Five Fingers Crush The Land from NPR's Throughline

Summary

Summary of NPR's Throughline Episode: "Five Fingers Crush The Land"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Embedded
• Host/Author: NPR
• Description: NPR's home for audio documentaries brings untold stories to light through deeply reported narrative series. They explore hidden corners of the headlines to uncover sealed-off, undisclosed, or overlooked stories and the people at their heart.
• Episode: Five Fingers Crush The Land from NPR's Throughline
• Release Date: December 19, 2024

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Five Fingers Crush The Land," NPR's Throughline delves into the complex history and ongoing persecution of the Uyghur people in China. Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and featuring insights from experts and firsthand accounts, the episode meticulously traces the origins, cultural richness, and the severe repression faced by the Uyghurs. The narrative intertwines historical events with personal stories, offering a comprehensive understanding of the plight of this ethnic minority.

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Historical Origins of the Uyghur People

The episode begins by introducing the Uyghurs as a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group residing primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China. Sean Roberts, a professor at George Washington University and author of "The War on the Uyghurs," provides an academic perspective on the Uyghurs' deep-rooted connection to their homeland.

Sean Roberts (02:38): "The Uyghurs live in a region that they consider their homeland, which the Chinese state calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region."

Roberts emphasizes the rich cultural tapestry of Xinjiang, highlighting its historical significance as a Silk Road hub that fostered diverse cultural and genetic influences. This melting pot of Persian, Turkic, and Islamic cultures has shaped the unique identity of the Uyghur people.

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The Golden Age and the Cultural Revolution

The narrative progresses to the mid-20th century, detailing the impact of the Chinese Communist Revolution on Xinjiang. Initially, the region was home to a majority of Uyghurs, with Han Chinese comprising only about 6% of the population. However, the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) marked a turning point, leading to significant demographic and cultural shifts.

Sean Roberts recounts the aggressive measures taken during this period:

Sean Roberts (09:24): "The Red Guards tore down street signs, ransacked museums, libraries, and temples, and persecuted clergy and local politicians."

These actions aimed to assimilate the Uyghurs into the Maoist ideology, suppressing their language, religion, and cultural practices such as the Meshrep—a traditional harvest festival critical to Uyghur social life.

Despite the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s, the repression left lingering trauma. Abduvali Ayub, a Uyghur poet and activist, shares his personal experiences of cultural suppression:

Abduvali Ayub (10:59): "We have two kinds of books at home. Red books are revolutionary, and yellow books are anti-revolutionary. All Uyghur books were yellow books, kept in a secret box."

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The Relaxation and the Brief Renaissance

With the rise of Deng Xiaoping and his ally Hu Yaobang in the late 1970s and 1980s, China embarked on political and economic reforms. Hu Yaobang advocated for political liberalization and greater autonomy for regions like Xinjiang.

Sean Roberts (12:23): "Hu Yaobang was interested in opening up the political space, almost like a Chinese version of glasnost and perestroika."

This period, often referred to as the "golden age" for Uyghur culture (1985-1997), saw a renaissance in Uyghur cultural expression. Mosques were rebuilt, religious practices resumed, and there was an explosion of Uyghur-language publications and a burgeoning film industry.

Abduvali Ayub reflects on this era:

Abduvali Ayub (13:30): "We had the golden age from 1985 till 1997, almost 10 years."

However, this optimism was short-lived. The episode highlights how the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution continued to influence Uyghur society, with deep-seated mistrust and the lingering effects of decades of repression.

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The Tiananmen Square Massacre and Its Aftermath

A pivotal moment in Chinese history, the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, is explored for its indirect yet profound impact on the Uyghurs. The violent suppression of pro-democracy protests led to a tightening of political control across China, including Xinjiang.

Sean Roberts (21:08): "The Chinese Communist Party started to view its relationship with minority-inhabited regions differently."

Following Tiananmen, Hu Yaobang's death in 1989 symbolized the end of liberal reforms, leading to a conservative resurgence within the CCP. This shift intensified the government's suspicion and suppression of minority groups, including the Uyghurs.

Rob Schmitz recounts witnessing increased political repression in Xinjiang:

Rob Schmitz (15:12): "In 1986, student protests demanding democracy began to mirror the sentiments seen in Beijing."

The CCP's subsequent "strike hard" campaigns aimed to root out "separatists," broadly defining any form of Uyghur cultural or political expression as a threat to national unity.

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Escalating Repression and Cultural Suppression

Entering the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang grew increasingly oppressive. Anish Balsar, an NPR reporter, describes the systemic discrimination faced by Uyghurs:

Anish Balsar (27:28): "Uyghurs weren't part of the economic boom, leading to feelings of exclusion and frustration."

The episode details how economic development in Xinjiang often sidelined Uyghurs, with Han Chinese migrants receiving preferential treatment and opportunities. This economic disparity fueled tensions, culminating in significant ethnic riots in Urumqi in 2009.

The 2009 Urumqi Riots

The violent clash between Uyghur and Han Chinese workers in Urumqi, sparked by unsubstantiated rumors of a Uyghur rape, resulted in widespread bloodshed and further deepened ethnic divides.

Abduvali Ayub (38:30): "An incident in a toy company led to ethnic violence that spiraled out of control."

