When the violence spewed forth in the city of Urumqi and spread to other portions of the sprawling province (one-sixth of China's landmass) it came as a surprise in only two ways.
The first surprise was the Chinese government's relatively open treatment of the event having occurred. Beijing in the past has sought to prevent word of a violent anti-government action from being reported. Not so this time. The Lads of the Forbidden City may have downplayed the number of Uighur fatalities and arrests, but there was no attempt to deny that deaths happened and arrests made.
The second surprise was the cone of silence which enveloped the "Arab and Muslim World." Considering the rapidity with which Egyptians as well as other Arabs and Muslims went ballistic over the courtroom killing of an Egyptian woman by a deranged German man, the lack of reaction to the Chinese repression of the Uighurs is striking to say the least.
The Dresden courtroom killing was a tragedy. The woman was young, pregnant, and utterly without the slightest shred of culpability. The killer was self-evidently several cards shy of a full deck. His offense, even if the product of a diseased mind, is reprehensible. Only slightly less reprehensible are the reactions of the late-to-arrive court security personnel who shot the woman's husband, thinking he was the attacker.
The Chinese actions of repression, killing, and arrest were not the products of a warped mind. Neither were they the result of unthinking prejudice, "Islamophobia," or some similar condition. The Chinese authorities both provincial and national responded in a calculated and effective set of tactics meant to maintain the status quo. While not at all pleasant to contemplate in effect, the repressions, the killings, the arrests, were proper actions of a regime which holds and intends to keep holding unchallenged authority against any and all challenges by an ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority.
As is the case in Tibet, the central regime long ago made the decision to fully occupy and subjugate areas which were historically independent or, at the least, autonomous. To this end the Beijing government has employed force. To this end the Beijing government has used every means at its disposal to eliminate the culture, language, and religion which had served to define the autocthones. To this end the Beijing government has encouraged and subsidised the migration of (Han) Chinese from the east to the new frontiers of Tibet and Xianjiang.
None of these actions or policies may be in some objective sense "nice," but none are historically unprecedented or unjustifiable. The Chinese are doing today what any numbers of countries have done in the past--displacing and repressing native people for the benefit of the newcomers and their government.
Today, we in the West like to pretend, the bad old practices of removal and repression, subjugation and forced assimulation of native peoples are behind us. And, in the US, or Canada, or Australia, to say nothing of the countries of Europe, that may be true. It is not true regarding countries such as China and Russia in which irredentist minorities still exist.
The Chinese government did what it sincerely believed to be in the best interests of China and the Chinese. The fate of the Uighurs was of no more concern to Beijing than the future of the Indians had been to Andrew Jackson at the time of the "Trail of Tears."
The future and the present condition of the Uighurs should have been of concern to their fellow Muslims. It should have mattered to the Uighurs and governments of the Central Asian Republics. It should have mattered to the Muslims of Asia generally. It should have mattered to the Islamists, the Salafists, and Wahhabists. It should have mattered to the Revolutionary Vanguard of Islamism--Iran.
The silence of these several countries and varieties of Islam says the Uighurs are of less importance to the dignity and potency of Islam than was the murder of a woman in a Dresden courtroom. Or, as an alternative, the silence bespeaks both the power and perceived success of China's reliance upon threats and use of force.
Even the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has been hair trigger quick to denounce "Islamophobia" when expressed in Danish cartoons or Dutch videos, has kept a low profile in the Affair of the Uighurs. The OIC president's statements have been mild and very circumspect. The calls for action which accompanied the OIC protests against Denmark and the Netherlands are notably absent.
The members of the OIC were no more stalwart in their support of the Uighurs and denunciation of the Chinese government. True, the Turkish Prime Minister Ricep Erdogan condemned the crackdown and used the usual rhetorical overkill word of "genocide" to inaccurately describe what happened in the province. He even vowed to bring the matter to the UN Security Council.
An oratorical flourish without practical implication which is useful only because it contrasts with the yawning silence of other Arab and Muslim leaders. Shanghai Cooperation Organization members Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have populations which are ethnic, linguistic, and religious brethren of the Uighurs. But all are not only silent in the current situation, they are committed to battle the same three "evils" as China, the fifth member of the SCO.
The "evils?"
"Terrorism, separatism, and extremism." All four Turkic Central Asian Republics are quite willing, ready, and able to carry their small pails of Chinese water. It is safer--and more economically beneficial to do so.
From the perspective of these countries, while China may be a less-than-desirable friend, it is a hell of bad enemy. The breeze of language or culture or ethnic identity as well as the wind of religion is nothing compared to the typhoon of raw power which is China at the heart.
China's rapidly expanding economic and military power (both in large measure the unintended consequence of President Clinton's dedication to the neo-liberal version of free trade, globalization, and its business powered follow-ons under President George W. Bush) are behind the sudden loss of voice in the usually full-throated exponents of Islam and the "rights" of Muslims such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
These governments, like the non-governmental exponents of Islamism, respect and fear both the raw monetary and military power of China. This results from having seen the Beijing regime use its power in its interest repeatedly. Lessons observed are lessons learned.
China has both the will and ability to use all the power at its disposal for reasons it determines to be in its best interests. This power can be used either for or against the proponents of Islamism. Governments and non-state actors are happiest when the Chinese back them rather than oppose them. Money and guns speak volumes if those who possess these instruments are willing to use them.
The Chinese government has demonstrated repeatedly that it is quite willing to use both.
Herein lies the difference, the most critical distinction between Beijing and Washington. The US has, even today, both money and guns. But, we have shown again and again that we use both either hesitantly, reluctantly, or not at all. We are forever chasing fantasies of our own making such as multi-lateralism, collective engagement, paper sanctions. We tap on the levers of power weakly and apologetically. The Chinese pull those levers without hesitation and with all the might at their disposal.
Our way may be morally superior. It might be the ethical desideratum of the future. But, we live right now, today, and being loath to use power may assure only that we are not here to see when the ethical ideal becomes the practical reality.
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