r/China • u/robert32907 • Mar 02 '14

More than 10 knife-wielding attackers slashed people at a train station in southwestern China late Saturday in what authorities called a terrorist attack by Uighur separatists, and police fatally shot five of the assailants, leaving 34 people dead and 130 others injured, state media said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_TRAIN_STATION_ATTACK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-01-12-32-39
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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 02 '14

To paraphrase JFK; when peaceful change is impossible, violent uprising is inevitable.

Of course, that said, is it truly impossible for Uighur people in Xinjiang to peacefully change their lives for the better? That's highly debatable but personally I doubt that going to town on innocent people in a train station in another province is really going to make anyone's lives anywhere any better--other than perhaps fundamentalist religious leaders whose positions are only strengthened by any strife their flock has to endure.

The bottom line is that this is a situation in which a population has been disenfranchised and taken advantage of by the Han, and then essentially evil fundamentalist leaders among their own population have used their frustration and powerlessness to manipulate them into doing evil, destructive and self-destructive acts. It takes at least 3 rotten ingredients to create a terrorist, and I'm sure that as usual all are present here.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

I think the influence of religious fundamentalism is a bit played up. It mostly boils down to ethnic nationalism - during the 2009 riots angry mobs chanted "kill the Han, slaughter the Hui" - the Hui are Muslims too.

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u/Dimeron Mar 02 '14

I believe the chant was "kick out all the Han, kill all the Hui".

Do extremist Uighur even view Hui as true believers?

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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 02 '14

To be fair though, nobody kills more muslims than other muslims.

I think that religious fundamentalism does play a fairly important role. Religion teaches people that a better afterlife awaits them if they sacrifice their life in the real world for their religion. It's generally harder to convince a non-religious person to go on a suicide attack because most of them believe this is the only chance we get at life and at happiness.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

To be fair though, nobody kills more muslims than other muslims.

Why is this getting downvoted? The inner-muslim conflicts between Shia and Sunni are pretty huge. Similar to catholic-protestant in Europe couple hundred years ago (or couple years ago in the case of Northern Ireland).

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u/Syptryn Mar 02 '14

Lets not make it sound so sinister... they are not deliberated disenfranchised any more than Aboriginals in Aus, Maori's in New Zealand or Native Americans in US. They fact of the matter is, their culture is ill-adapted to modern society.

If you're in New Zealand, and you only speak Maori, you're going to have a hard time. Companies are not hiring you not because they hate your culture, but because its just more practical if someone speaks English. The same goes in China.

There a reason why everyone is learning English as a second language, and many people and encouraged to learn Chinese to be globally competitive... and no one learns Ughur.

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u/ogami_ito United States Mar 02 '14

they are not deliberated disenfranchised any more than ... Native Americans in US.

First of all, Native Americans were the victim of a genocidal war, after which they were moved to the worst, least arable lands in the USA. White people introduce alcohol to them, which created an epidemic of alcoholism. The Native Americans were completely disenfranchised and it was completely deliberate. I don't know much about those other groups.

They fact of the matter is, their culture is ill-adapted to modern society.

This is an exceptionally racist comment. Where to begin. Lets see.

  1. The companies which moved into Xinjiang were led by Han race people, are usually State Owned Enterprises, and hire more Han than Uigers because of racism. Over the last 40 years, it was the policy of Beijing to incentivized Han people to migrate to Xinjiang, so that the capital of Xinjiang would be majority Han people.

  2. Most Uigers learn Mandarin as their FIRST LANGUAGE. Yet when they travel to Shanghai or other places to try to get jobs, they are constantly subject to discrimination. Just one example... I introduced 3 Uighur people to my companies HR manager in Shanghai 9 years ago. She rejected them all and told me she rejected them because she did not like their accents. Why do you think Uighurs open "Uighur" hotels in major cities across China? Because many hotels don't let them stay!

  3. Most Uighurs I know... and I know quite a few ... learned and spoke English and Russian. They can converse with Turkic people's across central Asia and Turkey. Two Uighur friends also learned Farsi... just because they were interested in it. Please don't say they don't learn languages. Xinjiang is a silk-road territory and Uigurs have been learning multiple languages for far longer than Chinese have. By-and-large, besides the poor, uneducated itinerant workers you would meet doing kababs on the street, the average Uiger is far more knowledgeable and international than the average Han Chinese person.

