Universal Ramblings

Uyghur is pronounced as WeeGher.

In literature, the term Uyghur has a number of differing spellings, including Uigur, Uygur, and Uighur. The word means “Confederation of Nine Tribes” and is synonymous with the name Tokuz-Oguz. In Turkic inscriptions, the name Tokuz-Oguz is used for the subdued Uigurs, and the resisting are called Uigurs, pointing to semantical nuances between the two names.

The Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority of some 8 million people, whose traditional homeland lies in the oil-rich Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China, have become increasingly fearful for their cultural survival and traditional way of life in the face of an intensive internal migration drive that has witnessed the arrival of more than 1.2 million ethnic Chinese settlers over the past decade. Many Uighurs desire greater autonomy than is currently allowed; some wish for a separate state, although there is little recent evidence of violent rebellion.

It is true that the immediate focus of the Uighurs’ jihad is China. They seek to wrest away from China the Xinjiang region, which they call “East Turkestan.” Still, the U.S. military’s theory is legally and factually untenable. To be detainable as an “enemy combatant” under American law, one must be an enemy of the United States. Jihadist ideology holds that the United States is the principal enemy, above all other non-Muslim regimes. Moreover, the military’s position has created an intractable problem: Thus far, only China is willing to accept the remaining 17 Uighurs (there were originally 22, but Albania accepted five of them two years ago), but we cannot send them there because we have treaty obligations not to transfer detainees to countries where they are likely to be persecuted. Since other countries want neither a beef with China nor trained jihadists walking their streets, they won’t take them off our hands.

Facing many of the same problems Tibetans have due to their religious views such as religious restrictions, forced abortions, imprisonment and execution, the Uyghurs’ (also spelled as Uygur, Uigur, Uighur) plight isn’t as visible to westerners as the Buddhist’s situation. In past Global Voices articles we’ve followed up on their situation including on how their online forums were closed by the Chinese government back in 2008, and also how the Chinese government pressures other countries to refuse asylum to those they deem criminals, much in the same way it happened with 17 Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo, who had been released but China pressured countries not to accept them.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is also controversially known as Uyghurstan or East Turkistan, and this following video is brought to us by the Saving East Turkistan project where they point out that due to the religious persecution including forced abortions passed of as family planning and the many deaths due to nuclear testing it may be possible that the Uyghur culture will die off.

East Turkistan (Uyghur) Genocide by China – video powered by Metacafe

Now, the documentary video about the Uyghurs by the Stanley Foundation, where compounding the decreased numbers of Uyghurs, they have restrictions in how they can raise their children, making it virtually impossible for them to pass on their religious traditions to their offspring, creating what they call a cultural genocide: