The Uighur Genocide

Presenter Information

Karlee Gordon

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Clayton McCarl and Dr. Brandi Denison

Faculty Sponsor College

Cross-college

Faculty Sponsor Department

International Studies

Location

SOARS Virtual Conference

Presentation Website

https://unfsoars.domains.unf.edu/2021/posters/the-uighur-genocide/

Keywords

SOARS (Conference) (2021 : University of North Florida) – Archives; SOARS (Conference) (2021 : University of North Florida) – Posters; University of North Florida -- Students -- Research – Posters; University of North Florida. Office of Undergraduate Research; University of North Florida. Graduate School; College students – Research -- Florida – Jacksonville – Posters; University of North Florida – Undergraduates -- Research – Posters; University of North Florida. International Studies Program -- Research – Posters; University of North Florida. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies -- Research – Posters; Honorable Mention Award Winner; International Research Symposium Exhibitor; Project of Merit Award

Abstract

Honorable Mention Winner

International Research Symposium Exhibitor and Project of Merit Award Tensions have surfaced between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their Muslim ethnic minority, the Uighur, as the CCP attempts to deconstruct their religious identity in exchange for a nationalist allegiance. Militarization of Uighur land, anti-Muslim legislation and detainment of the Uighur into re-education camps reveal the extremes the CCP will take to eliminate the Uighur’s influence. The CCP’s harsh measures bring to question the extent the authoritative regime will allow its population religious freedoms. As Chinese history, recent legislation, and Uighur socialization is analyzed, theories are presented for the Chinese States’s rationale to refuse their population religious freedoms and diversity.

Comments

Audio Presentation Transcript:

Good Morning, afternoon or evening! My name is Karlee Gordon and I graduated from the University of North Florida in December of 2020 with a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelors of Arts in International Studies. Today, I will be presenting my International Studies research project entitled “The Uighur Genocide” which is a tremondously important topic that hasn’t found its way to the globale stage yet. But I am here today to inform you of this issue within its full context by considering historical trends, and sociological patterns. First and Foremost, who are the Uighur? The Uighur are a very small Muslim minority in the western outskirts of China. If you look at the lower right-hand corner of my poster, at the map of the Republic of China, you’ll see a green-colored portion in the right (west) corner of the country. This is the Uighur Autonomous Region, called Xinjiang(Jin-Jang). The Chinese Communist Party or the CCP have begun installing “re-education” camps in the Xinjiang region to attempt to forcefully homogenize this ethnic and religious minority. These camps look far too familiar to what the world has seen before – triggering severe concern over the Republic of China’s attitudes towards religious freedoms and diversity. My research question becomes “To what extent does the CCP’s alienation, persecution and attempted homogenization of their Uighur Muslim minority display the structural inability of the Chinese authoritative regime to allow their populations substantial relgious freedoms?” … which is a lot of words [laugh]. In other words, “how does the Uighur example show that the Chinese regime cannot structurally allow their people the right to freely practice religion?” I really do want to look at the grander picture here. What can this tragedy signal to the world about the country’s harmful tendencies toward religious freedoms? So, to dig into this, we must begin by explaining the history of the Uighur and Chinese state relationship. In the end of the 1940’s the Chinese Communist Party assumed control over the Republic of China and immediately recognized the Uighur as an autonomous ethnic group with autonomous borders. The CCP installed communist economic structures that greatly benefited the Uighur by providing job security and equal access to employment. In the late 1960’s, the Republic of China split diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union and experienced a significant economic downturn. As a result, the country turned to an “Opening Up” policy by opening their borders, building diplomatic ties with the West and transitioning to an open market economy . With this, the communist structures that the Uighur benefited off of quickly dissolved. The Uighur also frown upon entrepreneurship, giving them a huge disadvantage to the newly liberalized economy. Thus, we find that the Uighur fall significantly behind the rate of production of their surrounding country – leading the group to organize protests to raise awareness of their predicament which turned violent a handful of times. As a result of their public opposition, the CCP imposed the “Strike Hard” campaign in the late 1990’s, in which they declare certain religious practices and private Muslim education illegal followed by the arrests of many Uighur leaders and students. I really do need to emphasize, here, that the first response to halting this opposition was not to try to satisfy the Uighur’s concerns, but to shut down their access to practice religion.

