Here’s a link to my final project blog! I dont know how to link it otherwise, so I just decided to post it as an entry!
http://uyghurresistance.wordpress.com
Its still very much under construction and I’ll get everything up probably right at 11:59 pm!
Justin Rudelson and William Jankowiak, in their article “Acculturationand Resistance – Xinjiang Identities in Flux,” identify several different policies implemented by the PRC that cause weakness and division between the Uyghur people, that result in the following:
1. acculturation
2. non violent reistance
3. violent resistance
They then identify 2 different ways the PRC approaches the Uyghurs: through “hard” and “soft” policies. The first consists of cracking down on the things believed to be fostering the ideals of separatism and nationalism between the ethnic Uyghurs. The latter consists of methods of acculturation and assimilation of Uyghurs into “mainstream” Chinese society.
Since I will be exploring violent Uyghur resistance in my final project, I was interested in reading about how non-violent resistance is certainly very much existent. Since the Uyghurs had long since understood that it was unlikely they would gain control of their region, they then attempted to secure a place for themselves within the PRC that gave them a certain level of autonomy. Again, we see in this article the idea of a constructed identity of “Uyghur-ness.” It seems that no matter how you dress it up, the idea of a monolithic Uyghur identity is entirely a construct in response to political and social circumstances. The Uyghur identity has been formed in direct response to political leanings and its relationship with the PRC.
This is certainly vital in understanding the Uyghur separatist movement – a bunch of largely dissimilar people band together because they have been lumped together and treated as a minority by the government of the area within which they live. It is interesting how a combination of politics, history and, in contemporary times, the media, result in a fragmented view of what being Uyghur actually is, and how it plays out on the regional, national and global scale.
Reading Maris Boyd Gillette’s article “Between Mecca and Beijing – Modernization and Consumption Among Urban Chinese Muslims” was like stepping into this little district, complete with awe-inspiring sights and sounds. After some description, Gillette embarks upon an analysis of how the government gets involved in this district; the implementation of “nationality holidays,” “nationality schools,” etc. It’s interesting how the government recognization of 2 official Muslim holidays for the Hui communities can also be understood as a ways of categorizing an ethnic group and essentially denigrating them as “backwards” people who still neede to cling to these archaic ideas. It’s also interesting to read the comparisons between education rates within the district and in the rest of Xi’an.
Gillette’s works contain a lot of ideas, and its diifficult to sumarize and reflect on them in brief. However, like with my other blog entries, I’ve decided to just pick a few points that I found interesting. A good way into the article, Gillette explores the idea of the Hui community taking certain ideas from the government and making them their own, namely the idea of “cultural quality” that had to be improved upon. Gillette writes that “many elements of the reisdents’ understanding of themselves derived from state ideology” (46). Its interesting that no matter what the subject matter of the article, the idea of a constructed Hui or Uyghur identity seems to resonsate.
Everytime I do one of these blog entries, I’m tempted to just kind of summarize what I’ve read and reflect on it, BUT this time I won’t. (how exciting!) I’m a religion and NMC major and I’ve been spending my undergrad focusing on Islamic and Jewish studies, and this article really kind of touches upon many things I’ve encountered before. Muruta’s introduction, and the whole topic of Islam being explored and analyzed within a certain framework (in this case, within China, and specifically its relation to Neo-Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) reminds me of many readings I’ve done about Jewish studies before. First of all, what really struck me was how “problematic” certain terms can be, such as “transcendence” and “immanence.” – Muruta writes that there are really no actual translations for these words within Arabic or even within the Chinese traditions. When two seemingly opposite (?) cultures are being compared and analyzed within the same intellectual framework there is often difficulty in how to approach the subject.
Another thought I had while reading this introduction by Muruta was how people have the need to make the “other” seem like themselves, because that is the only way to understand them. For example, Liang says 6 of of the Confucian teachings can be applied directly to the Islamic tradition, which further emphasizes how the two traditions are being linked, so as to understand this “foreign” tradition within the framework of the Chinese tradition.