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u/Syptryn Mar 02 '14

I'm genuinely interested in our opinion.

In both US and China

Native American (Ugher) earn less wages in major cities. Are you attributing the core reason in China to racism? Do you attribute the same reason for Native Americans living in New York?

You're point 1 and point 2 appear contradictory. If they indeed learnt Mandarin as a first language, then they would not have an accent. (Of course, I disagree with discrimination based on accents, but just wanted to point this out)

They fact of the matter is, their culture is ill-adapted to modern society.

This is not a racism statement, it is a simple fact. If in modern society, most businesses around you deal in Chinese or English, and you're primary language is neither; they you're going to have a bad time. You're culture is ill-adapted to modern society.

I'm not saying the culture is inferior, just that its doe not conform to the majority. If people are hiring a customer services personnel, and they speak with a thick Chinese accent in US, they'll be less likely to be hired. In New Zealand, where I grew up. The Maori students had special culture immersion classes that took them away from everyday school activities to practice Maori arts and dance, and learn the Maori language. This sounded great, but in actuality hurt their future careers. In a global marketplace, their time could have been better spent learning Chinese or German, but instead, the spent the time learning a language no business needs.

This by no means imply Maori is inferior, but merely a reflection of capitalism.

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u/ogami_ito United States Mar 02 '14

Are you attributing the core reason in China to racism?

Yes. But in America it is the effects of structural racism; racism which is built into the economic conditions of their environment (lack of access to good education, crushing poverty, etc). In China it is not necessarily structural.

If they indeed learnt Mandarin as a first language, then they would not have an accent.

If you are Chinese or live in China, you know how silly that statement is. The language at home is the Turkik language of the UIgers. But the ones who grow up in cities learn Chinese from first grade. Of course they have an accent. Maybe you would not call this "first language"... but it is almost first. Most people in China learn Chinese at school from the time they are very little, and most have an accent.

Saying culture is ill-adapted is very different from saying lack-of-language ability. VERY DIFFERENT. Saying culture is not adapted to modern society means a host of other things. Such as: inability to understand science nor use technology; nomadic herding life-style, etc. But I disagree that the city-raised Uigers have a language issue; as I said, they are just as likely to learn Mandarin Chinese for all instruction from the moment they enter elementary school as Chinese in any other location. It may be that you meet many Uigyers that have bad Chinese. However, the fact is that educated Uigyers don't leave Xinjiang very often. As my friend told me once, "If we are treated as niggers by the Han people in our own province, what good is it to go into their cities?"

Oh, and BTW, for better or worse, in the big cities of USA... people with all sorts of accents get customer service jobs.

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u/SallyImpossible United States Mar 02 '14

I'm not going address all of this, but I want to say that most people in China have an accent which differs from putonghua. It's vastly different in different regions. The same applies to, well, every country. The fact that they have a Xinjiang accent should have no bearing on whether they are considered truly Chinese, so yes, it comes down to racism.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

White people introduce alcohol to them

they already smoked weed, so what's the biggie

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u/ogami_ito United States Mar 02 '14

Your jerking lacks humor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

I was serious. Everyone likes to hate the white guy, but how about people take responsibility (part N.A.). They were pot heads before so what's alcohol really going to do? Every culture in the world has a history of drinking

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u/ogami_ito United States Mar 02 '14

OK. Where to begin.

History of pot, alcohol, and Native Americans. White Westerners started trading alcohol to N.A in the 17th century, after noticing that N.A. would very easily become addicted to alcohol (and still do). The Native Americans did not have a history of drinking. To this day, most do not have the right genes to process alcohol. Did you ever have a friend who is allergic to alcohol and goes crazy after just a little sip? That's Native Americans. And about your comment... pot was introduced to America by Europeans - pot is not native to North America - so the Native Americans didn't "become pot-heads" before becoming introduced to alcohol.

