Five Fingers Crush The Land

[0] Christian nationalists want to turn America into a theocracy, a government under biblical rule.

[1] If they gain more power, it could mean fewer rights for you.

[2] I'm Heath Drusin, and on the new season of Extremely American, I'll take you inside the movement.

[3] Listen to Extremely American from Boise State Public Radio, part of the NPR network.

[4] This is a song, forefathers by a musician named Abdur Rahim Hayid.

[5] The song is based on a poem, calling the Uighur youth to respect the sacrifices of their ancestors.

[6] In 2017, Abdur Rahim was arrested after performing this song, which includes lyrics about martyrs of war.

[7] In a video released by Chinese state media, Abder Rahim said he was being investigated for, quote, violating national laws by singing this song.

[8] Abder Rahim is one of around 12 million people belonging to the ethnic group called Uighurs.

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

[10] This is Sean Roberts.

[11] He's a professor at George Washington University and author of the book, The War on the Uyghurs.

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

[13] The Xinjiang region is not only home to the Uyghurs, but also many other Muslim minorities.

[14] Sean did field research there until 2000, when the government banned him from entering.

[15] Sean even speaks Uyghur.

[16] The one expression I'm thinking of is Beshbarmak Akshimaida, which means five fingers are not the same.

[17] And it's often used to acknowledge, you know, about any group that you can't characterize them all in the same way, right?

[18] And when we talk 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.

[19] So it's an area that really has a lot of influence from the Persian world, from the Turkic world.

[20] It's definitely on the margins of the Islamic world.

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

[22] In fact, you can even see that in the physical appearance of Uyghurs.

[23] It's very evident that there's all kinds of peoples who have gone into.

[24] to the Uyghur gene pool over centuries.

[25] 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.

[26] And because of the Uyghurs' religion and appearance, they stand out and are made easy targets for the state.

[27] The New York Times and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimate that more than a million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim -Musers, and ethnic minorities, have been imprisoned in camps in China.

[28] As you'll hear, some call them internment camps, while others refer to them as re -education camps.

[29] But the fact is, Uyghur Chinese citizens have been subjected to torture, forced labor, religious restrictions, and even forced sterilization at these places.

[30] 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.

[31] I'm Randab Nafatheh.

[32] I'm Ramtin Arablu.

[33] And you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[34] And I'm from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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[43] Part 1, a golden age.

[44] Weir, we have a Meshrap culture.

[45] The Meshrap, or Harvest Festival, is an ancient cultural practice that binds together the Uyghur community.

[46] And we gather in a village, sing a song, and play music, recite poetry.

[47] I am Abduvali Ayyayyub.

[48] Abdu Vali Ayyayyub is a Uygh from an ancient silver.

[49] Road Trade Hub in Xinjiang province.

[50] I am from Kashgar.

[51] I grew up there.

[52] And he told us that the Meshrap Festival is a symbol for a people who've long lived in lands they did not rule.

[53] It's a way of keeping their traditions alive in the face of constant pressure to assimilate and conform.

[54] I was about eight years old.

[55] And my father, he said that knowledge is just like a spring.

[56] 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.

[57] It will water the desert.

[58] It will grow the flower and it will make our village beautiful.

[59] Today, Amdu Vali lives in exile in Europe.

[60] He's an activist and poet who's outspoken about the play of Uyghurs in China.

[61] So when the Chinese Communist Revolution happened in 1949, the majority of the population in this region were Uyghurs and other indigenous Muslim peoples.

[62] There was only about 6 % Han Chinese in the region.

[63] 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.

[64] The Red Guards tore down street signs and put up new revolutionary names.

[65] They ransacked museums, libraries, and temples.

[66] They searched and looted people's homes.

[67] All over China, the Red Guards essentially destroyed anything they deemed not revolutionary.

[68] This even included the tomb of the renowned Chinese philosopher Confucius.

[69] In Xinjiang, mosques were destroyed.

[70] Religious and Uyghur language books were burned.

[71] Clergy and local politicians were persecuted, and traditions and customs like the Meshrep were banned.

[72] Yet, despite all that brutality, by the end of the cultural revolution in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the region still remained extremely Central Asian and character.

[73] The Uyghur language was still very strong in the region.

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

[75] At home, we have two kinds of book.

[76] One is red book, another is yellow book.

[77] Red book means revolutionary book, yellow book means anti -revolutionary book.

[78] And all Uyghur books at that time are anti -revolutionary.

[79] It's yellow books.

[80] And my father always keep it in the secret box and we cannot even touch it.

[81] A secret box.

[82] Books hidden away to protect the children from the dangers of learning about their own culture and language.

[83] 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.

[84] Mao Zedong, China's leader, also led the cultural revolution.

[85] When he died in 1976, his policies left behind a decimated Chinese economy.

[86] The CCP was in disarray.

[87] 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 Yao Bang.

[88] Hu Yao Bang was particularly, particularly interested in opening up the political space, almost like a Chinese version of glass -nosed and perestroika.

[89] Huya Bang was one of the most strongly oriented towards the idea of political liberalization.

[90] If you look at what the United States was thinking at this time, looking at China, the United States was hoping that China was going to embrace liberalism both economically and politically.

[91] For the Uyghur people, this was good news.

[92] And he was even suggesting that in the Uyghur region, there be a change to make the governance of the region more autonomous and more led by Uyghurs and other indigenous people of the region.