As one can expect, the Uighurs fell even more behind in the country’s economic pace. In turn, the CCP imposed the “Great Western Development” Program at the turn of the century. On paper, this program tries to stimulate and diversify the Xinjiang economy by inviting investment and encouraging immigration into the area. In practice, this meant waves of immigration of the Han. The Han are the majority in China – they are atheist and believe in traditional Chinese and strong nationalist values. The state also imposed preferential policies toward the Han to help invite others to follow them into Xinjiang. This lead the Uighur to become extremely alienated within the borders of their own land. You can see the exponential increase in Han immigration at the turn of the century in the line graph in the middle of my poster. In the bar graph next to it, you can also see how the Han densely concentrated in the sectors of the Uighur economy that pay better and require higher education or specialized training that the Uighur just did not have access to. This graph also shows that 3 times more Uighur are unemployed than their Han counterparts in 2004, four years after the Development program was installed. This invites more frustration, more public displays, and violent clashes between the Han and the Uighur, which have led to heavy militarization of Uighur-concentrated areas alongside increasing numbers of banned religious practices. Now, the punishment for committing illegal religious practices is to attend re-education camp. The timeline follows that as more aspects of religion become illegal, more re-education camps need to be constructed to correct these individuals, and the start of the problem we see today unfolds. You can see this exponential increase in the number of camps in the bar graph in the lower left-hand corner of my poster, next to my map. We see increases in the amount of published construction projects for “re-education facilities” in early 2016 all the way through the end of 2017. We have no idea how many people are detained in these facilities. We have absolutely no data on it. While we can see the capacity limit in the construction publications and try to gauge an estimate from there, many witnesses say all of the facilities are over capacity, so the real-life numbers can be skewed significantly.

So, the question that this all begins to circulate around is “why?” Why would the regime go to such great lengths to control and eliminate this very small, impoverished, disadvantaged, powerless group in the corner of their country’s borders?

To try to redirect any potential scrutiny, the CCP began codifying the Uighur as a terrorist threat to the country, which legitimized the attempts to “re-educate” them in an increasing number of camps. Coincidentally, the ideas of the Uighur’s connection with terrorism began just as the War on Terror fell to the forefront of international relations. However, the reality of the Uighur’s situation brings heavy doubt to these claims. Studies have repeatedly shown that The Uighur have excavated multiple terrorist groups from their borders and that the Uighur youth have developed a particular attraction to traditional Islam practices. These trends could show the Uighur have made themselves in strong opposition to the spread of radical Islam. Additionally, in analyzing the Uighur alongside the Social Cohesion Theory, their potential radicalization would only be a product of the State’s own actions to isolate the group from their societal surroundings. For the CCP to villainize the result of what is the fault of their own seclusive legislation is unfounded, for if the CCP potentially created this theoretical problem, they could also resolve the same from their own hand.

But why does the regime see the small Uighur as a threat, if not for their ties, or lack thereof, to terrorism? I present two theories.

To the first, the “Church” or dense collection of religious followers and infrastructure, tends to be one of the only part of a society where individuals across all socio-economic backgrounds can meet and exchange ideas as spiritual equals.If the Church was utilized to exchange oppositional sentiment, it would travel across socioeconomic borders, reaching a much larger amount of the population . The oppositional sentiment of the lower, most disadvantaged classes would reach the higher socioeconomic classes with more access to resources that can significantly challenge a regime’s consolidation of power, especially a regime that requires as much submission of their population as that of the CCP.

To my second theory, I pose that as the individual subscribes to religious ideology, they subscribe to the divine authority that follows. This divine authority can take many shapes. The individual that intrinsically subscribes to religion will subscribe to this center of authority, follow its direction, and prioritize their own spiritual well being. The strength of the authoritative submission found in religions with a divine authority, cannot co-exist with the intense authoritarian submission required by the CCP. It is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for intrinsically religious individuals to willfully follow a man-made, non-spiritual source of authority, especially if that means prioritizing the success of the country over their spiritual well-being. If they cannot make this transition willfully, the CCP must think they can do so forcefully, and within the walls of their “re-education camps.”

My research has supported the claim that, unless the CCP alleviates the extent of submission they require out of their population, the country will never become amenable to religious diversity or the free practice thereof. As the CCP has shown no signs of dialing back, I can reasonably conclude that the Chinese authoritative structure does not and can not allow their population religious freedoms.

With that said, please tell your friends and your family and everyone you know about what is going on. This is a humongous human rights concern and the reason why I am speaking to you today. Please stay safe and well.

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/