Visual Misrepresentations in the Turkish Media
The Turkish daily newspaper Zaman’s video news story, Urumçi’de çatışma, about the Urumchi riots is stunning due to its visual misrepresentations. While the Turkish voice over focuses entirely on the situation in Urumchi, for an extended period of time, the Chinese language video footage that it uses is not of the Urumchi riots at all.
Rather, the footage is of the coup d’etat in Honduras, including scenes of the Honduras military confronting Honduran protestors, as well as the Honduran president-in-exile’s airplane and its attempt to land in the capitol. (For the exact clip, see the video at 00:29.) That this video is not about Urumchi is indicated by the Chinese headline, which reads: 洪都拉斯政变：回国受阻–塞拉亚转飞尼加拉瓜 (translation: Honduras Coup d’Etat: Blocked from Returning to the Country — Zelaya’s Plane Redirected to Nicaragua).
That this clip is unrelated to the riots in Xinjiang was not made clear; instead, it makes it appear to Turkish audiences that, not only are there riots in Xinjiang, but that the Chinese military has called in an air strike on the Uyghurs. One could argue that this was a mere oversight on the part of Zaman’s editors. However, given the previous statements made about the Urumchi riots by numerous Turkish government officials, and Zaman’s proximity to the current ruling political party, the AKP, one wonders if this was an intentional error meant to stoke outrage amongst the populace.
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They also show the two photos which have been circulating which do not belong to the Urumchi events – the lines of riot police and the car accident. Turkey’s shoddy reportage certainly doesn’t help them at a time when they are sticking their necks out to support the Uyghurs.
If you consider that
- Uighur voices aren´t heard
- Nobody dared speak to a foreign journalist even before the riots
- The Uyghurs get a really raw deal regarding international support
I can´t help but be happy that at least the Turks are showing the appropriate outrage. Even if the photos are fake the reality can´t be denied.
The facts are
1. Uighurs, or any minority groups, are not subject to the one-child policy as the Han Chinese majority group is.
2. There are over 30, 000 mosques in Xinjiang for Uighurs to worship.
3. The schools in Xinjiang, or any other minority areas, are all bilingual. This freedom of language is not allowed in the US schools for its minority groups.
4. Uighurs like the traditional way of life, and are less well educated, thus having fewer opportunities to prosper in a market economy.
5. What has happened recently is essentially a racial riot against the Han Chinese. Those poor civilians are ordinary people driven by poverty to look for work on Chinese territory. 137 of the 184 dead are Han Chinese.
6. If the Uighurs are dissatisfied, they could protest against the government, not killing the innocent civilians.
When it comes to minority in China, there is always this double standard: they are treated as a second class citizen by the majority (not the government on the face, but the majority who naturally view the Uyghurs as thieves); when it comes to the “uniformity” of the nation, they are undoubtedly Chinese. With this double standard in mind, it’s really hard to avoid contradiction all the time even though one can always claim there is none.
aturk, what does this mean when you say: “Those poor civilians are ordinary people driven by poverty to look for work on Chinese territory.”? “Chinese territory”? You mean China? Then where are the Uyghurs from? A foreign country? You are already subconsciously treating them as de facto foreigners!
Your perception is a very different one. I – half-German/half-Turkish – regard the area as East-Turkistan. The Uyghurs have their own language, culture, history. They do not want to be subjects of communist China. Is it so damn difficult for you to understand that Uyghurs are a different people who do not want to be invaded by Han-Chinese?!
One can see already how some of these comments totally ignored the topic and wants to turn this to a pure China Bashing or Pro China argument, like everywhere.
The fact remains that this Video is horribly and IMO intentioanlly cropped, to serve ones political gain and has nothing what so ever in sympathizing with their Uighurs Brothers.
Yesterday was the 7th day after the brutal riots, and the day the Han Chinese holds their funeral. Uighurs neighbors of a Han Family bravely show up in their funeral holding the hand of the relatives of their victims, paying their last respect to the victims, ignoring their own safety. Stories like these can be found easily in sources like the South China Morning Post. But in the end because non-bias reporting like the South China Morning Post (SCMP) will always be ignore by both sides, since its an English Newspaper with a century of History in Hong KOng, it would be accused of western bias, then it will be accused of Chinese Propaganda cause its located in Hong Kong, despite the fact that it has no links what so ever with the Chinese Gov’t. But in the end who cares, people are only interested in the extremes of news, and news like SCMP is really freakin boring as they don’t put in huge amount of hatred and bias in their reporting, like the editor of this BS video.