The riots led to an intensified crackdown by Chinese authorities, transforming Xinjiang into a heavily policed region with pervasive surveillance measures. Police checkpoints, pervasive use of surveillance cameras, and stringent restrictions on religious and cultural practices became the norm.

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The Impact of September 11 and the War on Terror

The events of September 11, 2001, had global repercussions, including a significant shift in the CCP's approach to Xinjiang. The Chinese government leveraged the global war on terror narrative to justify increased repression of Uyghurs.

Abduvali Ayub (33:11): "A Chinese girl asked if I was Osama Bin Laden because I looked different. It was a reflection of the post-9/11 mindset where Uyghurs were increasingly associated with terrorism."

The CCP initiated campaigns targeting "the three evils"—terrorism, extremism, and separatism—which provided a pretext for widespread human rights abuses, including mass detentions and forced labor.

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The Rise of Internment Camps

By the mid-2010s, reports emerged of massive internment camps in Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were detained. Rob Schmitz recounts his investigation into these camps, highlighting the inaccessibility and secrecy surrounding them.

Anish Balsar (43:25): "One man recounted horrific interrogation tactics, including forced positions and psychological manipulation with loudspeakers."

Rob Schmitz eventually gained limited access to these "vocational training centers," revealing a stark contrast between the government's portrayal and the reality experienced by detainees.

Rob Schmitz (46:34): "Inside the facilities, Uyghur prisoners were forced to perform propaganda songs and were subjected to deceptive practices aimed at masking the true nature of the camps."

Abduvali Ayub's personal story underscores the human cost of these policies. After years of activism, he was detained, tortured, and ultimately forced into exile. His family remains under stringent surveillance and repression in Xinjiang.

Abduvali Ayub (51:52): "I chose this path to protect our language and culture, but it's unfair to my sisters and brothers who have never chosen this way."

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International Responses and Ongoing Struggles

The international community has responded with increasing concern and sanctions. Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has labeled the CCP's actions as an attempt at genocide.

Rund Abdelfatah (52:14): "The erasure of entire groups threatens the very fabric of humanity, making it a global concern."

Legislation like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act reflects the growing acknowledgment of these abuses. Companies like Apple have faced accusations of complicity through supply chains, leading to legislative measures banning goods from Xinjiang linked to forced labor.

Rob Schmitz (52:55): "China's actions in Xinjiang not only constitute cultural genocide but also have far-reaching implications for global supply chains and human rights standards."

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Personal Stories and Cultural Resilience

Throughout the episode, personal narratives like that of Abduvali Ayub highlight the resilience of the Uyghur people. Despite severe repression, Uyghur culture persists through clandestine efforts to preserve language, literature, and traditions.

Abduvali Ayub (51:39): "It's unfair to my sisters and brothers who have never chosen this way."

These stories emphasize the human dimension of the geopolitical and cultural struggles faced by the Uyghurs, illustrating the broader implications of systemic oppression on individual lives and communities.

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Conclusion

"Five Fingers Crush The Land" offers a profound exploration of the Uyghur struggle within China, blending historical context with personal testimonies to illuminate the extent of cultural and human rights violations. The episode underscores the urgency of global awareness and action to address the ongoing genocide and cultural erasure perpetrated against the Uyghur people.

Sean Roberts (53:57): "It's not inevitable. The Chinese state could have chosen to enfranchise the Uyghurs as part of their national fabric while respecting their unique cultural identity."

The episode serves as both a historical account and a call to action, urging listeners to recognize the human cost of geopolitical decisions and the importance of supporting marginalized communities facing existential threats.

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Notable Quotes

• Sean Roberts (02:38): "The Uyghurs live in a region that they consider their homeland, which the Chinese state calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region."
• Abduvali Ayub (10:59): "We have two kinds of books at home. Red books are revolutionary, and yellow books are anti-revolutionary. All Uyghur books were yellow books, kept in a secret box."
• Sean Roberts (12:23): "Hu Yaobang was interested in opening up the political space, almost like a Chinese version of glasnost and perestroika."
• Abduvali Ayub (13:30): "We had the golden age from 1985 till 1997, almost 10 years."
• Sean Roberts (21:08): "The Chinese Communist Party started to view its relationship with minority-inhabited regions differently."
• Abduvali Ayub (33:11): "A Chinese girl asked if I was Osama Bin Laden because I looked different. It was a reflection of the post-9/11 mindset where Uyghurs were increasingly associated with terrorism."
• Rob Schmitz (46:34): "Inside the facilities, Uyghur prisoners were forced to perform propaganda songs and were subjected to deceptive practices aimed at masking the true nature of the camps."
• Abduvali Ayub (51:52): "I chose this path to protect our language and culture, but it's unfair to my sisters and brothers who have never chosen this way."
• Rund Abdelfatah (52:14): "The erasure of entire groups threatens the very fabric of humanity, making it a global concern."
• Sean Roberts (53:57): "It's not inevitable. The Chinese state could have chosen to enfranchise the Uyghurs as part of their national fabric while respecting their unique cultural identity."

---

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and personal accounts presented in the episode "Five Fingers Crush The Land." It provides an in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary challenges faced by the Uyghur people, highlighting the urgent need for global recognition and intervention.

Transcript

[NPR Sponsor]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more@rosetta stone.com NPR Hey, I'm Kelly.