In his article, Michael Dillon presents an extremely large chunk of information, and it becomes difficult (at least to me) to internalize, interpret and then form my own opinion on so much stuff! Ive decided, instead to focus on one specific point, and then offer my opinion. We’ve been discussing ehtnicity and cultural/religious identity in class over the past few weeks, and each time we’ve had difficulty really pinpointing what either of the terms really mean. I think Dillon’s argument that ethnicity is “self-assigned” is a really compelling one, and aids in my understanding of what ethnicity really is. We all think we know what ethnicity means, and really, it all ends up coming back to race, or “where you come from,” but this ends up being really flawed when actually studying diverse groups of people. I think the best way to think of it is that ethnicity is not a static thing; it is something that is constantly being changed. It can also be looked at as something which one chooses (in part), because as Dillon says, you can pledge allegiance to a certain factor that would lead to a certain ethnicity, but not to another. This perspective on ethnicity makes me think of how I view myself. I am ethnically considered Pakistani, and that is what I have come to consider myself. But everyone knows that one can not really be ethnically Pakistani, because weren’t we just Indians about 50 years or so ago? I think this proves that ethnicity is self-assigned – I (alongside many other Pakistanis) have seemingly omitted or refused to recognize a certain part of my ethnic past to forge a new one.
So this is my first blog entry, a little late, but as someone who is completely technologically incompetent, I’m quite proud I got it up and running at all! Blogspot ate up my first entry and then refused to let me back into my blog, but WordPress swept right in and saved the day.
As someone who has spent the past 4 years studying Islamic History and Thought, I found it very interesting to learn about something of which I had no previous knowledge. I was completely unaware how many Muslims there were in China, and the varied circumstances that led to them integrating into the society (although I guess they’re not really that integrated.) I found Lipman’s article a really good read, and even though his personal bias may be hav resonated in certain passages, it is important to note that no one can write a piece such as this without having SOME thought on the topic. However, he takes painstaking steps to prevent cliches and generalizations. I think the piece is presented in a really coherent manner, considering he is spanning such a large part of time as well as a large geographical region.
When I heard that very little research had been done on Muslims within China, I was surprised. However, upon doing the Lipman and Milward-Perdue reading I realized why it may have been left so largely unexplored. The Uyghurs are hardly a monolith and to study them requires the study of several different languages, dialect, cultures and traditions. Since Xinjiang province is considered the crossroads for a variety of different cultures(Turkic, Tibetan etc), to study the area and its peoples in depth is a major task. I think however, for the introductory purpose of this class, the Lipman article as well as the Milward-Perdue reading are a small step in the right direction. I may not have memorized all the little details presented in both articles, but what stuck with me was the overarching principle that studying this specific topic was not going to be easy. I am looking forward to spanning time and history and cultural and lingual barriers to study the lives of a set of people who I knew nothing of prior to a few Thursdays ago!
Since this week’s theme is “Geography, physical and political; language, ethnicity and related problems”, I thought I should comment a little on what I think of this. Since the Uyghurs are essentially a mash up of several differnet cultures and traditions, a large part of their study is probably going to based on the specific study of the different cultures and circumstances that came together to create this specific group of people in the frontier-lands of China. I guess studying the Muslims in China is akin to someone saying they are going to study Canadians. Okay, but what does that mean? Are you going to study people who consider themselves fully Canadian (if there is any such thing) or hyphenated Canadians as well? Are you going to study how ALL Canadians ended up in Canada? This task would be monstrous and probably a little unfocused. I think that’s the trouble with studying Muslims in China as well. As mentioned before, the Silk Road is the meeting of several different cultures and to study Muslims in China isn’t so easy. Many different political factors must be figured in here: how does the current government of the PRC treat the Muslim community? The Minzhu paradigm was a very interesting concept to read because of its wanting to separate people into clear cut identity groups (even though this is really hard).
I’m very interested in what’s going on with Muslims in China today, and I will most likely post some news articles that I find relevant (If I can figure out how to do it!!)
