Urumqi Riot 5th July 2009
I wonder how many people are interested in this and how many people actually got the news about this. For those who are interested but don’t know, google and read it at your trusted news source.
I’ll give a short summary.
Background
Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a part of China, north of Tibet and home to Uyghurs, a muslim ethnic minority in China, but majority in Xinjiang. Reminder: the majority of Chinese are from the ethnicity of Han. Xinjiang has been part of China for a few hundreds of years now, but share similarities to Tibet in the aspect that more and more Han-Chinese are encouraged to move and settle there, leading to a growing part of the Han-population in Xinjiang. That, of course, triggers ethnic tensions.
What happened prior to the riots
From what I gathered, there was an incident not too long ago when massive fighting broke out in local factory between staff of the Han ethnicity and the staff belonging to Uyghurs. The trigger was apparently that some Uyghurs sexually harrassed a Han girl. There were a few hundreds of people involved.
What happened now
Western sources say that Uyghurs demonstrated because of the incident, but were told to stop, at which point the riot started. Chinese sources, at least from what I saw in the chinese television, don’t say anything about why the riot broke out. From what I’ve seen, the riot was way more bloody than the one in Tibet 2008, and more people were involved. More than 100 people died.
My interpretation
Ethnic tensions has been there for a long time. Incidents in Xinjiang are rather frequent, unlike in Tibet. However, I also think that the riot yesterday was not just a demonstration that went out of control, but a planned riot. I couldn’t explain how brutally they murdered (yes, murdered) and pillaged through the streets.
What will happen
I don’t think this will be as hot a topic as the Tibet issue, even though the problems are essentially the same. Yes, Tibet was annected way later, but both are history already. Both regions face the same ethnic tensions that are built up by migrating Han Chinese people. While Uyghurs are more outspoken about violence, Tibetans rarely riot. Both are ugly and from a logical point of view, pointless riots.
Why will Xinjiang be ignored
- Being muslim and violent doesn’t gather a lot of sympathy. Yet another Palestine. Not even.
- Olympic Games are already over, China is doing business as usual. It’s not “in” at the moment to bash China.
- Uyghurs don’t have a Dalai Lama. Nothing is more touching than the tragic fate of a charismatic person (however despotic his self-claimed position may be)
- We still got Michael Jackson to mourn about and the economy crisis to worry about.
What should be done
Nothing in my opinion. Nationalism and claims based on ethnicity belong to the last century. Not to mention that Uyghurs are part of China for a few centuries already. Just like the case with Tibet, the mere population would not gain anything by separatism. Economically, it would be crazy. Politically… nobody there is educated for democracy (if educated at all). What you would expect in both Tibet and Xinjiang in the unlikely case of gaining independence… would be dictatorship or theocracy. No thanks.
Feel free to share your opinions.
~guor
July 8th, 2009 at 04:51
I’ll stay on the safe side by saying that if you side for China in my place (Italy) you’d get taken as agreeing with dictatorship, because everybody is taught only about the ideologist sides and never about their counterparts, as what would happen if regions like Tibet would gain their “identity”.
Truthfully, in our age, nationalistic feelings, patriotism, they are all remnaints of dark ages called mistakenly “enlightened” during which wars of unprecedented dimension were bound to happen just because of ideologisms that fired up populations in XVIII century. Add that up to irrationalism, which leads to racism as well, resulting in furious nationalism, and you get the First World War. The rest is pretty well known.
What history should teach us is never pointed out correctly: it’s not just about what we shouldn’t do, but it’s mostly about what we shouldn’t promote, and about which mindset we shouldn’t take. Yet, the mass media itself gives us the “right side” we should part with, instead of pointing out how the ones looking for “justice” and/or “freedom” are acting in first place. Demonizing the authority might be the right expression, as it’s not justified by the mass media itself, that points out who is the bad one subtly, yet, clearly.
Irrationalism alone is a beast, and it’s what moves these people rioting. They have no idea why they are doing it, litterally. They are told to start a riot and since others are just listening blindy as well, they will go on the action too. Europe in 1900-1914 was eroded by irrationalism, people agreed with entering wars because of the simple feeling it was right to, and unfortunately “we” were far more organized.
July 8th, 2009 at 05:06
I’ve hated the “free tibet” movement for the longest time now because of the hypocrasy of it. read michael parenti’s article on feudal tibet if you’re not familiar with it. Regardless, the chinese government will probably take severe actions against this, leading to more deaths.
What do I think of it personally? truthfully, I don’t realy care. Why? Because this will get settled the hard way. If people forgot their place, and actually has enough guts to riot over something like this, then the government must act like a responsible parent and take physical action. I say this will blow over soon, and everything will return to normal. But hopefully the lesson will last for quite while.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:38
I don’t think anyone, not even the uyghr’s tried to present this as a separatist movement unlike Tibet. In this case, even the western media have been careful to simply call this an inflammation of ethnic tensions.
The Uyghr’s themselves were more trying to rally for “fair treatment” by what they viewed as a Han dominated government, even though Xinjiang is a self autonomous region.
The riots are unlikely to continue, and it’ll probalby just be a lesson in the history books where China learned how to properly manage rioting citizens as opposed to Iran who blew it completely.