[Kelly McEvers]

McEvers, and this is embedded from NPR. You might have just finished listening to our recent series the Black Gate. It's about the oppression of the Uyghur people in China. If you haven't heard the series yet, check it out. All three episodes are in this feed. In the series, NPR international correspondent Emily Fang followed the Kuchar family as they spent several years trying to reunite with each other. But obviously, the history of this issue goes back way farther than that. Our friends over at NPR's history podcast, Throughline made an episode that takes listeners back in time to understand the origins of the Uyghur people, their land, their customs, their music, and how they've become such a target in China today. So we wanted to share that episode with you. And if you like the episode, you can find lots more from the Throughline podcast wherever you listen. Throughline co host Rund Abdelfatah takes it from here.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is a song called Forefathers by a musician named Abdurrahim Hayed. The song is based on a poem calling the Uyghur youth to respect the sacrifices of their ancestors. In 2017, Abdurrahim was arrested after performing this song, which includes lyrics about martyrs of war. In a video released by Chinese state media, Hamdur Rahim said he was being investigated for, quote, violating national laws by singing this song. Abdurrahim is one of around 12 million people belonging to the ethnic group called Uyghurs.

[Sean Roberts]

The Uyghur people are a Turkic speaking, mostly Muslim minority within the People's Republic of China.

[Rob Schmitz]

This is Sean Roberts. He's a professor at George Washington University and author of the book the War on the Uyghurs.

[Sean Roberts]

And they live in a region that they consider their homeland that the Chinese state calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

[Rob Schmitz]

The Xinjiang region is not only home to the Uyghurs, but also many other Muslim minorities. Sean did field research there until 2000 when the government banned him from entering. Sean even speaks Uyghur.

[Sean Roberts]

The one expression I'm thinking of is Beshparmak Akshaymaida, which means five fingers are not the same. And it's often used to acknowledge, you know, about any group that you can't characterize them all in the same way.

[Rob Schmitz]

Right and when we talked to Sean on Zoom, his icon was a photo of himself from 1990 wearing a Russian fur hat in front of a large tiled shrine to a Uyghur saint.

[Sean Roberts]

So it's an area that really has a lot of influence from the Persian world, from the Turkic world. It's definitely on the margins of the Islamic world.

[Rob Schmitz]

The vast majority of Uyghurs are Muslim, living at the crossroads of culture and empire.

[Sean Roberts]

In fact, you can even see that in the physical appearance of Uyghurs. It's very evident that there's all kinds of peoples who have gone into the Uyghur gene pool over centuries.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

There are about 12 million Uyghurs living in China today, compared to the more than 1.2 billion Han Chinese, China's ethnic and cultural majority. And because of the Uyghurs religion and appearance, they stand out and are made easy targets for the state. It's been widely reported that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities have been imprisoned in camps in China. As you will hear some call them internment camps while others refer to them as re education camps. But the fact is Uyghur Chinese citizens have been subjected to torture, forced labor, religious restrictions and even forced sterilization at these places.

[Rob Schmitz]

So on today's episode, we're going to find out who the Uyghur people are, their land, their customs, their music, and why they've become the target of what many are calling a genocide.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Foreign.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

I'm Randabnir Fattah. I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you're listening to Throughline from npr.

[Anish Balsar]

Hi, my name is Anish Balsar and.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

I'm from Toronto, Ontario, Canada and you are listening to Throughline from npr.

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[Kelly McEvers]

Part 1.

[Sean Roberts]

A Golden Age.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Uyghur we have a.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Meshreb culture the Meshrep, or harvest festival, is an ancient cultural practice that binds.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Together the Uyghur community and we gather in the village, sing a song and play music and recite.

[Rob Schmitz]

Poet.

[Abduvali Ayub]

I am Abduvali Ayub.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Abduwali Ayub is a Uyghur from an ancient Silk Road trade hub in Xinjiang province.

[Abduvali Ayub]

I am from Kashgar. I grew up there, and he told.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Us that the meshreb festival is a symbol for a people who've long lived in lands they did not rule. It's a way of keeping their traditions alive in the face of constant pressure to assimilate and conform.

[Abduvali Ayub]

I was about 8 years old and my father, he said that knowledge is just like a spring, and if you study, if you pursue knowledge, if you pursue truth, like our ancestor, your knowledge will water the flower and will water the land, it will water the desert, it will grow the flower, and it will make our village beautiful.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Today, Abduvali lives in exile in Europe. He's an activist and poet who's outspoken about the plight of Uyghurs in China.

[Sean Roberts]

So when the Chinese Communist revolution happened in 1949, the majority of the population in this region were Uyghurs and other indigenous Muslim peoples. There was only about 6% Han Chinese in the region. That began to change in the 50s and definitely during the 60s, during the cultural Revolution, where you had Red Guards coming to the region to try to make Uyghurs into Maoists.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Red Guards tore down street signs and put up new revolutionary names. They ransacked museums, libraries and temples. They searched and looted people's homes.

[Rob Schmitz]

All over China. The Red Guards essentially destroyed anything they deemed not revolutionary. This even included the tomb of the renowned Chinese philosopher Confucius. In Xinjiang, mosques were destroyed, religious and Uyghur language books were burned, clergy and local politicians were persecuted, and traditions and Customs like the meshrep were banned. Yet despite all that brutality, by the.

[Sean Roberts]

End of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the region still remained extremely Central Asian in character. The Uyghur language was still very strong in the region.

