the beginning of the 80s, religious policy has been softened in the XUAR. Earlier, especially during the years of the Maoist "cultural revolution", any religion, including the dominant Islam in the XUAR, was viewed as a hostile and subject to eradication. If in 1982 there were less than 3,000 active mosques and houses of worship in Xinjiang, by the end of the decade their number had more than quadrupled.
The independence of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia on the other side of the border has also given rise to an underestimated hope of freedom. Some spoke of Uygurstan. We found that the Uzbeks enjoyed better living conditions than we did and that they preserved the Turkish-Muslim tradition the most, without any complications for religious practice, he recalls. Since that date, the issue of independence has become very important. There is no cultural, religious or linguistic barrier between Xinjiang and Uzbekistan.
In Tachkent, people often told us: but what are you waiting for? Uyghur pride has been questioned. There was some kind of escalation in their arguments, it was almost a provocation. Undoubtedly, this sentiment ultimately contributed to the emergence of Uyghur movements, sometimes backed by Pakistanis and Turks.
Xinjiang Islamists have become a link for the Chinese special services with the Afghan opposition, which is fighting against the USSR. We know very little about this, but in reality China supplied weapons to the Mujahideen much more actively and generously than the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Throughout the 1980s, official Beijing turned a blind eye to the fact that many Uighurs who joined the CPC, including high-ranking officials of the XUAR, in violation of the charter of the Communist Party, regularly visited mosques. In 1987, the CPC Central Committee authorized the opening of the Xinjiang Islamic Academy in the region. As a result, by the early 1990s, an Islamic renaissance had taken place among the Uighurs of Xinjiang.
In the early 1990s, the number of operating mosques in the XUAR doubled again. This religious revival coincided with the collapse of the USSR and the surge of Islamism and Turkic nationalism in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics. It is important to remember that a rather large Uyghur diaspora has long lived in these newly-born states - over a quarter of a million in Kazakhstan alone.
The appearance on the world map of the new states of Central Asia, close to the Uyghurs in culture and language, served for the indigenous population of the XUAR not only as an infectious example of nationalism. The collapse of the USSR opened up a huge Central Asian market for the Chinese economy. By the beginning of the 90s, Deng Xiaoping's reforms had just given their first fruits, and the PRC business, which had just begun to develop rapidly, rushed to establish the flow of goods made in China to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. It was the Uyghurs who, due to their linguistic and cultural affinity, became the main intermediaries in trade. In just a few years, a wealthy stratum of the national Uyghur bourgeoisie appeared in Xinjiang, which grew up on the mediation between the Chinese industry and the markets of post-Soviet Central Asia.
An explosive mixture of Islamic revival, the triumph of close nationalisms and the emergence of considerable, by local standards, Uyghur capitals gave an unexpected result for official Beijing. By the mid-1990s, the Uighurs expressed their dissatisfaction with the Chinese quite massively and clearly.
"Dashing 90s" with Chinese characteristics
The beginning of the modern stage of Uighur separatism, acting under Islamist slogans, was the events in the Kashgar region on April 5, 1990, where, as the official Chinese press wrote, an "armed counter-revolutionary uprising" broke out. For the first time since the events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the Chinese authorities were forced to resort to airlifting of troops to suppress the unrest. The operation also involved two "agrarian divisions" of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
The riot was triggered by the ouster of a popular mullah, as well as by the actions of police officers overseeing birth control - for traditional Islamic families, even the official permission of three children (and not just one child, like the Chinese) was a strong irritant.
In subsequent years, there were repeated clashes with the police, attacks on police stations, explosions of trains and buses. In 1995, authorities announced the discovery of a large arms depot. In the spring of 1996, the Xinjiang Daily, the Xinjiang Daily, the central newspaper of the XUAR, wrote that since February there have been five serious social explosions in Xinjiang, as a result of the actions of the authorities, 2,773 people were arrested for involvement in terrorist activities, more than 2.7 tons of 000 units of ammunition. According to information from the Uyghur oppositionists themselves, the real number of those arrested exceeded 10 thousand people, more than a thousand were killed in clashes with the police and troops.
The wreckage of one of the buses blown up in Beijing in 1997. Photo: Greg Baker / AP
One of the most notorious clashes during this period lasted from 2 to 8 February 1996. The reason was the arrest by the police of a group of Uyghur youth in an illegal prayer house. The mass protests against these arrests resulted in 120 Uighurs killed by the police and over 2,500 arrested.
