THIS IS PART ONE OF A FIVE-PART EDITORIAL SERIES.
*A full warning about content that may be viewed as offensive, triggering and/or otherwise distasteful is being provided now. This article will discuss acts of rape, forced abortion, sterilization, murder, torture, forced labor and genocide. This writing is meant to help give the Uighur people a voice, and to show that they are being thought about, cared about and fought for in as many ways as possible. The Uighur people deserve their lives, their families, their culture and the one thing that we all hold dear: their freedom. *
In northwestern China, there exists a region called Xinjian. Within this region there exists a group of people known as the Uighurs (also spelled Uyghur and pronounced we-gurr), a Muslim-majority population that has inhabited the region since about 840 CE and has had a history of servitude, war and struggle. This is their story, their struggles and their plight, how their culture and faces are being erased from the modern world and how there seems to be no end to the nightmare that is happening to them.
This is an opinion piece, but it should also be noted that I have attempted to be extensive and thoughtful about the situation. Whether it is one person who reads this or a thousand, this is in no way an attempt to gain glory for myself or to try and promote my own name or brand; this is about the Uighurs and only the Uighurs, and it is them who deserve all the credit for their bravery, faith, strength and courage through this long dark time. All attempts to discuss this topic are going to be as tasteful as they can be, and I will try to give all the people involved as much credit as they deserve and can provide in this moment. Please be aware of this situation and let its horrors and truths carry with you what it carries with me. This is the Rwanda of our generation, the Darfur, the Holocaust, the Holodomor, all terms thrown about very often but that cannot be understated here.
A People Familiar to Occupation:
The Uighurs are not new to a history of occupation and war. As a nomadic people for large swaths of their history, the Uighurs have experienced many occupying forces from the Mongol empire to the Qing dynasty to the modern-day Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While certainly a gross overgeneralization of the history of the Uighurs, it is important to note that through it all the people have persevered and survived. They survived mass killings, war, servitude, civil strife and many of the numerous other threats and conflicts that have come their way as people who desire to be free to live their own lives. The point is that the Uighurs are a people who came about in a baptism of fire, and they have long struggled for independence and identity on a national stage throughout their history. Despite all of this, they persisted this long and now face complete eradication.
Why are the Chinese doing this to the Uighurs?
The Uighurs, like most peoples in the world, are not exempt from having their own branch of extremists in their population. For years, the Uighurs have struggled for independence, and many peoples within their population have taken this fight to the next level and orchestrated terrorist attacks inside of China. These attacks mostly center on ethnic Han Chinese people and oftentimes are very bloody in nature.
In 2013, there was a car bombing where “5 people were killed in Beijing after a car drove into a crowd of tourists outside Tiananmen gate.” In March of the following year, 31 people were slaughtered by knife-wielding Uighur attackers at a train station in the Chinese city of Kunming. The next year, “50 people were killed and more than 50 injured on September 18 [2015].” The Uighur terrorists have caused their own amount of harm to China and thus have drawn the ire of the CCP. Often CCP officials will use these attacks as justification for their need to “pacify” the population.
The CCP has also used the United States’ war on terror to justify their actions so much so that “…in the wake of September 11, 2001, as Washington sought Beijing's support in its ‘war on terror,’ the Chinese government linked unrest in Xinjiang with Islamist groups overseas, succeeding in getting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) listed as a terrorist organization by the US,” according to CNN. This labeling and use of events to justify what is going on in Xinjian is a smokescreen for what the CCP is attempting to do: erase a group of people who dare to defy them.
Part two of this editorial series will focus on forced labor and the cultural eradication of the Uighur people. You can find part two here and part three here. Read The Lamron in the following weeks to stay informed on the devastating events occurring in China.