Unrest in Xinjiang: Where’s the Muslim outrage?

Xinjiang Riots and the Muslim World

by Matthew Clark

Note for WoP Readers: The riots between the Han Chinese and the Uighurs or Xinjiang Muslims, erupted in the first week of this month and resulted in more than 184 deaths. Without going to be investigative on who did what to whom, reports received were contradictory and they had to be; the Chinese have had their own version and in contrast the other version was that of the western media, who of late have made it a habit to exploit the Muslims’ sentiments – to their own advantage.

The post that follows is from Matthew Clark. In his article, which was published originally in the Christian Science Monitor, Matthew laments Muslims’ apathy towards their fellow Muslim brothers suffering at the hands of Han Chinese. In response to Clark’s observations I wrote to him via the blog site where his articles reappeared and I reproduce my comments as follows:-

Clark,

Muslims are not reacting over what happened in Xinjiang province of China because the games played by respective US administrations to make Muslims fight their wars and then leave them in lurch as it happened in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, in Chechnya and as it is now happening in Pakistan, the machinations, the orchestrated happenings, all have convinced Muslims that in every matter US governments have their own vested interests.

The Muslim populations world wide have seen how the Pentagon used Muslims’ sentiments to grind its own axe, all the time, by all US administrations, and at all times it were the Muslims who suffered in the long run. Your article on the plight of Uighur Muslims is not based on any sympathy for the Muslims, it is just an effort by the US to bleed China as she bled Soviet Russia, made the Afghans to lay their lives for America’s cause, which was termed as a war of Islam vs. the Infidels and now too, again the US is indirectly playing the same game under the garb of Muslims’ plight under a Chinese rule.

Muslims very well know now how the US propagandists and psy ops specialists converted Muslim youth into Zealots to fight against the Soviets and then turn their offsprings into Frankensteins.

And this Rebia Kadeer of WUC is running an NGO which is funded by the Pentagon, how can then Muslims stand-up to side with the Uighurs when they know ultimately it is the Uighurs who will first fight the US war against China and ultimately the same Uighars will be punished being Muslims as the clash of civilizations is still in progress, the Neocons who want an NWO be introduced are still in their place, how can you expect Muslims to be fooled again and again. Muslim governments may be a stooge of the US presidents but the Muslims in general the common Muslims on the street now very well understand how were/are these games  played where Muslims were/will be a pawn in the great game and nothing else???

And now the article from Matthew.

Paramilitary police officers patrol on the main street in Urumqi, western China’s Xinjiang province. (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

Muslims around the world have largely remained silent about last week’s deadly riots between Han Chinese and Uighurs. What makes this case of ‘oppression’ of Muslims different than others?

Shhhh! I think I just heard a pin drop.

Nope. It’s just more deafening silence from the Muslim Street in the wake of last week’s ethnic riot that killed more than 184 in China’s restive Xinjiang Province, home to the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group.

According to the Chinese government, the majority of the victims in the riot were Han Chinese, attacked by Uighurs who’ve complained for decades about being marginalized, abused, neglected, and oppressed ever since former Communist leader Mao Zedong launched a campaign to flood Xinjiang with Han Chinese in 1960s. But many of the victims were Uighurs, too, and thousands of Uighurs were arrested as a result of the melee. Many could face execution.

China also closed mosques last week – just one of many strict limits on freedom of expression in Xinjiang.

It’s the kind of stuff that would arouse passionate protests if a Western country were the one cracking down. (Remember the apoplectic protests over the Danish cartoon of Prophet Muhammad?)

But there were no Chinese flags burned in Karachi. No effigies of Hu Jintao smoldered in Cairo. No “Death to China” chants echoed through the streets of Tehran.

Not that the Monitor would ever be in favor of such protests against any country. But why does it seem as though there such a different response for China?

The Uighurs’ “spiritual mother,” Rebiya Kadeer (profiled here by the Monitor’s Beijing Bureau Chief Peter Ford), has some ideas.

“So far the Islamic world is silent about the Uighurs’ suffering because the Chinese authorities have been very successful in [their] propaganda to the Muslim world … that the Uighurs are extremely pro-west Muslims – that they are modern Muslims, not genuine Muslims,” she said at a press conference Monday in Washington.

Ms. Kadeer contrasted a lack of action from Muslim countries with the support Uighurs get from Western democracies and called on Muslim nations to do more.

Turkey drops the G-word

Days later, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called the situation “genocide” and thousands of Turks protested China’s treatment of Uighurs on Sunday. Turks share ethnic and cultural bonds with the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, so the support in Turkey goes beyond sympathy for fellow Muslims allegedly being oppressed by non-believers.

Iran’s clerics speak out

Iranian critics are starting to get into the act, too.

Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a high-level cleric, demanded that Iran’s foreign ministry quickly condemn what he described as the Chinese government’s “horrible” backing of “racist Han Chinese.”

The news website Tabnak, backed by, Mohsen Rezai, conservative challenger of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused the government of hypocrisy in ignoring violence against fellow Muslims: “When Israel was striking Gaza, state radio and television aired round-the-clock reports and analyses about the massacre of Muslims, but now only short reports are heard. . . . During the Israeli invasion of Gaza, nearly 1,000 died in 20 days – or 50 per day. In China’s riots, nearly 100 Muslims were killed in a day. Our government is silent regarding clear carnage.”

But, by and large, the Muslim Street has been just as silent.

A plea from the Palestinian territories

“Muslims around the world have an absolute religious, moral, and human duty to identify with their oppressed brothers and sisters in [Xinjiang],” journalist Khalid Amayreh in an opinion piece on Islam Online, comparing the Uighurs’ plight to that of the Palestinians. “Muslims, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, must never betray or abandon other Muslims, especially in time of distress. Unfortunately, however, Muslim states and Muslim peoples alike have been largely silent in the face of these atrocities in [Xinjiang].”

Will this change? We’ll see.

Source: http://www.instablogs.com/