On February 12, 1996, the local press reported about the train explosion. The government immediately announced that the attack had been carried out by the United Revolutionary Front, an exiled Uyghur organization then based in Kazakhstan. In May, a Uyghur terrorist attempted to assassinate the imam of the main mosque in Kashgar, who was collaborating with the Chinese authorities. The terrorist was shot dead by the police, further investigation found out that from the age of five the assailant was sent by his parents to study in an underground madrasah, where the Uyghur children were taught the basics of Islamism and Pan-Turkism.
Until the end of 1996, terrorists shot and killed a number of high-ranking Uyghur officials accused of collaboration with China. Official data is classified, but it is believed that in 1996 about 500 police and security personnel died in the XUAR.
In early 1997, the Chinese authorities sentenced to death and shot several dozen Uighurs who had been arrested a year earlier on separatist charges. The information about these executions caused unrest and pogroms of Chinese immigrants in several cities of Xinjiang, the most violent in the city of Yining near the border with Kazakhstan. China was even forced to officially inform the Kazakh authorities about large-scale troop movements in the region. 30 thousand Chinese soldiers entered the city with the support of tanks and armored vehicles. According to Uyghur activists, between one and three people were arrested in 90% of local families.
Reds versus greens
In response to the violence, the CPC Central Committee announced close ties between separatism and "illegal religious activity" and launched a campaign to reduce Islamic influence in the XUAR.
The Communist Party admitted that control over many of the lower party cells in the villages of Xinjiang had been lost. It turned out that Islamists had infiltrated the party: 25% of the members of the Communist Party in Xinjiang professed Islam, and in the villages their number reached 40%.
To begin with, the authorities tightened the legislation regulating religious activity. Xinjiang was home to a third of all active mosques in China; over the past few years, the authorities have reduced their number by 20%. Special attention was paid to control over religious education - in 1997 alone, 105 illegal madrasahs were closed in the XUAR.
In parallel, a complete reorganization of the CPC grassroots party cells in Xinjiang was carried out. The Party leadership issued a special provision for the Xinjiang Party Committee prohibiting the participation of CCP members in religious activities, as well as the distribution of books and other materials of a religious nature. If such facts are discovered, such CCP members should automatically be considered as accomplices of the terrorists.
The Chinese authorities have very severely limited the contacts of their Muslims with foreign co-religionists - they have reduced the number of those who are allowed to go on the Hajj to Mecca, now only elderly people can go there from China. At the same time, the party authorities of the XUAR officially propose to replace the pilgrimage with a free excursion to Beijing for a person who has received permission for the Hajj to Mecca.
The PRC authorities additionally transferred several army divisions to the XUAR and significantly increased the number of security agencies in the region, to the point that in some areas during the aggravation of the situation the number of security forces exceeded the local Uyghur population.
Over the years, Chinese intelligence services have arrested, killed, or forced the most active separatist and Islamist leaders to flee abroad. According to Uyghur oppositionists operating outside of China, the PRC special services have created a whole network of the Uyghur underground under their control, provoking splits among separatists and actions that are unfavorable for them.
Since 1999, the intensity of the anti-Chinese actions of the Uighurs began to decrease, especially in their extreme forms. At the end of 2005, the Chinese authorities stated with satisfaction that not a single terrorist attack had taken place in the XUAR this year.
The economic struggle against separatism
The impressive growth of the Chinese economy, at all its costs, has had a beneficial effect on Xinjiang. By the beginning of the 21st century, XUAR was no longer considered an underdeveloped and poor region. In a list of 31 provinces and autonomous entities in China, the homeland of the Uyghurs ranks twelfth in terms of GDP per capita. Beijing actively contributes to the growth of the XUAR's prosperity - the free economic zone and trade with the CIS countries have turned Urumqi and other cities in the region into thriving centers of industry and commerce.