[Rob Schmitz]

Even so, for years after the Cultural Revolution ended, the repression and trauma of that era lingered for many Uyghurs, including Abduvali's family.

[Abduvali Ayub]

At home, we have two kinds of book. One is red book, another is yellow book. Red book means revolutionary book. Yellow book means anti revolutionary book. And all Uyghur books at that time are anti revolutionary. It's yellow books, and my father always keep it in the secret box, and we cannot even touch it.

[Rob Schmitz]

A secret box. Books hidden away to protect the children from the dangers of learning about their own culture and language.

[Abduvali Ayub]

So I think that Cultural Revolution, it's like. I cannot say it's not like ended, but the influence of Cultural Revolution still there.

[Rob Schmitz]

Mao Zedong, China's leader, also led the Cultural Revolution. When he died in 1976, his policies left behind a decimated Chinese economy. The CCP was in disarray. And so when Deng Xiaoping rose to power in the late 1970s, he brought forth a wave of political and economic reform with the help of a close ally, a man named Hu Yaobang.

[Sean Roberts]

Hu Yaobang was particularly interested in opening up the political space, almost like a Chinese version of glasnost and perestroika. Hu Yaobang was one of the most strongly oriented towards the idea of political liberalization. If you look at what the United States was thinking at this time time, looking at China, the United States was hoping that China was going to embrace liberalism, both economically and politically.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

For the Uyghur people, this was good news.

[Sean Roberts]

And he was even suggesting that in the Uyghur region there'd be a change to make the governance of the region more autonomous and more led by Uyghurs and other indigenous people of the region. So in the 1980s, there was kind of a renaissance in Uyghur culture.

[Abduvali Ayub]

We had the golden age. Since 1985 till 1997, almost 10 years.

[Sean Roberts]

People were allowed to go back to study religion. A lot of intellectuals and religious leaders who had been imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution were released.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Mosques were reclaimed or rebuilt. Celebrations of Islamic weddings were permitted.

[Sean Roberts]

A publishing explosion in the Uyghur language. Literary works, historical novels, cultural traditions like.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The Mash' rap were allowed to resume.

[Sean Roberts]

There was also kind of a growing film industry developing. A lot of Uyghurs look back at that time as kind of a golden period in their culture.

[Rob Schmitz]

If you've learned anything from this show, you'll know that in history, there's always a fall after the rise. So Even though the CCP was attempting to make reform throughout the 1980s and to some extent succeeded, it wasn't fast enough for many people in the country.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Demonstrations involving a total of several thousand students took place in three cities in different provinces. On university campuses, students have been pasting up large wall posters.

[Rob Schmitz]

It was 1986.

[Sean Roberts]

There are a number of placards that have appeared even in English saying, without democracy, we cannot have modernization. And there have even been placards quoting Abraham Lincoln saying, what we need is by the people, of the people and for the people. In about 1987, there emerged a more conservative wing in the party that actually pushed Hu Yaobang out of any position of power. And that was done because his ideas about more political space and kind of liberalization had led to student protests throughout the country. And a lot of the people who were very hopeful for a different future were very concerned that he had been sidetracked. And they kind of saw that that was going to lead to a narrowing of political space and a narrowing of openness.

[Rob Schmitz]

Then on April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died after suffering a heart attack days earlier.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

What we're seeing is a large contingent of students. This is part of the general movement that started with the death of Hu Yaobang, who is considered by the students to be one of their friends.

[Rob Schmitz]

That same day, an event began in China's capital, Beijing, that wouldn't just impact the future of China's reform movement, but would completely alter the lives of the Uighur people.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is part of a very large.

[Rob Schmitz]

Movement of students now all over China.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Particularly in Beijing, watching for specific things having to do with educational reforms, political democratic reforms. Very exciting.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

When we come back, tanks, battle protesters and the end of a golden age. Hi, this is Rachel in Davidson, North Carolina, and you are listening to throughline from npr.

[Rachel]

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[Rund Abdelfatah]

Part 2 Five Fingers Crush the.

[Sean Roberts]

China.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In Crisis On April 15, 1989, students and other Chinese citizens began occupying Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

There's a mood of absolute resistance on the streets as huddles of people gather and they're outraged. The number of soldiers ringing the square.

[Sean Roberts]

Increased dramatically, thousands of them taking up.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Positions in the center of town.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Protesters demanded more political reforms. They demanded democracy. They were almost all unarmed.

[Sean Roberts]

The military was essentially sent in to suppress it violently with tanks and armored personnel carriers and so on. In the early morning hours of Sunday.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Armored personnel carriers began to advance on the square. Soldiers fired automatic weapons into crowds of civilians.

[Rachel]

Indeed, it was hard at times to grasp that this army was launching into an unarmed civilian population as if charging into battle.

[Sean Roberts]

It was one of the first things in America that we witnessed in real time.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Cable news was in its early days, and the world got to see footage of the terrifying images.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

We all knew it couldn't go on forever, but no one thought it would come to this. Casualties were staggering. The Chinese Red Cross says at least 2600 people were killed. A brutal massacre of Chinese students and other protesters by the Chinese army. Beijing's Bloody Sunday is history now, but there are visible reminders everywhere of the shocking massacre that occurred here. Burned out buses and other vehicles are scattered in many sections of the Chinese capital. And the curious are now venturing out of their homes to look at the smoldering aftermath of the violent attack that dealt a staggering blow to the pro democracy movement in this country.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

A little context about Tiananmen Square. At the same time, the Soviet Union, the other big communist power, was losing control of some of its republics. The Berlin Wall fell. Things were not looking good. So when the massacre happened at Tiananmen Square and the world witnessed it, the.