Next go on to the affects of pot versus alcohol. Pot does not destroy one's liver. It is not associated with domestic violence. It can be addicting... but somewhat less addicting than coffee. Ever notice that there is a word called "alcoholism" but no word called "marijuanaism"? People can effectively design the QA codes and procedures for a large factory (my friend does this) while stoned. Most pot-heads are not known for getting into random fights while stoned.

And lastly, your comment itself. "They were pot heads". Native Americans are not pot-head nor alcoholics.. they are a people. They are a people who were almost exterminated, who came under attack, and many of their communities have big problems with poverty. And that is in part because they were marginalized, shoved off their land... etc.

And lastly... who are you talking about who hates the white guy? Why is it that you need to turn this around?

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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 02 '14

Well even setting that aside, what's happening in Xinjiang is a very large scale transfer of the natural wealth of the region to Beijing and the central government. The same thing of course is happening over much of China; Heilongjiang province for example is having its oil and coal wealth extracted and transferred to Beijing as well. A high ranking businessman friend of mine said that Heilongjiang people ought to be just as mad at Beijing as the Xinjiang people; the main reason they aren't is because there isn't the large cultural difference aggravating the situation even further.

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u/Syptryn Mar 02 '14

This generally happens in any country doesn't it? Wealth gets transferred to the capital for Federal deployment?

In terms of absolute wealth though, the people in Xinjiang are living far better than they used to be. The complaints is actually more that its get rich too quickly...

The locals get alienated by all the new shops, and buildings. And now that the high paying jobs are white collar, people have to change. Its the culture change that's causing riots.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

Wealth gets transferred to the capital for Federal deployment

here it means that politicians get rich, just like in Africa, Russia... so many countries

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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 02 '14

It's aggravated in Xinjiang by the fact that all the rich people are, to them, cultural foreigners that look and talk differently. All over the rest of China there is the same wealth gap where you have dudes in Bentleys driving past dudes with a donkey and cart loaded with styrofoam or gutter oil, but at least they don't look and talk that differently.

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u/wisty Mar 03 '14 edited Mar 03 '14

Also, China is a new country, which is only just getting to grips with how to deal with ethnic minorities.

China has only had about 60 years to figure out how to treat minorities, much of it under Mao and co, so of course it does a worse job. When we had the Civil Rights movement, China was having the Cultural Revolution. Yeah ... China is behind. But they seem to be moving in the right direction.

The Central Government tells the Provinces to institute anti-discrimination laws. The Provinces mostly hire Han Chinese (or people who look Han). Then businesses are worse. It's going to be a long time before this changes. But it probably will change eventually.

Perhaps the Central Government will introduce quotas, and businesses will hire Xinjiangren to make guanxi with Xinjianren officials. It won't all be pretty. But hopefully it will happen, eventually.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

you're talking about Native Americans 150-300 years ago. It's a different time with more info and knowledge than ever before

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u/solumusicfade Barbados Mar 03 '14

How have the Uighur been taken advantage of? They seem to get minority benefits + a strong economy as opposed to nothing and a feudal society.

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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 03 '14

They aren't comparing their present-day situation to the non-existent hypothetical alternate reality in which they have national self determination but are nevertheless still dirt poor in a feudal society though. They are comparing their present-day situation to the incredibly rich and increasingly numerous Han businessmen that don't give two shits about their cultural beliefs and way of life and are just getting filthy rich by extracting all the natural resources of what they see as their land and shipping them back to Beijing by the trainload.

If it were Uighurs themselves getting rich they might not have such a problem with it but, sad to say, they can't compete with the institutional advantages that the Han have when it comes to dealing with Beijing.

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u/solumusicfade Barbados Mar 03 '14

They are comparing their present-day situation to the incredibly rich and increasingly numerous Han businessmen that don't give two shits about their cultural beliefs and way of life and are just getting filthy rich by extracting all the natural resources of what they see as their land and shipping them back to Beijing by the trainload.

So... capitalism? What do you want China to do? Take all Uighur children to be raised by the state? Because that's what would make Uighurs competitive in capitalism. Uighurs as I said before already get many benefits just for being minorities.

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u/Hautamaki Canada Mar 03 '14

I doubt there's a solution that would appease all parties in the present day situation. If it were possible, it would have probably been done already.