The growth of the economy and, accordingly, the international influence of China ensured the political isolation of the Uyghur separatists. In the 90s, various political organizations of the Uyghurs operated freely and practically openly in the Asian republics. the former USSR... Diasporas and the weakness of local statehood gave Uyghur separatists a secure and convenient base near the PRC's borders. The Xinjiang underground has succeeded in carrying out a series of assassinations of Chinese diplomats and expropriations of Chinese businessmen. For example, in 2000 in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, several Chinese officials and a leader of the Uyghur community who had collaborated with the Chinese authorities were killed. In the same year, in the center of Almaty, Uighurs from Xinjiang, armed with machine guns, successfully robbed banks and staged a battle with the police and military of Kazakhstan. In 2002, in Bishkek, members of the underground "Organization for the Liberation of East Turkestan" shot and killed the PRC consul.
But by the beginning of the 21st century, the situation had changed dramatically - the authorities of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan not only strengthened their police apparatus, but are increasingly following in the channel of Beijing. In addition, their interests and the goals of the PRC in the fight against the Islamist underground completely coincide. As a result, over the past decade in all these republics there have been many trials of varying degrees of closeness against Uyghur organizations and activists. As a result, Xinjiang oppositionists in post-Soviet Central Asia also found themselves deeply underground.
Mutual impasse
Despite the successes, the objectively existing ethnic tension between the Han and Uyghurs has not been reduced. The demographic pressure of the Chinese and the alienation of the two peoples are constantly provoking ethnic explosions in Xinjiang.
The most famous mass clash outside China was the 2009 Urumqi riots. The reason was a clash that took place very far from Xinjiang - in the south of China, in the rich and industrialized province of Guangdong. In the city of Shaoguan, the factory of Early Light International, the world's largest manufacturer of children's toys, has introduced a quota for workers from Xinjiang. The event was held as part of a large program of the Chinese authorities, according to which, since 2008, 200 thousand young Uyghurs have been recruited to work in the developed coastal provinces of China. Thus, about 800 young Uighurs appeared at the factory among 20 thousand Chinese.
The conflict was not long in coming. Due to the limited official information, several versions appeared later, differing depending on the ethnic sympathies of the source - either the Uighurs committed a gang rape in a factory dormitory, or there were only harassment of Chinese female workers. Or, according to the Uighurs themselves, there was no violence on their part at all - just two Chinese women from the hostel were frightened by the brutal dances and loud songs of young Uighurs.
All this resulted in a massive brawl, it took the intervention of 400 police officers to end the conflict. The fighting parties tried to finish off the opponents even in ambulances. According to official figures, two Uighurs were killed and over a hundred were injured.
Information, photos and video footage of the mass brawl, supplemented by various rumors, instantly spread on the Internet and social networks in China. A few days later, demonstrations of indignant Uighurs began in Xinjiang. On July 5, 2009, in the capital of the XUAR, Urumqi, the first clashes between the Uyghurs and the police and local Chinese took place. A noticeable part of the fighting on both sides were students of the Kashgar Pedagogical Institute. According to the Chinese authorities, in the course of fights and pogroms, 197 people died in two days (less than fifty Uighurs, the rest of the Han Chinese) and about two thousand were injured.
A still from CCTV during the riots in Urumqi.
The Uyghurs believe that, according to legends, on the site of the Taklamakan Desert (“the desert of death”, “the homeland of the Tokhars”, “you will enter and never return”), located in the center of the Uyghur region, in ancient times there was a civilization of its own, and that the ancestors of the Uyghurs came from from those places.
Historically, East Turkestan forms one ethnocultural region... The Turkic-speaking peoples are close in culture and history to the peoples of the Central Asian republics. Traditions, customs, national dress, traditional music and musical instruments, culinary delights and many other things connect the Uighurs with Uzbeks especially closely. The Uighurs even have the opinion that Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Turks and Tatars are “one field of berries”, and the Kirghiz and Kazakhs are “neighboring”. However, I will not deal with reflections on the topic “what is Uzbek and what is Uyghur”, I will only share facts from the long-suffering life of the Uyghurs and the events taking place in modern Uyghur society. Everything described below is based on our own observations and the study of real events.
NEW FRONTIERS
In ancient times, the well-developed Uyghur civilization exerted a tremendous influence not only on Central Asia, but also on China. However, in the 18th century, the Uighurs lost their independence under the pressure of the Manchu Chinese. The occupied territories began to be called Xinjiang, which means "New Frontiers" from Chinese. Since then, as the Uighurs claim, rebellions have flared up against the invaders every now and then.
