MCLC: Who are the Uyghurs

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Who are the Uyghurs
Source: Chronache Internazionali.com (4/23/15)
Who Are The Uyghurs? Interview with Prof. Thum
By Elio Caia
Prof. Rian Thum is Assistant Professor at Loyola University, New Orleans. His research background focuses on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies, with a focus on Uyghur people, the ethnic minority that live in the Chinese Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. After reading his latest book, The Sacred Route to Uyghur History, published by Harvard University Press (2014), we had the chance to interview Prof. Thum, in order to better understand who Uighur people are and what is their history.
Q: Prof. Thum, first of all thank you very much for accepting our interview.  In the last ten years the interest in the area of Chinese Studies raised dramatically, also outside the scholars’ circles. Everybody who has a basic knowledge of China is aware of the fact that many different ethnicities live inside the country. But, with the exceptions of Tibetans, we do not know much about them. How much interest there is in Uyghurs? And to what degree research is developing on this issue?
A: Interest in the Uyghurs has grown substantially over the last decade. The increased attention to China, which you mentioned, has expanded the audience for news about the Uyghurs, and especially Uyghur acts of resistance against the Chinese state. The common portrayal of the Uyghurs as China’s Islamic resistance taps into common anxieties about both China and Islam, which makes it more likely that Uyghur news reaches the front pages of major newspapers. But there is also a growth in scholarly interest that departs from this distorting focus. There are far more graduate students interested in Uyghur issues than there were when I began my PhD in 2002. And there is now a substantial number of scholars to train them, people who were able to learn Uyghur on the ground, after Xinjiang opened up to foreigners in the late 1980s.
Prof. Rian Thum
Q: To what degree the Chinese government has knowledge about Uyghur people? How deep is the understanding of Beijing authorities regarding them?
A: This is hard to know. The government sponsors some social science research by Chinese scholars, but the research questions and the answers that emerge are often tailored to the desires of higher officials. Survey respondents seem to be giving answers that they expect their official-looking interviewers want to hear. For this reason I worry that some high-level officials grossly underestimate the level of discontent among Uyghurs. Many Chinese scholars also want to do research in Xinjiang but find the bureaucratic obstacles too daunting. In general, I think political considerations are undermining the information channels that the central government depends upon. This is in contrast to the atmosphere in Eastern China, where officials are generally more willing to find uncomfortable truths and therefore have access to much better data.
Q: Uyghurs live in a region of China that had been historically subjugated by many different powers (Chinese, Mongols, Turkish). Who are the Uyghurs and where they come from?
A: The story of Uyghur origins is complex. I usually introduce the Uyghurs as the sedentary, Turkic-speaking Muslims of the Tarim Basin. People fitting this description didn’t begin using the Uyghur name until the early 20th century, when nationalists chose to adopt the name of the medieval, Buddhist Uighur kingdom. The ancestors of today’s Uyghurs include the Qarakhanid Turks, who conquered much of the region in the 11th century, the Buddhist and Manichaean Uighurs who preceded them, the Iranic-speaking Khotanese, and, to a lesser extent, the Chaghatayid Mongols, among others. It’s becoming more widely accepted that there was some sort of distinctive regional community that existed before the adoption of the name “Uyghur,” but when exactly this group formed and how exactly it was connected to the diverse groups I just mentioned is not entirely clear. Most of its cultural inheritance comes from Perso-Turkic Islamic traditions, but there are also Buddhist and local influences. My book tells the story of how these diverse materials were stitched together to create a distinct community that was eventually re-imagined as “Uyghur.”
Q: What is the relation between Uyghurs and other Turkish populations?
A: The Uyghur language is closely related to the other Turkic languages. The level of similarity ranges from Uzbek, which can easily be understood by Uyghur-speakers, to the Turkish of today’s Turkey, which is related to Uyghur much the same as French is to Italian.
Q: For two times, in 1933 and 1944, the Uyghurs were successful in establish a Republic of East Turkestan (although short-lived). When and where was born the idea of a Uyghur nation? Do the Uyghurs still pursue the creation of their own nation, confirming the fears of Beijing concerning the danger of separatism?