[Sean Roberts]

Ccp, their first inclination was to think, how do we make sure this doesn't happen to us?

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Xinjiang neighbors, Soviet Central Asian republics like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan west, were starting to demand autonomy.

[Sean Roberts]

Chinese Communist Party started to view its relationship with minority inhabited regions differently. You start seeing much more awareness from the side of the state of any expressions of Uyghur nationalism.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Abdul Wali Ayub, the Uyghur poet and activist we met earlier, who grew up in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution, moved to Beijing from his hometown of Kashgar after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He wanted to become a professor. It was his first time in the capital.

[Abduvali Ayub]

First thing, I took a taxi in Beijing. And that taxi driver, he can criticize Communist Party. To me, he criticized Chinese government and he criticized, like what happened to people in 1989, Tiananmen Square. He showed me the blood scar on the. On the street. He said, look, there's still blood here.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Abduvali was shocked. He couldn't believe someone was criticizing the government so openly.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Even the taxi driver can like criticize Chinese government. But my father, as intellectual and my grandpa also educated, they have never criticized Chinese government.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This weirdness continued with how people treated him in Beijing.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Discrimination, it is very strong. Like when you talk to the people, they always pretend they don't understand. They market your pronunciation. After that, they imitate our pronunciation in their imagination. Like Uyghur homeland is the desert and people riding horse and donkey and the camel all the time. And it's a very dirty and this kind of stereotype. In their eyes, we are like in the exact word Chinese word, we are primitive.

[Sean Roberts]

My first visit to the Uyghur region was actually in early 1990, during the winter, which was just after those events.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The events of Tiananmen Square.

[Sean Roberts]

You could see that certainly there was a narrowing of political space in public places. You would see wanted posters for democracy activists and so on. And the Communist Party began several what they called strike hard campaigns, where they were essentially trying to identify and root out what the state called separatists.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Separatists basically meant anyone who might kind.

[Sean Roberts]

Of reflect in interest and self determination. But that was very broadly defined.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

And the reality is there were people in Xinjiang that did want independence from China. And yes, some of them did commit violent acts against authorities or against Han Chinese people.

[Sean Roberts]

Yet there's no evidence that there's any kind of organized militant movement among Uyghurs. A real independence militant movement. There's no evidence that that really exists. But nonetheless, the Chinese government is continually concerned about that issue and looks at the region as a security.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The strike hard campaigns were aggressive. They used police to try and identify people they thought were separatists. And more surveillance and controls were introduced to Xinjiang.

[Sean Roberts]

So, you know, initially you start seeing the censorship of historical novels that might not align entirely with the Communist Party's vision for the history of this region. You also see arrests of musicians and so on, who may be seen as kind of cultivating nationalist ideas and you start to see increased restrictions on religion. There were regulations that essentially Uyghurs should not be going to pray anywhere outside the official mosques. And the official mosques were in the official mosques. Anybody under 18 was not allowed to be present.

[Rob Schmitz]

We're like Kuwait, we've been invaded, said a 27 year old merchant in the bazaar.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is from a 1993 New York Times article describing the situation in Xinjiang.

[Rob Schmitz]

He pointed to the palm of his left hand. This is Xinjiang, he said, speaking in Chinese. Then he pointed to the fingers of the same hand.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

These are China, he explained.

[Rob Schmitz]

And he brought them around to make a fist that crushed Xinjiang.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Throughout the 1990s, oppressive laws were introduced and Uyghurs resisted.

[Sean Roberts]

And the government cracks down very heavily, which of course then stimulates another act of resistance and another repression. So there's a checkered history of violence in the region throughout the 1990s. It's also during the 1990s that the Chinese state starts to understand the potential significance of this region to the state's economic development.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

China was officially a communist country, but it was also becoming the production center of the capitalist world. Non Chinese companies, including from the United States, were starting to use local low cost Chinese factories to make goods that they would then sell back home. Han Chinese people were being brought to Xinjiang to help build up the region and the region's economy did grow, but.

[Anish Balsar]

Uyghurs weren't part of that. That was really frustrating for many.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is Rob Schmitz. He's done extensive reporting in China for npr, including in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi.

[Anish Balsar]

I spent a lot of time with Uyghurs in Urumqi and around that area. And I remember hearing a lot of complaints about how they, the Uyghurs did not feel like they were really part of China because they weren't given the same opportunities as a lot of Han people in the same city where they lived were given.

[Rob Schmitz]

This is as close as we can.

[Sean Roberts]

Get to the base of the World Trade Center. You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents, and you can see the two towers. A huge explosion now raining debris on all of us.

[Rob Schmitz]

We better get out of the way.

[Sean Roberts]

When September 11, 2001 happened, of course my first thought was this is not going to be a good thing for the Uyghurs.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

9, 11, the day we here in the United States know all too well. But what's easy to forget is, is that the event didn't just impact the US or Afghanistan or the Middle east in China, 911 triggered a major shift in the CCP's view of the Uyghur people.