[93] So in the 1980s, there was kind of a renaissance in Uyghur culture.

[94] We had the golden age since 1980s.

[95] People were allowed to 1997, almost 10 years.

[96] People were allowed to go back to study religion.

[97] A lot of intellectuals and religious leaders who had been imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution were released.

[98] Mosques were reclaimed or rebuilt.

[99] Celebrations of Islamic weddings were permitted.

[100] A publishing explosion in the Uyghur language, literary works, historical, Novels.

[101] Cultural traditions like the Meshrap were allowed to resume.

[102] There was also kind of a growing film industry developing.

[103] A lot of Uyghurs look back at that time as kind of a golden period in their culture.

[104] If you've learned anything from this show, you'll know that in history, there's always a fall after the rise.

[105] 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.

[106] Demonstrations involving a total of several thousand students took place in three cities in different provinces.

[107] On university campuses, students have been pasting up large wall posters.

[108] It was 1986.

[109] There were a number of placards that have appeared, even in English, saying, without democracy, we cannot have modernization.

[110] And there have even been placards quoting Abraham Lincoln, saying what we need is government by the people, of the people, and for the people.

[111] In about 1987, there emerged a more conservative wing in the party that actually pushed Hu Yao Bang out of any position of power.

[112] And that was done because his ideas about more political space and kind of liberalization, had led to student protests throughout the country.

[113] And a lot of the people who, you know, were very hopeful for a different future, were very concerned that he had been sidetracked.

[114] And they kind of saw that that was going to lead to a narrowing of political space and a narrowing of openness.

[115] Then, on April 15, 1989, Huyao Bang died after suffering a heart attack.

[116] days earlier.

[117] What we're seeing is a large contingent of students.

[118] This is part of the general movement that started with the deaths of Fu Yao Bang, who is considered by the students to be one of their friends.

[119] That same day, an event began in China's capital, Beijing, that wouldn't just impact the future of China's reform movement, but what completely altered the lives of the Uyghur people.

[120] This is part of a very large movement of students now all over China, particularly in Beijing, marching for specific things having to do with educational reforms, political, democratic reforms.

[121] Very excited.

[122] When we come back, tanks battle protesters and the end of a golden age.

[123] Hi, this is Rachel and Davidson, North Carolina, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

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[128] Take care of me. The pros and cons of artificial intimacy.

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[145] Part 2.

[146] Five Fingers Crush the Land.

[147] China in crisis.

[148] On April 15th, 1989, students, and other Chinese citizens began occupying Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

[149] There's a mood of absolute resistance on the streets as huddles of people gather and their outrage.

[150] The number of soldiers ringing the square increased dramatically.

[151] Thousands of them taking up positions in the center of town.

[152] Protesters demanded more political reforms.

[153] They demanded democracy.

[154] They were almost all unarmed.

[155] The military was essentially sent in to suppress it violently with tanks and armored personnel carriers and so on.

[156] In the early morning hours of Sunday, armored personnel carriers began to advance on the square.

[157] Soldiers fired automatic weapons into crowds of civilians.

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

[159] It was one of the first things in America that we witnessed in real.

[160] time.

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

[162] We all knew it couldn't go on forever, but no one thought it would come to this.

[163] Casualties were staggering.

[164] The Chinese Red Cross says at least 2 ,600 people were killed.

[165] A brutal massacre of Chinese students and other protesters by the Chinese army.

[166] Beijing's Bloody Sunday is history now, but there are visible reminders everywhere of the shocking massacre that occurred here.

[167] 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.

[168] A little context about Tiananmen Square.

[169] At the same time, the Soviet Union, the other big communist power, was losing control of some of its republics.

[170] The Berlin Wall fell.

[171] things were not looking good.

[172] So when the massacre happened at Tiananmen Square, and the world witnessed it, the CCP...

[173] The first inclination was to think, how do we make sure this doesn't happen to us?

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

[175] Chinese Communist Party started to view its relationship with minority -inhabited regions differently.

[176] You start seeing much more awareness from the side of the state of any expressions of Uyghur nationalism.

[177] Abdu Vali Ayyup, 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.

[178] He wanted to become a professor.

[179] It was his first time in the capital.

[180] I took a taxi in Beijing, and the taxi driver, he can criticize Communist Party to me. He criticized Chinese government, and he criticized, like, what happened to people in 1989, Cayman Square.

[181] He showed me the blood scar on the street.

[182] He said, look, there's still blood here.

[183] Abdu Wally was shocked.

[184] He couldn't believe.

[185] someone was criticizing the government so openly.

[186] Even the taxi driver can, like, criticize Chinese government.

[187] But my father, as, like, intellectual and my grandpa also, like, educated, they have never criticized Chinese government.

[188] This weirdness continued with how people treated him in Beijing.

[189] Discrimination.

[190] It is very strong.

[191] Like, when you talk to the people, They always pretend they don't understand.

[192] They mock at your pronunciation.

[193] After that, they imitate our pronunciation.

[194] In their imagination, like Wager homeland is the desert and people riding horse and donkey and the camel all the time.

[195] And it's a very dirty and this kind of stereotype.

[196] In their eyes, we are, like, in the exact word, Chinese word, we are primitive.

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

[198] The events of Tiananmen Square.

[199] You could see that certainly there was a narrowing of political space in public places.

[200] You would see wanted posters for, democracy activists and so on.

[201] 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.

[202] Separatists basically meant anyone...