In the end whether they are Hui, Han, Uighur, I am pretty sure that these ordinary citizens will just like to wake up every morning, brush their teeth, take a poop eat breakfast and just go do what they have to do that day. I mean what a boring life right? Wouldn’t it be so much more exciting waking up every morning and racing off to kill their neighbors, and very sadly thats not what they are thinking right now. They are waking up worrying that their neighbors will rush over to their homes and butcher them, or perhaps the dude next to me on the bus is going to stab them etc…. What a great life to live… what a great future there is. Yet outside of XinJiang, message boards on the internet, are filled with one sided biases, bashing and hatred, and basically accusing which ever side they are accusing that they are going to really going to enjoy living such a miserable life after this week. What a fantastic life I am going to live if I have to wake up everyday worrying about my own safety, my kids, my parents, my lover, my friends safety, and whats worst its not even the authorities that you are worried about anymore, its that dude who is next to you, why? Cause he is a Han, a Uighur, a Hui, a…. because of I am a Uighur, a Han, A Hui, a…. what a exciting, promising life I will be looking for to live.
Seriously, perhaps thats the biggest worries for the residents of Urumqi now, for those who are Mix of both, life will be even more miserable for them, and yet the world outside of Xinjiang doesn’t seems to give a shit about this, they are more interested in pouring gasoline in to the fire.
and Lesso, you stupid dumb fucking piece of shit, “if” a Uighur saw that video perhaps in another in Xinjiang, and who perhaps thought that Jets were used to bomb Uighur’s Neighbor’s hood in Urumqi or other thoughts, he might get emotional, rush out and start attacking Han or a Hui civilian killing them, or worse if he attacks a soldier or the police, whether killing them or not, he will be shot and killed, and if he himself spread the word around it wouldn’t just be putting his own life in danger, he will put others life in danger for a stupid video made to gain political points nearly half away around the globe. U gotta be the biggest bastard I have read so far this week conflicts.
Hi Chung
I feel sorry for you. You remind me of the Chinese with minds like slaves that Lu Xun portrayed. Intelligence means being able to look beyond the lid of your soup bowl.
You evidently believe anything the goverment tells you. Of course it is much easier and profitable like that.
But fortunately I don´t live in China and I can speak my mind.
I was two years ago in Xinjiang and can honestly say I have never in my life seen such oppression and consequently such hatred.Get a life Chung.
Chung, I fail to see how it is not, like you said yourself, “pouring gasoline into the fire” when you bluntly use offensive words to make personal attacks on someone merely because he/she has a different opinion.
Lesso is right, Chung. You do not understand what this means to me, for example. I am interested in my Turkish history and culture. Why should I ask China for a visa if I wanted to travel to East-Turkistan? China is behaving like a mad wanna-be-Hitler, trying to seperate the world from Uyghurs, and Uyghurs from the world. The unwanted big elephant in the porcelain shop. They are erazing Turkish history; do you understand this? Eg the Urumqi infrastructure project, now they want to destruct 85% of Kashgar… Who the f.uck they think they were? Who wants modern apartment blocks? Who? The only ones who like them are the Chinese. They are expanding their life-style, their territory, their system on costs of other people. Do you understand this? I tell you as German – that maybe impresses you more. However, Lesso, maybe Chung cannot understand us because, as you said, he is mind-fucked by his own government. In that case I recommend to you, Chung, to move to East-Turkistan and study Uyghur to liberate yourself from the system. But do so quickly, cause in a few years China may have destroyed everything, books etc. And then you`ll remain forever trapped in an old-fashiioned communist system in which you are nothing but a marionette that is drilled to serve a system, most likely the top state people who then spend the people`s efforts and tax payments in fancy restaurants; or maybe for journeys to other countries as they too cannot stand the pressure in Chinese society anymore… Why don`t you yong Chinese people not simply boycott your own system and make a change?! Drop out and become Uyghur, Jewish, Punk or whatever you fancy. You`ll be welcome.
Turkey has asked China to visit Xinjiang. I find it so damn inhumane that Turkey asks China to see their own Turkish brethnels. And then, you bet, China will dictate them to only see modern Urumqi but not Kashgar or other truely Turkish places, where they could communicate in Turkish with Uyghurs and they both would feel at home and understand each other. If I were Turkey I`d not give a damn and visit my people with an army or via Russia or another border. If I were those foreign journalists presently in Xinjiang, I`d immediately tell my home-country about Chinese press restrictions… I mean, can`t you see? China wants to impose their laws and orders onto everyone, Uyghurs, Turks, foreign journalists. Now China contacted Australia to not show a film at a fim festival that includes Uyghurs. Doesn`t China understand that the rest of the world thinks very differently and does not want to be restricted by an old-fashioned suppressive system? One cannot take China serious or play with Chinese if they behave like that, you know.