In 1949, the resettlement of the Chinese to East Turkestan began, as a result of which relations between the indigenous population and the Chinese settlers deteriorated. Today, tense relations between Uyghurs and Chinese are expressed not only in the form of insurgencies by Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang, but also in clashes and rejection of each other in everyday life. The Chinese, for example, are reluctant to eat in Uyghur restaurants, rarely travel to the original Uyghur cities such as Kashgar, Turpan, Ili, Khotan. Uyghurs, in turn, do not travel to other provinces due to the fact that it will be difficult for them to find a restaurant or cafe where food is prepared strictly according to Muslim laws, they avoid Chinese catering establishments, where food is mainly prepared from pork. The Uighurs call the Chinese "kofir" (unfaithful), avoid using the services of Chinese taxi drivers, preferring to pay money to "their own", do not give way to the representatives of this people. "Hand-to-hand fighting", especially between Chinese and Uyghur youth, can be observed even in such an economically and culturally developed city like Urumqi. It is possible not to mention weddings between representatives of these two nations - this is a taboo: it is considered categorically unacceptable for a Chinese to have a Uyghur bride or groom. And vice versa. Although there are precedents for the creation of marriages between Uighurs and foreigners.
THE BIGGEST PROVINCE OF CHINA
The Uyghur Autonomous Okrug or East Turkestan, adjacent to the Central Asian republics, Mongolia and Russia, is the largest province in China. According to official statistics, a little more than 16 million people live in the region, a good half of which is Chinese (hantszy), the other part is a Muslim population, namely 42 percent of Uyghurs, the remaining 8 percent are ethnic Kazakhs, Dungans, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tajiks. , Russians and representatives of other peoples. The Uyghurs believe that there are actually many more, but the Chinese government is hiding the real data. In fact, Chinese birth control (one family - one child) does not affect ethnic groups, but the birth rate among the indigenous population has sharply decreased and leads to the complete assimilation of the Uyghurs, which is in line with the demographic policy of the Chinese authorities. This situation is being considered international organizations as a genocide of the people who have lived in this territory for many centuries.
Despite the fact that the region is rich natural resources, flora and fauna abound in diversity, Uyghurs live in poverty. Most of the resources are sent to the eastern regions of China to equip the country with military equipment, and not to fight poverty and unemployment. Many key positions in power and government posts are held by the Chinese. Muslims working in government structures were unofficially warned about dismissal in case of visiting a mosque. The number of Uyghur students studying outside Xinjiang (for example, at Peking or Tianjin universities) is extremely small, which makes the Uyghurs feel outcast. In a conversation with a Uyghur student from Tianjin University, it became clear that ethnic minorities at the university are regularly oppressed, despite the fact that their representatives are among the best students. As a result, this girl was forced to quit her studies and return to her native Xinjiang.
NEW GENERATION CHOSES CHINESE
For political reasons, many Uyghurs send their children to Chinese schools, where they are taught only Chinese literacy. Thus, the new generation of Uyghurs is not able to read the Arabic script, and they communicate much more competently in Chinese than in their native Uyghur. In addition, the change in writing in the seventies of the last century played a role. At that time, the Uighurs used the Latin alphabet (until now, old magazines and books written in the Latin alphabet can be found in the underground passages in Urumqi), then they switched to the Arabic script. Some experts are inclined to believe that this was done to prevent the reunification of the Turkic peoples of Soviet Turkestan with the inhabitants of the East. Others argue that a council of Uyghur scholars was convened at that time, which decided to adopt the Arabic script used by the Uyghurs since the adoption of Islam in the tenth century.
Last but not least, and therefore, the level of education of the Uyghur population leaves much to be desired. So, according to my observations, many middle-aged people, in addition to everyday life, trade and survival in the harsh conditions of poverty, have no idea about many things happening both in the country itself and abroad. Dislike for the Chinese, the Chinese language and all Chinese is understandable, but this cannot justify illiteracy and ignorance with elementary knowledge in the field of geography, biology, physics, and so on. And this despite the fact that several centuries ago the Uyghur empire was considered the most developed and powerful in the Asian region.
Riots with a religious shade
In the 90s of the last century, separatist groups were active in Xinjiang, there were rare cases of terrorism, and spontaneous riots broke out. The dates when a bus exploded in Kashgar in 1990 and in Urumqi in 1992 turned out to be memorable for the population of the Uyghur Autonomous Region. When authorities banned Muslims from visiting mosques, riots and protests took place in the suburbs of Kashgar. The 1995 uprising in Khotan also took on a religious connotation, when the authorities decided to replace the imam.