[Sean Roberts]

Almost immediately after September 11, the Chinese government produced a lot of documents suggesting that it faced a serious terrorist threat from Uyghurs.

[Anish Balsar]

And they had some evidence that Uyghurs were joining Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. There were, there were Uyghur inmates at Guantanamo.

[Sean Roberts]

These documents were somewhat fanciful and unbelievable. They tried to link about 40 diaspora groups from Europe, US and Turkey to a network of terrorists funded by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

[Anish Balsar]

I don't think that they can prove that an incredible amount of people were streaming across the border to fight. It wasn't that many people, it was a handful of people. But a lot has been made of.

[Sean Roberts]

That for about a year. The US and other countries mostly ignore these claims. In fact, the US even pushes back on them saying, you know, the Uyghur issue is not a counter terrorism issue. It's a, it's an issue about minority rights and human rights. But suddenly, in the summer of 2002, the US recognizes one group from this litany of diaspora organizations in the Chinese government documents as well being a terrorist organization linked with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

[Anish Balsar]

What happened in 2001 with 9 11, that provided an opportunity in many ways for China to justify more control over that region.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

China's war on terror and the slow slide to a national crime when we come back.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Hi, this is Jerrielle Morwitz.

[Sean Roberts]

I'm in Brooklyn, New York and you're.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Listening to Throughline from npr.

[NPR Sponsor]

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[Anish Balsar]

Part 3.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Bear with it, my heart.

[Abduvali Ayub]

One Chinese girl, about 8 years old, she said, are you Osama Bin Laden? I just looked at her like her eyes are very innocent. And I asked that, why do you say that? And she said, you are different with us. You looks different. You look like Bin Laden. I explained to her, even she's young. I explained that no, I'm not Bin Laden. Bin Laden is far away. She's in Afghanistan and he is Arab and he's extremist. And I'm a university professor. I know she will not understand that. I know, but the problem is it's my responsibility to explain. It shocked me. I feel that I'm real Bin Laden because like go to street, people like avoid to meeting me. Like when we go to the like a restaurant, people like avoid talking to me. And then I feel, wow, Islamophobia is really strong. Like at that time, Uyghur and Paladin promoted at the same time. That's why that eight years of growth, like she doesn't know anything. She just repeat what she listened to from the media. For me before Chinese public, they misunderstood Uyghur. It's because of ignorance. They don't know they are innocent. But after this September 11, it changed their mindset. In their mindset, Uyghur represented terrorists.

[Rob Schmitz]

After September 11, the Uyghurs were not only othered, they found themselves on the receiving end of China's war on terror. The changes were almost immediate.

[Sean Roberts]

You do see after that kind of a license given to the state to be more overtly kind of used this idea of counterterrorism as justifying their policies in the region.

[Rob Schmitz]

The CCP started a campaign in Xinjiang against what they called the three evils.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Terrorism, extremism and separatism.

[Rob Schmitz]

Terrorism, extremism and separatism. That last one, separatism. It also included a subtle but important, important twist.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Ideological separatism.

[Rob Schmitz]

Ideological separatism that allowed the government to cast any acts of Uyghur cultural expression like books, music and even mesh reps as separatism. This meant there would be ideological surveillance.

[Abduvali Ayub]

For example, that rustic books about Uyghur history and Uyghur culture and the restriction the songs and expression about promote Uyghur culture and Uyghur language.

[Rob Schmitz]

The golden age of Uyghur culture in the modern era was over.

[Sean Roberts]

And at the same time there's all this development going on in the region and there's an influx of Han migrants to the region. Some of the development is erasing some of the traditional sites of Uyghur culture. The the old city in Kashgar, which is seen as kind of a central monument in Uyghur culture, is essentially raised and rebuilt in kind of a Disneyfied version for tourists. There's a lot of tension going on in the region over development.

[Anish Balsar]

That's right. And part of the reality for many Uyghurs was watching the economy of Xinjiang grow at the fastest pace that it's grown in its history. But Uyghurs weren't part of that. I remember an early trip I took to Xinjiang in 2006, and I remember hearing a lot of complaints about Han people, about how they. The Uyghurs did not feel like they were really part of China because they weren't given the same opportunities. They didn't feel like they were really part of the power structure either. And that was pretty prescient, because three years later, you know, we saw some of the worst violence in that region in its history.

[Abduvali Ayub]

What happened July 5th happened.

[Sean Roberts]

There's these ethnic riots that break out in the capital of this region in Urumqi, in the summer of 2009.

[Anish Balsar]

And it was sparked by an incident in the southern province of Guangdong in.

[Abduvali Ayub]

A toy company, Uyghur workers, and the Chinese workers. There's a clash happened. Uyghur died.

[Sean Roberts]

And they're killed by a mob of Han workers who are influenced by an unsubstantiated rumor on the Internet that Uyghurs had raped a Han woman in the factory.

[Abduvali Ayub]

And then Uyghur students in Xinjiang University, they posted that we are going to demonstrate.

[Sean Roberts]

They hold a protest in Urumshi asking for justice be given to these Uyghurs who had been killed. What happens next is the security forces come in and suppress those protests, and gradually it spirals out of control into ethnic violence on both sides. So you have Uyghur on Hannah violence and Hanan Uyghur violence that continues for about three days in July of 2009.

