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From: "Yolvas Tiger" <yolvas@hotm...>
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A Shared History and a Common Purpose

By Nury Turkel

A future element of the Tibetan resistance struggle may lie in establishing
strategic alliances with the Uyghur people in the neighbouring autonomous
region of Xinjiang. In the last few years, stronger alliances have been
forged between Tibetans and Uyghurs, because the fundamental issues facing
both people under Chinese occupation – the loss of cultural identity,
religious freedoms, political autonomy, and economic marginalisation and
dominance, are the same.

China ruled most of my homeland, known as East Turkistan, for varying
periods over the past few hundred years, just as they did in Tibet. However
China maintained a weak grip until the foundation of the People’s Republic
of China, under Mao Zedong, in 1949, when the People’s Liberation Army took
control. Since 1949 the Chinese population in East Turkistan has increased
from around 7% to more than 40%. The same has happened in Tibet, and the
Dalai Lama has said that the- influx of Chinese workers (often driven by
poverty due to China’s economic reforms), the military and officials in such
large numbers is the single biggest threat to Tibet’s cultural survival.

For both Tibetans and Uyghurs – a Turkic-speaking people who converted to
Islam in the 1300s – this threat has increased dramatically since Beijing’s
accelerated drive to develop the Western regions of the PRC, including Tibet
and East Turkistan. Chinese leaders see the role of the Western regions, as
providing the necessary resources to facilitate development in the main
industrial and commercial regions of China in the centre of the country and
on the east coast. And they have long taken the view that ‘ethnic
distinctiveness’ can be eroded through the development of the economy. The
Chinese domination of the economy in both East Turkistan and Tibet is linked
to Beijing’s policies of control over its ‘minority nationalities’. The late
Yulo Dawa Tsering, a senior religious teacher in Tibet who served 20 years
in prison for the peaceful expression of his views, could have been speaking
for Uyghurs too when he referred to the drive to develop the Western regions
as representing ”a period of emergency and darkness.”

Since 11 September 2001, Beijing has continued to use the international ‘war
against terror’ to justify harsh repression in East Turkistan, which
continues to result in serious human rights violations against the ethnic
Uyghur community. The authorities make little distinction between acts of
violence and acts of peaceful resistance. There are thousands of political
prisoners in East Turkistan, and it is currently the only province in the
PRC that continues to execute people for political offences. Repression is
targeted at the heart of Uyghur identity, involving the closure of mosques,
restrictions on the use of the Uyghur language and the banning of certain
Uyghur books and journals. A policy that, since the mid-1990s, has been seen
to be effective in silencing many dissenting voices in East Turkistan and
Tibet.

Like Tibetans, Uyghurs have been demoralized and undermined by hardline
security policies and crackdowns on their culture, language and religion.
But equally, for many of us, Chinese rule has intensified our sense of
national pride and identity. Uyghurs stand alongside Tibetans by expressing
their continued resistance to the Party and government through their
language, culture and jokes. It happens everyday; at Uyghur gatherings, over
the dinner table. In the Uyghur language, there are so many nuances of
expression to convey the subtleties of what is happening. This is one of the
reasons for China’s ongoing persecution of Uyghur artists, writers and
comedians.

There’s a well-known joke about the appointment of the new chairman of the
so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Jiang Zemin (China’s former
Party Secretary and President) locks up four Uyghurs in a dark room and
touches their heads. He then picks the one with the softest skull. It’s a
reference to the fact that the Chinese don’t care how skilful, talented or
knowledgeable Uyghurs are; the most important virtue in a leader is their
‘soft head’; their submissiveness to Beijing.

Chinese propaganda depicts Uyghur resistance against the Chinese as ‘violent
separatism’, and the international press have sometimes taken up this theme
too, often in contrast to the peaceful resistance of Tibetans. The real
picture is much more complex. It is true that violent anti-government
activity was reported in East Turkistan before the mid-1990s. But it is next
to impossible to connect known Uyghur separatist organizations with most of
the violent incidents inside East Turkistan in recent years, and the
frequency of violent activity associated with Uyghur separatism has declined
dramatically since the late 1990s. All of the underground networks have been
largely broken up and the people disempowered by the coercive mechanisms of
the state, which has all served to make any form of overt resistance less
likely.

Uyghur political prisoners don’t have the same profile as Tibetan political
prisoners, partly because security measures are so ruthless and so
sophisticated that this information is not reaching the West. In general, it
seems that China is much more careful about how it handles the Tibet issue
because it remains high on the international political agenda and the
situation there is monitored by lobbying organisations and activists all
over the world who take every opportunity to make representations on behalf
of the Tibetan people.

It is also because the Tibetans, both those who continue to resist and those
choose to conform to the ways of the Chinese regime, have the leadership of
the Dalai Lama. Even though we don’t have any religious attachment to the
Dalai Lama, I know that Uyghur people admire him greatly. On an
international level, he has unified Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile. We
admire his dedication and the sacrifices he has made for his people, in the
way he lives his life. He has provided the noblest example of peaceful
resistance.

The future for the Uyghur people, and indeed Tibetans, is very much linked
to the international climate. As an emerging global economic power, China
has an increasing need for energy resources and is challenging the only
world superpower, the US, with its developing influence in Asia, the Islamic
world, Europe. There is simply no precedent in world history for the Chinese
state today. But it is becoming clearer that even as the Party leadership
tightens its grip, its legitimacy is under challenge from its own people,
and its political system is ultimately fragile. Today, it is ever more
important for Uyghur people to strengthen their political and economic ties
with Tibetans facing the same threat from China. We need to hold fast to our
language and our culture during this darkest time of our history.

-ends-

Nury Turkel, who was born in Kashgar, East Turkistan, is a lawyer and
President of the Uyghur American Association. He lives in Washington, DC.
See http://www.uyghuramerican.org

Author’s Note: This article was published on the book “Incomparable
Warriors: Non-violent resistance in Contemporary Tibet”. The entire book can
be viewed at
http://www.savetibet.org/documents/pdfs/2005ICTResistanceReport.pdf

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