Massacre in East Turkestan

[muckefuck]

The news filtering out of Xinjiang, suggesting that Chinese security forces machine-gunned a peaceful protest (official total: 156 dead), reminds me once again how much it sucks to be a repressed minority without a charismatic international representative or, at very least, a substantial émigré community to lobby on your behalf. Had they been Tibetans--well, we know quite well what the reaction would've been, since we saw it during last year's riots. But the Uyghurs have the misfortune of being not only hopelessly obscure but also the wrong religion: scary bomb-flinging Muslims instead of cuddly quiescent Buddhists. As a result, we've done much worse than simply ignore them. In fact, the USA has further marginalised them and their struggle. This was the price the PRC demanded for their cooperation in the "War on Terror" and the Bush administration, in the absence of any advocates on their behalf at home, had no reason not to sell them out.

I know, I know: Let's add Uyghurs to the long, long list of innocents who have been screwed over in the name of satisfying the United States' short-sighted policy goals. I acknowledge that by spotlighting their unfair treatment, I'm playing favourites in the same way as all the Free Tibeters. The real losers in the game of international suffering are the scads of individuals who don't belong to any kind of coherent group based on simple criteria and, thus, are completely below the radar of even the most informal news organisations. Besides, it's not like all the condemnation of the Iranian crackdown from Obama on down has kept any of the protesters from being abducted, beaten, imprisoned, or otherwise abused.

Comments

[febrile.livejournal.com]

China's status as a lender nation and one of the only things keeping the dollar afloat doesn't give us the greatest diplomatic leverage in the world, either. The spoon wasn't long enough to sup with.

[(Anonymous)]

yes, on all counts. But how is money to be made out of them?

Also Jeremy Paxman just called them "Wegans" on Newsnight, which I think displays more contempt than is really necessary, even in Turkomongolophobic Britain.

richardthinks

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I'm all for being consistently louder at calling tyrants on their murders. But beyond that, is there anything we could realistically do substantively? Warm feelings don't help the Tibetans, trade sanctions strike me as pretty thoroughly discredited as a tool of influence on tyrannies (North Korea and Cuba seeming little closer to capitulation for decades of them). And military options aimed inside the Chinese empire strike even me as sort of reckless. :-)

We should still make certain that massacres can't be swept under the rug. (Though the recent turn towards realpolitik makes even that look unlikely.) But even if trade and finance ties with China were what they were in 1970 or 1985, and American hopes for encouraging democracy in foreign parts what they were in 1989 (or 2003), it's not clear to me that we'd have that many more options.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Maybe we could start but not keeping them in military prison for four years after they've been reclassed as "not enemy combatants"? Or not taking them into custody in the first place just to oil China up?

It's hard to say whether the popular Western attention directed toward Tibet keeps the Chinese occupation there less onerous. My subjective impression is that the Chinese do realise they have to tread a bit more lightly to maintain good PR, but there's no real way of knowing.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Incidentally, the CBC keeps on running reports on the "Weeeg@rs" (like "wiggers" with a really long i) by some British guy and it sounds so annoying. It's "Ooyg^hoors", right?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Uyghur is unusual in being non-rhotic, though the gh has acquired a value similar to Parisian French r. So the native pronunciation is [ʔʊɪˈʁʊː] (roughly "ooeerroo"). "Ooygoor" would be closer than "Weeger", but the latter seems to be the established pronunciation in English.

alas

[arkanjil.livejournal.com]

The BBC had several pieces on growing tensions in the area 'cause of the Han influx last year, but even tho they had several 20 minute pieces devoted, the story never got traction- and I'm not certain it'd have turned out any different if they had. In geopolitics, forewarned is rarely forearmed.

Mind, the Beeb also said that Chinese made maps are sold in the local bazaars that show all of the little 'stans as shiny new Chinese provinces- things in the area just might get real interesting in the future.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Things are already too interesting there for anyone's good. I imagine the prospect of a "plum blossom revolution" must frighten the bejeezus out of the CCP.

Re: alas

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Interesting. You can still get Russian language maps there that show them as Soviets.

The more I think about the Great Game, the more puzzled I am by the seemingly low intensity of US occupation in Afghanistan.

Re: alas

[arkanjil.livejournal.com]

my take on the last few millennia of history there is that the harder you push, the harder and faster they push back, which is why ShrubCo was gonna, you know, rebuild the country, only with substandard roads & infrastructure, impossible to replicate or maintain American style farming programs, and a propped up central government whose credibility rests on summer dry tinder. To my eye, Obama is doing about the best that I think can be done to rehabilitate the last 8 years, but it's a very bad hand we've been dealt all around over there, and I hold no hope that it wont all come down to ash yet