On 15 June 2009, around 10:30 AM local time, wrecking crews working on the “renewal” of Kashgar’s Old City demolished the Xanliq Madrasa. Eyewitnesses report that the medieval Islamic college, listed as an Autonomous Region-level protected cultural site, was knocked down without any protest or ceremony. According to speculation, the “royal” madrasa, apparently located in the yard of Kashgar No. 1 Elementary School, may have been torn down to make room for an athletic field.

Mahmud al-Kashgari, the 11^th-century scholar who compiled the Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk, is said to have studied at the Xanliq Madrasa in its heyday. In the 1860s, following a lengthy period of decline at the Xanliq Madrasa and in the Islamic scholarly community in East Turkestan in general, a wealthy merchant from Atush named Abdurusulbay funded its renovation. In exchange, the Xanliq Madrasa was to host primary schools funded by local luminaries. In 1883, it became home to the first experimental school in Xinjiang to mix Islamic and “scientific” curricula. This was founded by Abdurusulbay’s grandsons, Bawudunbay and Hüsäyinbay Musabayov. Although that school was short-lived, its successor, Atush’s Hüsäyniyä School, produced generations of students educated using modern methods. It also spawned a broad-reaching network of similar schools that played a major organizing role in pre-1949 social and political movements. Many of today’s Uyghur intelligentsia can trace their philosophical, political, and sometimes family roots back to the educational efforts that began at the Xanliq Madrasa. The ideology that arose from these movements still resonates today, often in opposition to official communism.

Judging from online message boards, reactions to the destruction have been a mix of righteous anger and self-criticism. Having heard that the Xanliq Madrasa was torn down, many Uyghurs have expressed resentment towards the PRC government. Those who have spoken out feel that the destruction is part of a government “plan” to destroy physical vestiges of Uyghur history and “rewrite” it. This is connected closely to a sense that the government favors Han Chinese development over Uyghur industry and Han Chinese historical sites over Uyghur ones. These feelings of ethnic repression and conspiracy are reinforced by the knowledge that the Xanliq Madrasa was recognized as a protected historical and cultural site, a status that, in this case, clearly afforded it no special status or opportunity for preservation. Many have invoked the destruction of the Cultural Revolution, when many such sites were torn down all across the PRC. Some look back even before 1949 to a historical disregard for Xinjiang culture on the part of “those foreigners” – the Han.

Others, while angered by what has happened, have expressed frustration over Uyghurs’ own lack of initiative in protecting what they see as their history. A frequent refrain is, “If only we had held a protest, maybe we could have stopped this.” Such complaints are typical of those gripes found on message boards all over the Web. Others have pointed out that the very lack of a protest shows that Uyghurs, while mourning for the squandered legacy of their “Grandpa Mahmud,” actually possess a very weak sense of history. Certainly, no one seems to have bothered photographing the madrasa before, during, or following its destruction, and no one on the Web seems to know anything about it, save for Mahmud al-Kashgari’s having studied there.

Perhaps the kindest conclusion we can draw is that there is no real institutional mechanism in place for dealing with ethnic and cultural grievances or, for that matter, for reporting problems of interest to a specifically ethnic audience. The Chinese system of regional autonomy does not allow for official organization by or on behalf of ethnic groups per se. While the Xanliq Madrasa, an institution that should resonate with all Xinjiang Muslims, has been claimed both by everyday Uyghurs and by official narratives specifically as an artifact of Uyghur history and culture, there was no clear way for someone who might have seen the demolition order to publicize it to Uyghurs. Even if word got out, there was no obvious way to organize on behalf of the madrasa’s preservation. All the same, any protest or other actions would certainly have been stunted by a pervasive feeling of helplessness where the preservation of non-Chinese historical sites is concerned, as well as a lack of leadership.

When news of the act hit the press it triggered a frenzy of speculation as to who the protesters were and why they did it. The National People’s Congress is set to open next week and is often the target of protesters who come to Beijing to air their grievances. Prominently, the date of the protest was the Tibetan New Year, opening the possibility that the protesters were Tibetans expressing discontent with the situation in Tibet. The China Digital Times posted a summary of the various commentaries triggered by the event, along with some pictures, and clearly one can see that despite how sensational the protest itself was, actual information concerning the cause or the participants remained scarce.

The latest by Reuters says that the occupants of the vehicle were a family of Uyghurs, according to information disclosed by an unnamed source at the capital. The father and mother, aged 59 and 58 respectively, are being treated at a local hospital for burn injuries while the son, 28, is in police custody, uninjured. 

The same source claims that the protest was directed at lawmakers and was over a housing dispute. What remains to be disclosed, then, is whether or not there is something uniquely “Uyghur” about the nature of the protest. Was the issue being protested a personal or non-ethnic issue that could’ve happened anywhere else in China, and the Uyghur identity of the protesters was just a coincidental and non-related fact? Or was ethnicity bound up into it all, as if, for example, the “housing issue” being protested was regarding an old Uyghur neighborhood being torn down to make way for a housing development? This distinction is vital, considering factors such as the annual report on human rights issued by the State Department which right off the bat slams the Chinese government for its treatment of minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet.

It’s interesting to keep in mind that this information came from a leak and that government organs have yet to put in a word on the ethnicity or motivations of the protesters. So far, Xinhua and the like have been pretty sparse with the details. That governmental organizations have refused to release any information about the identity or intent of the protesters seems to strongly imply that there is something worth hiding in the eyes of the authorities. In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait for Xinhua to make the next move, or for another helpful “source” to step up and offer a little more info.