Muslim Pride

[Julnar]

There have been clashes in the Xinjiang province of China between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese that have left over 140 people dead.

There seems to have been unrest and conflict between Muslims and others throughout the world over the past decade or so and I wondered whether Muslims had a valid point that they had been repressed for centuries and the modern conflicts are merely an upsurge in Muslim pride, cultural awareness, tradition and a throwing off of the enforced political models they have been forced to live under since the 19th century.

Have we been guilty of turning a blind eye to the subjugation of Muslims around the world and has Islam become radicalised as an act of self preservation?

[Julnar]

Sorry, I forgot to post the story on which this question is based.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/ 8135203.stm

[Gromit]

This region borders India Pakistan and Afghanistan and briefly declared itself the East Turkistan Republic in the forties before the Communists Chinese again subjugated them.

This is not really a question of Muslims being awkward again. There is no religious freedom in China, and they happily demolish Buddhist temples in Tibet as they will a mosque in Xinjiang.

The present uprising is a reaction to very draconian measures being imposed in the run up to the 60th Anniversary of the Communists taking over in China.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/A LeqM5g225i6A1OI0l-fxsqRTABIn7P8kg

[tamborine]

No room on Earth for any faith which cannot co-exist.

[Julnar]

Gromit, your third paragraph emphasises one of my points. The Muslims in this region are repressed and the expression of their Muslim identity suffers under the enforcement of a draconian laws. Has radical Muslim activity around the world encouraged the Uighurs to stand up for themselves more forcefully?

[Gromit]

As I said, the Chinese are really clamping down at the moment. There is bound to be a reaction against even more repression.

I don't think one muslim uprising in one region encourages another. However as in Chechyena, once an Islamic people come under attack, money tends to come from fundraising in UK mosques and donations from the zealots Saudi Arabia.

[youngmafbog]

Religion causes wars. The sooner the majority see through this clap trp the better.

[123everton]

Muslims do suffer from discrimination in China, I watched a show called "Shanghai Nights" many years ago which briefly emphasised this point when a rapist and murderer was interrogated (on camera) one of the officers said to him "you Muslims are always causing trouble."
Xinjiang is part of China and the Uighur are one of the original 5 races of China.
The area of Xinjiang was notorious for banditry right up to the early 60s, the practice of taking ones wife in such a raid was commonplace.
The P.R.C basically put a stop to this during it's missions to secure the borders, I don't think anyone should lament the passing of these old Uighur customs.
This riot (as I understand it) was in response to a race riot months earlier in Guandong (several hundreds of miles away) I feel it's more likely to be a race riot than a religious one, as again it's the Han (pronounced harn, no han as on Channel 4 News) that bore the brunt.
About 90% (I think) claim to be Han Chinese.
What has'nt been made clear is who the dead are, again (as in Tibet) all the footage shows civilians attacking people and the police, not vice versa.
I'd be grateful for more footage of the various riots before I could say much more.

[123everton]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNIkl02eSDk

There appears to be gun fire (mixed with anexposion? Perhaps from the fire) on this clip but the shooting seems somewhat distant, if you look carefully at the bottom of the screen you'll see 2 men pulling their goods in a cart quite calmly.
I saw a spokesman from the Uighur World Congress on Channel 4's evening news blaming the authorities.
I didn't believe him and I thought Krishnan Guru Murty did a good job questioning him about it.
What I don't understand is, if the police over reacted to the demonstrators, why attack the Han people?
Why kick beat and stone a woman on the ground?
Is freedom borne from such brave actions?

[trt]

It seems wherever you live in this world, Muslims always seem to be a problem.

[123everton]

It's not quite as simple as that with regard to China.
In the wider context of Julnar's question, which has been slightly ignored and hijacked by Xinjiang (guilty), it's a complicated issue when you look at the roots of political Islam.
In Pakistan it came about as a result of the Sepoy Revolt and British favouritism towards Sikhs and Hindus to formulate the Raj's new middle classes, so began Deobandism in the N.W.F.P.
In Saudi it was different, they fought hard against the Turksin the Great War but promises of independence were forgotten by Britain and France, the endemic corruption and vice of the Saudi sheikhs has resulted in the political espousal of pious poverty, Wahabiism.
In Iran years of foreign interference (quasi colonialism) added to an alien form (to them) of radical secularism resulted in the Islamic Republic, or fundamentalism as we call it.
Turkey on the other hand went the opposite way a variety of pogroms against the Greeks and Bulgarians (19th century) resulted in the break up of their (Ottoman) empire later on in 1894 (Hamidian), then 1909 (Adana) and finally 1915-18 (Armenian genocide) against the Christian Armenians virtually wiped out that Millet, the remaining Greeks were expelled in 1915 too, this resulted in constitutional secularism wedded to political militarism to secure it, Kemalism, which survives to this day.
The difference with Turkey I feel is that the earlier massacres were about plunder and oppression, whereas the far more systematic (and cruel) last one was about the creation of a grand Turanian empire by the Young Turks led by Enver Pasha.
The Islamic nations in the east are relatively young politically, all western nations have perpetrated similar acts over the centuries, we've dealt with similar threats in the last century and so the world will resolve similar problems in the future.