July 15, 2009
By Arsalan Iftikhar
Instead of China brutally cracking down on their Uighur ethnic Muslim minority in western Xinjiang province leading to the recent brutal deaths of nearly 200 people, perhaps if China were drawing sophomorically offensive cartoons (a la Danish newspapers circa December 2005); we would probably (and sadly) see more of a global outcry from the greater Muslim world on Beijing’s most recent human rights catastrophe and “worst civil turmoil since 1989”.
Not since the now-infamous Tiananmen Square tragedy of 1989 has the world seen such civil turmoil inside China which revolves around the fulcrum of ethnic identity, societal discrimination and flat-out racism between the predominant ethnic majority Han Chinese (from the eastern parts of China) and minority ethnic Uighur Muslim populations indigenous to Xinjiang province along China’s western frontier.
The majority of Uighurs live in Xinjiang, the massive western “autonomous region” that accounts for nearly one-sixth of China’s total land area. At its height in the 9th century, the Uighur empire stretched from the Caspian Sea into eastern China. The Uighurs also managed to establish independent republics twice during the 20th century before being annexed by the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Continue Reading Arsalan’s July 2009 Column Here…