[Anish Balsar]

It was almost like a straw that broke the camel's back, because there was a lot of tension building up until that time. Dozens and dozens of people were killed, and that started a much more brutal crackdown.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

They don't know what's happened to all the men. The police just came, they tell us.

[Rachel]

And took them away during the night.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Part of the over thousand Uyghurs arrested.

[Anish Balsar]

By Chinese authorities that year. That sort of set off a series of decisions that turned Xinjiang into a police state.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Police are on every corner, on every block, and 40,000 surveillance cameras are now installed across the city, even on the buses where some of the attacks took place last year.

[Sean Roberts]

And the government is looking for people who are religious nationalists, identifying them as the problem.

[Anish Balsar]

You suddenly saw police checkpoints on the highway where Han Chinese were able to go straight through. But if you were a Uyghur, you'd have to go into a separate lane, get out of the car. They would check the car for bombs. You would be sniffed by dogs, and then you'd have to go through metal detectors, and they would usually question you for a year.

[Sean Roberts]

They turn off the Internet in the region. They prevent all international telephone communications. They start arresting, you know, scores hundreds of Uighurs.

[Anish Balsar]

Around that time is when you started seeing surveillance cameras everywhere. Then you started to also notice that mosques suddenly didn't have any people at them.

[Sean Roberts]

You start having this mass exodus of people leaving through Southeast Asia with the intent of getting to Turkey to find refuge. And I've interviewed a lot of these people who made it to Turkey. They've told me they felt as if they were under house arrest. They tended to be of the more religious population in the area. You know, they went to mosque. They maybe had been opposed to having their child sent to a school where they were taught exclusively in the Chinese language. As a result, the security organs were essentially putting these people under constant surveillance.

[Rob Schmitz]

These policies in Xinjiang helped continue the cycle of violence. Repression from the government, violence from some Uyghurs. There was a series of terrorist attacks in the mid 2010s. There was even an attack at a train station when Xi Jinping, China's current leader, was there on an official visit. Then in 2017, reports started coming out that there was something new happening in Xinjiang, something darker than what had come before. There were allegations that camps were established by the CCP where thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were being detained. Rob Schmitz, who was a China correspondent for NPR at the time, wanted to investigate. He knew it would be impossible as a foreign reporter to gain access to the camps. So instead he went to the former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, which is not far from Xinjiang. There, he searched for people who'd escaped China, who'd been held in the camps. He was able to speak to three or four people who said they'd been detained and dozens more who said they'd had family members inside the camps.

[Anish Balsar]

And they told me pretty horrific stories. One man talked to me about how he was trying to leave China to become a Kazakh citizen. But in the process of doing so, he was sent to one of these internment camps. His first interrogation, they stripped him down naked, and they chained him to a chair, and they interrogated him for several hours to the point where he started to fall asleep. At one Point, they let him just sleep, and they left the room. And he told me that in the morning, from the loudspeakers inside the room, they played the Muslim call to prayer, and there were cameras inside the room. And he thinks that they did that to gauge his reaction to that. And then at one point, he heard a voice over the loudspeaker of a child, and the child said in Kazakh, help me. Help me, Mommy and Daddy, help me. The Chinese are terrible. Look at what they're doing to us. And again, he thinks that they were streaming this into his room to see how he reacted to that. He told me that they led him to a room where they put what was called an iron coat on him. It was like an iron. A device made of iron that forced his arms out. Like he was like kind of in the crucifixion kind of stance. And he was made to stand like that for over a dozen hours, and he still has back problems from that.

[Rob Schmitz]

Hearing all these firsthand accounts made Rob want to see the camps for himself. So in 2019, he managed to get a spot among a group of journalists who were given access to what the CCP called vocational training centers in Xinjiang.

[Anish Balsar]

It was very Potemkin village type of thing, where you go in the Uyghur manager of the facility tells us how amazing it is and how much they're doing for the Uyghur people and how they're teaching them Chinese and how they're getting them ready for careers, to be electricians, to work in factories, et cetera, et cetera. And he takes us in a classroom, and the first thing that the Uyghur class and students do is they stand up and they sing. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands in English.

[Rob Schmitz]

By the 2000s, Abduwali Ayub had become a university professor working in Kashgar. He was a relatively integrated member of Chinese society, but that did not spare him from the gaze of the CCP police state in Xinjiang. In the mid-2010s, he set up an online linguistic community among Uyghur intellectuals. The goal was to translate and preserve Uyghur literary works. Well, this caught the attention of the authorities, and he was interrogated. Then he was detained. Abduvali says that while he was in detention, authorities went after his family. They tried to force them to provide evidence that he was an extremist, a Uyghur separatist.

[Abduvali Ayub]

My younger sister, forced to criticize, forced to denounce me at the stage about more than thousands of people she forced to say that I was a terrorist, I was a separatist. That's why I said stayed in detention center for 15 months because of my separatist behavior.

[Rob Schmitz]

When he got out, he escaped China. He went to Turkey, and from there he began circulating poetry he wrote in Uyghur. He engaged in activism to reveal the truth about the camps in China. And it was in Istanbul that he received terrible news about his family back in Xinjiang.

[Abduvali Ayub]

In 2018, one of my friend who was working in Chinese province, he came to Istanbul. At the time I was in Istanbul, he talked to me that like my older sister, my older brother and my younger brother and my another cousin and his two sons got arrested.

