The New Dominion

I promised, a few posts down, another document that refers to “Xinjiang people”, not just Uyghur or Han or whatever.

Recently, the following post, once found at this address, was passed on to me by a friend. It seems to have circulated on the Web since perhaps early November. It is a lengthy and impassioned plea for, at the very least, some respect and hope for the people of Xinjiang of all stripes, who, the author argues, have endured countless hardships for the benefit of their fellow citizens in the East. The author expresses despair at the dashed hopes of the Opening Up of the West and anger at the cancer left by atomic bomb tests in Lop Nor.

The whole document has a feeling of the old Yip Harburg song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” “Once I built a railroad…”

My English translation is a little hurried. Comments are welcome.

Also, does anyone else think that the author must be from Korla?

今天的十大头条： 新疆人，对不起，谢谢你

Today’s Top Ten Leading Stories: Xinjiang People, I’m Sorry, Thank You

对不起，谢谢你
新疆的石油运走了，
新疆的天然气运走了，
新疆的棉花运走了，
新疆的钾盐运走了，
新疆的黄金运走了，
新疆的和田玉运走了
……

I’m sorry, thank you

Xinjiang’s oil was transported away,

Xinjiang’s natural gas was transported away,

Xinjiang’s cotton was transported away,

Xinjiang’s leopoldite was transported away,

Xinjiang’s gold was transported away,

Xinjiang’s Khotan jade was transported away

…

原子弹却降临在新疆了
……

The atomic bomb was indeed tested in Xinjiang

…

Read more »

Reuters via the New York Times already gets the roll bowling with its “can’t resist to joke” article “China Pulls Rug from Under Flying Carpet Drug Smugglers.” As someone who now sees Xinjiang as my adoptive home in China, I feel a sort of odd pride that drug traffickers in Xinjiang and across the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan have pioneered a cutting edge system for smuggling drugs into China. The smugglers in question insert heroin into plastic tubes 1 to 2 mm wide, then disguise them as yarn by wrapping them in synthetic fibers and weaving into carpets. Naturally, the reason we know about this is because the PRC customs anti-smuggling investigators succeeded in unravelling the diabolical plots woven by those with the intent of harming the stability and harmony of Xinjiang. For a profit. However, the deputy director of the General Administration of Customs’ anti-smuggling bureau still acknowledged that a new level of sophistication was attained by the smugglers who developed the method.

And thus drug smuggler joins terrorist, AIDS kebabs vagabond, and thief on the “ways in which Uyghurs are spoiling the harmony of New China” list. Granted the article referenced above didn’t mention Uyghurs in specific, but let’s face it, for the Chinese reader the modus operandi of carpet smuggling will give it all away (even if it turns out that the operation was run entirely by Han Chinese). But as tourism drops rapidly in the months before the 2008 Olympics, perhaps a story like this one will increase carpet sales in Xinjiang, which is rapidly ousting Yunnan as the drug capital of the People’s Republic.

The intelligent and thought-provoking Blogging for China has put up a full English translation of a forum post entitled “Don’t endulge our ‘race (minzu 民族) complex’”. The original post (”别放纵自己的民族情结”) can be found here on a forum dedicated to minkaohan (民考汉, members of non-Han groups who finish their schooling in Chinese). The post reflects, I think, the feelings of many Xinjiang non-Han, both minkaohan and minkaomin (those who finish their schooling in a non-Han language) alike.

In summary, the poster, herself a minkaohan, found herself despairing of the conflicts that erupted when refugees from the closed Uyghur On-Line site moved onto the forum. Coming face-to-face with the strong minzu (ethnonational or racial) feelings of other posters, as well as her own, she tells some stories from her own life to illustrate the changes in ethnic relations in Xinjiang over the past sixty years. She ends with a heartfelt appeal for mutual understanding, which was well-received by other posters.

This is one of a few examples I have seen on-line recently of appeals made in the name of a pan-ethnic Xinjiang identity. Another of them will soon be translated and available on this site.

I found on Reuters an amusing article describing the harebrained plot of three Shandong natives to pay off some rather steep gambling debts they dug themselves into. Common sense says that when you’re in such a bind the best route to take is extortion, and you can’t extort unless you’re dark, scary, and powerful, armed with the ability to threaten, coerce, and my goodness, if necessary, kill. Or at least the ability to pretend to be in that situation. I think we’re all pretty certain that 3 unscrupulous Qingdao fellas wouldn’t be in a good position to extort, say, 2.08 million yuan, so it was up to them to find a mask to don, something that would get the fat cats shivering in their boots, scared enough to transmit some digital Maos to the right bank accounts. Hm… what kind of appearance to go for? What could strike enough fear in the wary hearts of the rich and powerful of Qingdao, which is the future site of a few Olympic events?

Of course the answer is obvious: Uyghur terrorists!

So Mr. Sun,  23, Mr. Wu, 25, and Mr. Wang, 41 (Good Uyghur names, ah-yep) called in to an as of yet unamed company posing as East Turkestan terrorists and demanding that the above amount be wired to their bank account, or else! Or else they would blow up something. The conclusion hardly need be stated: the police were notified and the unlucky idiots were immediately identified by the personal information attached to the provided bank accounts and quickly arrested.

And that’s pretty funny. It’s funny because the guys put some effort into concocting the appropriate alternate identity without bothering to wonder if their bank accounts would give them away. It’s funny because when in April details about alleged foiled terrorist plans emerged, it really seemed crystal clear from the terrorists’ purported arsenal - athletes as hostages, poisoning foodstuffs, suicide bombers - that money really wasn’t a top priority for the phantom ETIM villains.

But in spite of everything our Chinese Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe got wrong, I think they got one tiny thing right, and that’s if there’s one costume to adopt that while cause people to sweat under the collar, if there’s one shadowy specter that will get give cadres the heeby-jeebies and get the armed police moving, it’s the Muslim Uyghur Terrorist. With the silly Olympic Mind Games occuring with the torch in Xinjiang and Tibet (China gets gold for the Fool-The-Terrorist-Switcheroo event) and ghost plots that may or may not have been real appearing and disappearing into the pre-Olympic haze, I think it’s becoming clear that the image of Uyghurs is evolving in the Han popular imagination. Sure, the dancing and singing part is there, but that’s only one half the dual mold that Uyghurs and jammed into - the other half, most readres will know, was “theives.” We saw it a few weeks ago when we looked at some joke maps circulating on the internet. And anyone who has told Han friends that they’re going to Xinjiang undoubtedly was told to watch out for pickpockets. But for the sake of building the foundation of a secure and stable Olympics, a new domestic enemy has been fabricated - no longer Uyghur the theif, now its Uyghur the terrorist. And even a few dumb saps in Shandong “know” that.