According to the Tian Shan article, these individuals were honored under the third article of the “Regulations for the Canonization of Revolutionary Martyrs,” which deems individuals who “valiantly sacrifice their lives to protect or rescue human lives, national property, or collective property” and “meet death at the hands of the enemy while carrying out revolutionary responsibilities, or are captured and meet death at the hands of the enemy for remaining steadfast, or are persecuted unto death” worthy of the title.

With Uyghur rendered into pinyin, the three revolutionary martyrs who died in separate incidents are:

• Ma Jun (马军), for sacrificing himself to prevent arson
• Tuerhong Niyazi (吐尔洪·尼亚孜), for valiantly sacrificing himself to save a youth who had fallen into a body of water
  
• Wang Chunsheng (王春生), for sacrificing himself to save Tuerhong Niyazi

The seven honored victims of the attacks that occurred during the summer, all Uyghurs, are:

• Nueraili Aihemaiti (努尔艾力·艾合买提)
• Kuerban Yakufu(库尔班·牙库甫)
• Maimaitiaili Kuerban (麦麦提艾力·库尔班)
• Tuermaimaiti Abola (图尔麦麦提·阿卜拉)
• Duolikun Abudukelimu (多力昆·阿不都克力木)
• Abudureaji Kadier (阿布都热阿吉·卡迪尔)
• Yimingjiang Kadier(依明江·卡迪尔)

The AP article mentions that the victims of the heavy truck attack in Kashgar were all named revolutionary martyrs shortly afterward, whereas it took a good half-year for these victims to be given the honor. I’m curious as to what explains the discrepency; obviously there are a set of regulations defining who can be elevated to the stats of revolutionary martyr, but while both the Kashgar victims and the victims above died during surprise attacks, the first group was honored swiftly whereas the second group was honored only after what one assumes was a lengthy vetting.

The article makes no mention of the fate of the drowning youth that both Tuerhong Niyazi and Wang Chunsheng died to save.

There are, however, a few details about the latest incident which has caught my attention. First of all is the surprising and most obvious detail of violence by Uyghurs against Uyghurs. This situation is gaining new dimensions… or perhaps it is more appropriate to say that the conflict has always been far more nuanced than the “simmering Uyghurs” summary that is most often put forward by Western media outlets touching base with the region. The fact of the matter is, the Uyghurs’ involvement in Han develoment/colonization on one hand and East Turkestan freedom fighting/terrorism on the other hand is far from black and white. In an area is remote as this one we can expect both a strong anti-Han sentiment, as rural areas tend to be predominantly Uyghur and mostly more traditional, and a local party/government structure that is mostly Uyghur, since, well, there are less Han around to run things. So we see loyal Uyghur police officers falling in the line of duty, and who I believe inevitably will be put forward by the CCP as model minorities and to further reinforce the “extremists on the fringes” model of Uyghur discontent. But we also see this interest quote from the RFA article:

“After the Yamanya incident, we organized large public gatherings and asked people to help us find the suspects. We also said we would offer a 50,000-yuan reward to anyone who helped. But still nobody has come forward,” Omerjan said.

The Uyghur authorities in the region, representing the government and the party, was asking for help to resolve the Yamanya incident. But nobody stepped forward – this is a big deal. The silence is a form of support for what happened. And the support for the recent violence goes beyond tacit agreement – individuals of all stripes, from the young, female Anargul, to the presumably older community leader and cleric Shukur (who was apprehended earlier) are actively pitching in, in either the violence itself, which seems to be the case with Anargul, or sheltering and aiding the vigilantes like Shukur. Inadvertently, and thanks to the efforts of the RFA, the attacks are giving us a tiny, fleeting opportunity to see how Uyghurs can and do get directly or peripherally involved with this new type of violent, proactive resistance that has come out in recent weeks.

But again, its never that simple, and the agreement and support of action against the government is obviously not total as the reason the police were searching the field was they were tipped off, and although I’m certain there may well be Han families in the area, statistically and realistically speaking it was probably a Uyghur who called in. And this introduces the contrasting realization that some Uyghurs are willing to fight in the other direction – for what reasons, we cannot know now, but it could either be out of patriotism towards the CCP, or the more sinister (and in my opinion more likely) possibility that in Xinjiang a system of incentives and punishments is creating an “informant” environment among the Uyghurs.

And finally, although there is undeniably a trend of rising violence that cannot be ignored, the most recent violence in some ways adds more conviction to my belief that the spree of attacks are situational and comparatively crude rather than an indicator of suddenly cascading discontent and of increasing sophistication/international involvement. I mentioned in my thoughts on the Yamanya attack that it can be legitimately suspected that the attackers were pressured, in that situation and in that moment, to attack the inspectors because of something they were hiding, either on their person or in their thoughts. Similarly, this latest violence wasn’t a sophisticated, Al-Qaeda style attack that was planned and sends a deep ideological message of intimidation, rather, this was the inevitable result of fugitives doing what they do when they get cornered – they attack, and its both savage and uncoordinated. It seems that Anargul’s middle-aged mother and young son were hiding in the fields that day as well.

As usual, Xinjiang watchers must continue to play “wait and see,” forced to deal with only ephemeral glimpses into the reality in the area – but I definitely feel that in this situation we’ve been given a window much bigger than the glimpses we’re usually handed.