Should Uighurs be treated equally and given economic opportunities? Of course. Does the Chinese government violate their citizen’s human rights? Duh. ‘course they do. But, even if the Uighurs had all the cultural and religious control they could ever want (unfettered religious expression, control over education and language of instruction, etc), there would still be conflict between the two groups because of the perceived economic disparity. It’s naive to underestimate the economic sources of this conflict.

If a white American says, “We gotta stop our country from being overrun with all these non-white immigrants. If we don’t, pretty soon we’re not gonna be a white country no more. We’re losing our culture!,” he would be condemned for being racist and intolerant. A non-white person, living in a far away place says something similar, and everyone says, “Oh, you poor, poor thing. That’s so wrong.”

The whole debate over the Uighurs at Guantanemo is a perfect example of how EVERYTHING in the US is used in hopes of scoring political points, and it also shows how wretched US Media is when it comes to journalistic integrity and basic fact checking. The Uighurs were cleared by the Bush Dept., the group China claimed they supported… no one ever heard of. McCarthy just doesn’t seem possess the necessary critical thinking skills to get that into his skull. Not that it’s surprising, people like him generally just regurgitate political talking points and have forced themselves to believe that only “the worst of the worst” are housed at Gitmo despite all those that have been cleared (and those that likely should be).

Tictoc,

For one, that comparison is atrocious. And secondly, culture, religion and ethnicity DO play a role in what is going in Xinjiang. To even imply its simply a bunch of jealous Uighurs out for vengeance because the Hans make more money is naive and completely ignores history. The Chinese Government has spent decades trying to destroy Uighur communities with the end goal of stripping the Uighurs of all their cultural, ethnic and religious identity (so China can maintain a choke hold on Xinjiang due to its vast resources). That is a fact (as witnessed by the very fact that China has policies directed at explicitly restricting the autonomy of Uighurs).

Oldschool Boy: You are right about the Oirats. But that genocide cannot be blamed on the Communist Party of China. But the destruction of the Manchu and Mongolian cultures has happened since 1949 so the Chinese communists are directly responsible for that. Same with the Tibetan and Uyghur cultures.

Michael: You are in the right place to get a copy of this movie made in Kazakhfilm in 1981. It’s called God Drakona. IMDB has an entry but without much description. It is on the subject of this thread. They say the angle on the Uyghur history in this movie is unique as far as the movies are concerned. If you find it, maybe, you can write a review and even post a trailer on Youtube? Maybe, Oldschool Boy knows about this movie? I haven’t seen it. Just seen references to it on Russian websites.

P.S. Don’t confuse it with the other movie called The Year of the Dragon, made in the US in 1985 and directed by Michael Cimino.

tictoc
Before you make any parallels try to learn at list a little bit of history. Uighurs live in the region for almost 2 thousand years and have had their own state. They have fought with Chinese for independence, and the last time when they had their own independent state it was late 1940s.
I would rather compare this development with the Greek resistance to Turkish occupation or French resistance to German occupation.

To me, this rioting doesn’t look all that different from the Los Angeles riots when there was violence between African-Americans and Korean-Americans (who owned many of the businesses operating in traditionally African-American neighborhoods.) In that case, as in this one, there was plenty of racism and bigotry on both sides.

I find two things are sad here. Just until recently the US conservatives used to be known for their intellectual power. Just look up Kevin Phillips. Now US conservatism is a shelter for people who cannot do basic thinking. A recent Ohio U study found that conservatives think Stephen Colbert is serious: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/entertainment/No-Joke-Conservatives-Believe-Colbert.html
The degradation of US conservatives is sad.

The events in E.Turkistan (a.k.a. Xinjiang) and Tibet (a.k.a. Xizang) are death throes of two peoples who are being rendered irrelevant and whose culture is being erased from the pages of history. Uyghurs and Tibetans are desperate because they see what has happened in front of their eyes in the last few decades. Whither Manchus of Manchuria and Mongols of Inner Mongolia? Gone, disappeared, subsumed into the vast mass of the Han Chinese. Uyghurs and Tibetans are next. That is a sad inevitability.

P.S. Why does Western news media describe the conflict as between “Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghurs?” Logically inconsistent. It should be “Han Chinese and Turkic Uyghurs” or “[insert religion] Han Chinese and Muslim Uyghurs.” The inconsistency is more obvious if you look at how they describe the conflict in Tibet. They usually don’t say “Buddhist Tibetans.” And that is correct because the conflict is ethnic, not religious. And in both cases of Uyghurs and Tibetans religion is a strong part of the identity.

Once again, thank you everyone for the excellent post and discussion.

Josh probably refers to Iran’s support for the Lebanese Hizbullah. Here it depends on who or what one calls ‘terrorism’, of course. Hizbullah is a legitimate resistance movement against Israeli agression *and* a party that was democratically elected into Lebanese parliament and many municipality councils. No matter if it is listed as a ‘terrorist group’ by the US-Israël, the EU and the UN (though no-one takes the latter seriously these days).

As for that play, cf. Nathan: LOL