The plight of the Uighurs

[silver_surfer]

Published on 15 Jul 2015
"If I go back maybe they’ll put me in prison." More than a thousand Uighur refugees from China now live in Kayseri, Turkey. Al Jazeera’s Hassan Ghani heard from two Uighur families, on condition that we protect their identities. They fear a backlash against relatives left behind in Xinjiang.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsSpeHGyzk

[sql]

I'm usually never the one to accuse people of inciting terrorism against them, but seriously, is China just asking for a radicalized population to blow them up?

[Goujian]

Muslims are free to practice their religion in China, they constitute a significant proportion of China's population looking at just numbers, numbering millions of people.

China goes to such lengths to protect Muslims even forbidding the mention of pigs on tv commercials and broadcasts during Chinese New Year some years ago. I've been hearing ridiculous stories where Muslims were forced to sell alcohol. Alcohol is expensive to buy, to sell and to transport especially to the inland parts of China. There was a Hui Muslim who attended a speech by Osama bin Laden years ago and he only received a slap on the wrist for that.

I remember lurking on an English-speaking Armenian forum once and Armenians have a major hard-on for China saying stuff like "don't worry we will win, China has killed a million Turks already" or 'China please kill more turks'. They were clearly thinking about the Uyghurs and I didn't have the heart to tell them that the Uyghur population in China has more than doubled over the last few decades.

But it is true to some extent Uyghurs and other Muslims in China are treated differently. The Hui Muslims and most other Muslim ethnic groups like the Dongxiang, Salars, Bonan, etc were staunch Chinese nationalists and fought in WWII against the Japanese (whether they were communist or nationalist). While the Uyghurs to the Chinese were seen as separatist when there were Uyghurs who fought alongside the Chinese (even though there were foreign-backed Uyghur puppet states in WWII) During the Qing dynasty, Hui Muslim soldiers were often used to suppress revolts by the Uyghurs so to this day there is still some tension between Hui and Uyghurs.

I have met countless ethnic minorities including Uyghurs and Tibetans living in the West who are not only cooperative with peaceful ends but fiercely assertive of their Chinese identity. The last thing they want is to create a permanent schism between their people and the rest of China. Most simply want more autonomy for their people and it's unfair how they are treated differently than the rest of the Chinese. But at the same time China clamps down on regional culture and identity unless if it's for tourism purposes.

Don't listen to what the western media says about China or Asia for the matter. But I would describe such journalism more as half truths rather than lies.

[Gooding]

How do the Uighurs differ from the Han Chinese in appearance again? Or is simply a religio- linguistic difference?

[Goujian]

How do the Uighurs differ from the Han Chinese in appearance again? Or is simply a religio- linguistic difference?

Uyghurs are a very diverse population. Most are Turanid + Tungid in terms of phenotype but there are some who look Sinid, Tungid or wholly Turanid. But the hugest difference is ethno-linguistic and religious.

[aksakallicocuk]

How do the Uighurs differ from the Han Chinese in appearance again? Or is simply a religio- linguistic difference?

http://i.hizliresim.com/ngA1El.jpg (https://hizliresim.com/ngA1El)
The prime minister of East Turkestan Government in exile.he is at the middle.Not atypical but not so weird for Uygurs i now in Turkey.They are culturally and linguistically pretty similar to Turks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY09v10Sl1U

[Goujian]

http://i.hizliresim.com/ngA1El.jpg (https://hizliresim.com/ngA1El)
The prime minister of East Turkestan Government in exile.he is at the middle.Not atypical but not so weird for Uygurs i now in Turkey.They are culturally and linguistically pretty similar to Turks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY09v10Sl1U

Salars speak an Oghuz Turkic language but are closer in culture and phenotype to the local Han, Hui and Tibetans. Mostly because their primary written language is Chinese, their lifestyle is closer to Chinese, they have Chinese names, but speak an Oghuz Turkic language. Uyghur and Salar are mutually unintelligible and Salar is much more closer to Turkmen and Turkish languages except they absorbed some Tibetan and Chinese words. I think Uyghurs look more Turanid than Salars in terms of phenotype.