[Rob Schmitz]

Back in Xinjiang. Rob was standing there in the vocational training center with a bunch of other reporters watching Uyghur prisoners sing. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands in English. But he wondered what was behind the veil of what the CCP handlers were presenting to him. So he went looking.

[Anish Balsar]

At one point in that tour, I asked if I could see the dorm rooms, and they said, sure. And they opened the door to the dorm facility, and I walked in and I said, hey, can I just walk around a little? And I said, sure, feel free. I used to be a teacher in China in the 90s. And so I know that my students would oftentimes write on the walls near their bunk beds, they would write something in Chinese or, you know, talk about missing a girlfriend or a boyfriend or missing home or something like that. And, you know, they would, you know, messages would oftentimes be scrawled into the walls. So that's what I was going into these rooms to look for that. And it took me about five minutes to find it. And I. I found a bunch of things written in Arabic. I took. I took a bunch of pictures. I got into the bus. I immediately whatsapped a Uyghur contact of mine and said, this is what I saw at the Kashgar facility. What does this say? And he, you know, about an hour later, I got a text back, and there were two lines. And the first line said, this dorm room is excellent, so obviously it's sarcastic. And then the second line said, said, bear with it, my heart.

[Abduvali Ayub]

Like, it's very hard. Like, for me, it's not hard for me to remember my 15 months of torture and, like, jail life. For me, it's hard. Somebody pay price because of me, because it's not their choice.

[Rob Schmitz]

Abdul Wali Ayub has never returned to China. He has chosen to continue his activism in exile. Meanwhile, some of his relatives are stuck living under the weight of surveillance and repression.

[Abduvali Ayub]

I chose this path to protect this language, this culture. It's my decision. But actually it's unfair to my sisters and brothers because they have never chosen this way.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The current US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, has called the CCP's actions against the Uyghurs, quote, an effort to commit genocide. The erasure of entire groups of people or their culture from this earth is a threat always looming. Some would argue it has become a feature of the modern world with its nation states and totalitarian governments. Because of that, it can be tempting to look away and pretend that it's happening in some far off place that doesn't have any impact on our lives. But the reality is that when a superpower like China engages in this kind of behavior, it touches us all.

[Rob Schmitz]

In 2020, the Washington Post reported that Apple, yeah, the company that makes the very computer we're recording this podcast on, had been accused of working with suppliers in China who used forced Uyghur labor. Apple denies the accusation. A law signed by President Biden went into effect in June 2022 that bans all goods made in Xinjiang because of the region's ties to forced Uyghur Labor.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

And allegedly, ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, like many other social media companies operating inside China, collaborates in disseminating state propaganda within China on its local app and censors content. The CCP doesn't approve of including content.

[Rob Schmitz]

Around the Uyghurs, so there really isn't a way to escape it or even to do the other thing we commonly do in the West. Just assume people in other parts of the world have some predisposition to ethnic war and conflict, that somehow what's happening to the Uyghurs was inevitable.

[Sean Roberts]

I don't think that it's fair to say that it's inevitable. The history of Chinese empires, we called them Chinese, but in fact, they were not only tolerant of difference, they were in many cases ran by non Chinese people, non Han people. I think there's different ways. The Chinese state, even at the beginning of the 2000s, could have gone in a different direction. It could have thought of ways to enfranchise the. The Uyghur people as part of the Chinese state. But also being Uyghur at the same time.

[Anish Balsar]

I mean, this is the tragedy of the Uyghur people. It's just so sad, is that they're a people that have, you know, through history. They flourished. They were traders. They were on the Silk Road. They're used to interacting with people who are not like them. And in many ways they're experts at it because that's how through centuries of history, they lived right? They were traitors, they were travelers. They're stuck and they don't have a home country. And you have to wonder what what's going to happen to them?

[Sean Roberts]

I refer to it as cultural genocide because they essentially are trying to sever this group's attachment to the territory so the state can develop this area and breaking the solidarity of the people and erasing their culture so that in effect, they're destroying the people as we know them.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Today it is widely reported that hundreds of thousands of Uyghur and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have been quote unquote re educated at internment camps. The United States sanctioned Chinese government officials over the treatment of the Uyghur people.

[Rob Schmitz]

Pride it is not you that I run away from. I could not open my arms for you, though I live next to you. Enjoyment it is not you that I searched and found. I did not sleep in your arms even for a mere minute Suffering it is not you that I buried in my chest. My heart is filled with luxuriant thorn of revenge. No answer has appeared even though I die for it. One cannot wash away the blood of humiliation with blood.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

[Rob Schmitz]

I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to Throughline from npr.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Thank you to our guests Sean Roberts, NPR reporter Rob Schmitz, and Abduveli Ayoop.

[Rob Schmitz]

Thanks also to NPR's Emily Feng, who in 2018 broke the story that forced labor was happening with former and current camp detainees.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This episode was produced by me and.

[Rob Schmitz]

Me and Jamie York, Lane, Kaplan Levinson.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Julie Cain, Victor Iz, Parth Shah, Yolanda Sangueni.

[Rob Schmitz]

Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Thanks also to Jerry Holmes and Anya Grundman. Our music was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which includes Naveed.

[Rob Schmitz]

Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Thanks for listening.

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[Rachel]

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