A: The idea of a Uyghur nation developed in both Xinjiang and in Russian Central Asia during the first half of the 20th century. It was shaped by many overlapping movements, including the pan-Turkism that emerged in the Ottoman Empire, Russian nationalities policy, and the “Turkestani” nationalism promoted by many Tatar intellectuals. Much of the debate that gave birth to the notion of a Uyghur nation took place among Uyghur exiles in Russian-controlled Yettisu (in today’s Kazakhstan). The idea of this nation was subsequently adopted by the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan, then by the semi-independent Chinese ruler of Xinjiang, Sheng Shicai, and eventually by the People’s Republic of China, which considered the “Uyghurs” a nationality or ethnicity (minzu) within the large, multi-ethnic nation of China. The slippage between the notion of Uyghur as a minzu and Uyghur as a nation has made it possible for a great deal of Uyghur nationalist literature to reach publication in China’s state-controlled press. Indeed, I think many Uyghurs see themselves as part of a Uyghur nation, not just an ethnicity within China.
Q: Is it possible to talk about Uyghur Nationalism?
A: Absolutely. Much Uyghur literature is crypto-nationalist, employing phrases like “our nation” or “our country” in ways that make it unclear whether the author is referring to the nation of China or the Uyghur nation. Strongly nationalist discourse is commonly encountered everywhere from teahouses to buses to campuses.
Q: Do Uyghur people have a historical, political or spiritual leader or a figure of reference able to represent them? For example, a figure similar to Dalai Lama for the Tibetans.
A: Not really. Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the World Uyghur Congress, has a pretty powerful voice, and she became better known (and loved) among Uyghurs in China after the 2009 uprising, when the Chinese government blamed her for the violence. But she is still not as widely known in Xinjiang as the Dalai Lama is within Tibet, nor does she have any special religious status. Some have speculated that the jailed intellectual, Ilham Tohti, could become a “Uyghur Mandela,” but my impression is that Tohti, too, is not widely known to Uyghurs outside of the city of Urumchi. One reason for this is the strict state control of media and communications within Xinjiang.
Q: Is it possible to consider 1949, the year when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took control of China, a watershed for the conditions of Uyghur people? Many critics of the CCP sustain that it is slowly eroding the Uyghur culture: is this really happening? How?
A: I do think the arrival of CCP rule was a watershed, although major state interventions in Uyghurs’ daily lives didn’t begin until the late 1950s. The Cultural Revolution in Xinjiang is poorly understood, but it looks like some of the greatest transformations occurred during that era. The 1980s and 1990s saw a relaxation of cultural controls, but today the Chinese state is imposing increasingly drastic restrictions, including not just the widely reported bans on Uyghur beards and certain headscarves, but also restrictions on mosque entry, a ban on so-called “cross-village worship,” criminalization of private religious education, required atheistic pledges for school children, a near total prevention of pilgrimage to Mecca, passport confiscations, bans on private marriage, required participation in dance competitions, a system of passes for intercity travel, and bans on prayer in public places. At the same time, the state is attempting to virtually eliminate the use of Uyghur language in education. These policies reflect the state’s limited understanding of Uyghur Islam and a growing sense that assimilation will ultimately erode resistance to Chinese rule.
Q: In the second half of the ‘90s the interest of Chinese government for Xinjiang grew dramatically, mainly for reasons connected to natural resources and to the stabilization of the borders with the countries that then were about to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This brought to a more tight and oppressive control on the region by the central authorities. One of the main point which CCP affirms, in order to justify the ‘heavy hand’ on Xinjiang, is that it brought development and investments in an otherwise backward area of China. Many Western scholars disagree with this last point, but: is there a part of Uyghur society that is reaping benefit from the status quo?
A: Although much of the development disproportionately benefits Han residents, material improvements have spread to Uyghurs even in remote rural areas. I’m not just talking about a collaborating elite. Paved roads and electricity have transformed the countryside. Donkey carts are rapidly giving way to motorcycles and cars. Cell phone adoption is widespread. What this justifies is a different question. My personal impression is that people are generally economically better off than they were ten years ago, and, at the same time, far more dissatisfied with Chinese rule, due to the extreme cultural restrictions that texture Uyghurs’ daily lives.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on April 24, 2015
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