But the most serious were the disturbances in the town of Inin, bordering Kazakhstan, in 1997. Demonstrations by Muslims demanding that the authorities return their religious rights ended in an open uprising, which was brutally suppressed by the Chinese army. Few today dare to remember those times. Meanwhile, the recent information about the defeat in Xinjiang of the terrorist training center of the Uyghur "East Turkestan", qualified by the UN as a terrorist organization in 2002, is perceived by the public as nothing more than a cover for the next extermination of the local population.
The Chinese mistakenly classify Uyghur separatism as an Islamic religion. Under the guise of the fight against terrorism and radical Islamist groups, the authorities oppress the entire people. And the Uighurs have practically no opportunity to propagate their ideas. So, for example, due to limited sources of information, few people knew about the nomination at the end of 2006 of a successful business woman, politician and fighter for the rights and freedom of the Uyghur nation, Rabia Kadyr, for the Nobel Peace Prize. And even those who knew were silent about it.
The Chinese authorities, on the other hand, are quite good at promoting "ideology to the masses," building a less religious society in the Uyghur Autonomous Okrug. Freedom of religion is persecuted, all sorts of measures are taken to restrict "religiosity", the concept of "secular society" is cultivated among the Muslim population. In order to limit the attendance of schoolchildren at Friday prayers, during the holidays, boys are strictly ordered to come to school. During the holidays, working Uyghurs are given alcohol as gifts - Chinese vodka with a specific smell - "baijiu" Chinese translates as "white liquor" or "white spirit".
At first glance, the rights of Muslims in Xinjiang are not infringed upon by the authorities. Everywhere, even in small towns, you can see the open doors of mosques, people who come to evening prayer. But they say that all mosques are under strict control, and imams are appointed only by the authorities. One Uyghur family advised us not to make charitable contributions - "zakat" - to the mosque itself, since the money is being stolen by the servants of the "house of God", but to transfer it directly to poor families.
There is also an Orthodox church in Urumqi, founded by Russian settlers who moved to East Turkestan in the thirties of the last century. Chinese attending this church are not persecuted unless they are members of the Chinese Communist Party. However, missionaries from America cannot openly preach and convert “unbelievers” to Christianity. For the authorities are confident that under the pretext of studying Chinese and Uyghur cultures and languages, American preachers are clandestinely fulfilling their mission, which is contrary to the laws of the Communist Party.
BETWEEN LIVING STANDARDS GROW
Despite all the facts of oppression of the Uyghurs, infringement of their religious rights, interference in the internal affairs of the Uyghur region, which acquired the status of "autonomous" in 1955, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio broadcasts are published here in the Uyghur language, and at universities, schools and units of the Chinese army, stationed in the Uyghur Autonomous Okrug, special canteens, cafes and restaurants for Muslims have been opened.
In addition, the Chinese authorities are making more and more efforts to improve the standard of living in the Uyghur region, develop industry, export, attract foreign capital, for which in 1994 Urumqi was named a special economic zone. In the outback, they began to drive more and more by cars than by antique means of transportation. Business and trade, especially with the countries of Central Asia and Russia, are developing. Many cities receive government subsidies. Thus, the fact that the standard of living of the population in Xinjiang has improved significantly over the past decade cannot be ignored.
Nevertheless, the efforts made by the Chinese authorities to pacify and improve the situation in this region are not welcomed by all devout Muslims, for whom living according to the laws of their ancestors and Friday prayer is more important than accumulating wealth that they cannot take with them to the next world.
AND THE WALLS HAVE EARS
In general, it is rather difficult to obtain any information, since the Chinese authorities have taken all the necessary measures to stop the leak. People say that even the walls in China have ears, and foreigners who have arrived in search of any information about the Uyghurs and their situation are strictly warned: "They say, keep your mouth shut in your own interests and for our safety." In private conversations, people can criticize the communists, the system, but it is almost impossible to openly support or fight for the independence of the Uyghur people even in the circle of one family - under the threat of arrest. As we were told, among the Uighurs there are also "postmen" who, for the sake of little encouragement and "state security," bring the conversations of neighbors and friends to the right authorities. All Internet sites from the category, which include the BBC, Wikipedia, Human Rights Watch, as well as all sites dedicated to Uyghurs, are blocked by local providers.
