Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
We've previously noted how Al-Jazeera's treatment of the Tibet issue tends to be somewhat lopsided, but this latest report on Islam in China which features interviewees from both ends of the political spectrum does exhibit cognisance of the various sensitivities and the interplay of a variety of complex factors. The heterogeneity of Muslims in China makes them a highly fascinating group to study, if we can even consider them as a "group" to begin with. The longstanding suspicions among Uyghurs of the Hui's are underscored by activist Rebiya Kadeer's assertion that many of the spies employed by Chinese intelligence in Xinjiang are Hui Muslims — an ethnic group that accounts for about half of China's 22 million Muslims. The main distinction that sets the Hui's apart from the Han's is derived from their practice of Islam and in many cases, there is no genetic distinction between the Hui's and the Han's due to a decision by the Communist Party in the 1930s to define Hui's as an umbrella group for all Sinophone Muslims.
It is interesting to note that Rebiya Kadeer was once co-opted as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Her rags-to-riches story and successes as a businesswoman earned her a high standing among the Uyghur community. Unfortunately, her barring from re-election in 1998 and subsequent imprisonment in 1999 (a missed opportunity by the Chinese government to address real concerns perhaps?) may have had the effect of radicalising her views. Since her exile to the United States, she has gained influential friends and meetings with heads of states and has also been named President of the World Uyghur Congress, but for all her actions is likely to exert only limited pressure on the Chinese government.
Even as the Chinese government continues to guarantee more space for the expression of religion, the rise of political Islam will be a real concern. This is because Islam is a set of beliefs which not only govern how man is to behave before God, but also how states should be run. As more and more imams (religious leaders) are trained not just in local seminaries but also in such revered institutions of fundamentalist thought such as the Al-Azhar University in Egypt, the face of Islam in China will change (note the totally veiled women in the video). As record numbers of Chinese Muslims go on Haj year-on-year, their spiritual aspirations and views of their relation to the state will also evolve. Not all of this will be bad though. As we have previously noted, there is much that Muslim communities elsewhere can glean from the Chinese Muslim experience, in particular the establishment of nu si (“女寺") or female mosques (seen in this video) and the ordination of large numbers of female imams that are unheard of elsewhere. While female imams and mosques are more peculiar to Hui rather than Uyghur communities, it has been studied with great interest by anthropologists.
Related links
Shanghaiist: The most unlikely birthplace of progressive Islam?
Shanghaiist: Record number of Chinese Muslims on Haj
Wikipedia: Rebiya Kadeer
Youtube: Cause and Causes [video]
In These Times: Rebiya Kadeer: The Uighur Dalai Lama
Journal3.net: Islam in China: China Nu’s Ahong
Asia Times: Islam with Chinese characteristics
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With an account unsettled with Han Chinese, Rebiya Kadeer seems to begin to pounce upon another Muslims group.
I pray she would not send her last son to Lhasa for a united front with tibeten rioters, only for looting hundreds Hui’s shops there, as they did in March. I hope Rebiya Kadeer’s two sons will remain behind the bar, so that less Chinese officials get bribed and blackmailed.
A funny 'Catch 22' is behind Rebiya Kadeer saying:"Muslims never kill" and "when he kills, he stops to be a Muslims", lol!
I wish businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer a successful career as a "professional activist" which can bring better turnover than her hard working in China, a turnover brought by CIA, NED, so on. What can you expect from Americans who consider Muslims as terrorists only when they attack USA?
I don't think this part was worded well:
... there is no genetic distinction between the Hui's and the Han's due to a decision by the Communist Party in the 1930s to define Hui's as an umbrella group for all Sinophone Muslims.
I'm fairly certain that while the CPC seems to have Eastman by the family jewels, it can hardly expect DNA to abide by its 'decisions.' If we posit that Sinophile Muslims might be expected to marry within their own cultural-religious group more often thasn not, they could then, in fact, be expected have (relatively small) quantifiable genetic differences distinct from the wider Han population (would make a fascinating study, if the technology was that advanced).
Anyway, the way it's worded in the article is... imprecise. I suggest an edit.
I completely disagree that this video "exhibits cognisance of the various sensitivities and the interplay of a variety of complex factors." The video and Eastman's analysis are flawed in many ways, not the least in the way in which, while superficially acknowledging a difference between Uyghurs and Hui Muslims, the two groups are lumped together here as "Chinese Muslims". This would be similar to presenting a report about Chinese Buddhists and Tibetan Buddhists, not to mention interviewing the most pro-Chinese government Chinese Buddhist leader you can find on the mainland and asking him for his views on the situation for Buddhists in the PRC. Of course he will tell the interviewer that the Tibetans are rocking the boat by "agitating for a separatist state". Please, al-Jazeera- don't waste half your film on a pro-Communist religious leader spouting propanda and a so-called "China expert" that no one's ever heard of.
Unlike the assertion made in the Al-Jazeera video, no link has been proven to exist between the Turkestan Islamic Party video and the attack that killed 16 policemen in Kashgar. Most observers have stated that the attacks, carried out by a taxi driver and a vegetable seller, lacked the sophistication and weaponry to be part of some grand terrorist scheme. There is also a high degree of speculation as to the nature and size of the self-proclaimed "Turkestan Islamic Party" itself.
The assertion made by the "China expert" in the video that there has never been greater freedom for the practice of Islam in the PRC is also completely flawed. Perhaps he knows nothing about the situation of the Uyghurs. I am no expert on the situation of Islam as it is practiced by Hui Muslims, but in Xinjiang, women are officially barred from entering mosques, as are children under the age of 18. Fasting during Ramadan is prohibited, and violations of this prohibition are severely punished. Uyghurs are also prohibited from going on the hajj independently, and it is extremely difficult for Uyghurs to gain the official approval or the financial resources to make the state-sponsored hajj. There are myriad other restrictions on Uyghurs' religious freedoms that I will not go into here.
On another point, Rebiya Kadeer and her organization, the Uyghur American Association, have repeatedly stated that they do not advocate an independent state. They do not seek to urge leaders to pressure China to allow Xinjiang/East Turkestan to secede from the PRC. Read all of the statements on the Uyghur American Association website to see this.
One additional note: there is also no evidence that ETIM (which very likely no longer exists at all) had any involvement in any of the recent attacks in Xinjiang.