I was filled with emotion as I stood in front of one of the gates of Hangzhou Airport that had a sign at the top that said, “To Urumqi.” Finally, I would go to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the land of beauty and legend.
In the autonomous prefecture of Ili Kazak
Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture is reminiscent of a large museum. Every detail in this city was designed to preserve the cultural heritage of the city’s 47 ethnicities, which made it rich in harmonies and contradictions. What is striking is the massive disparity between what is being said in the Western media about the government’s policies in Xinjiang regarding ethnic rights, particularly their right to preserve and practice their language, customs, traditions and religious rituals, and what you see with your eyes.
During my explorations in this region, and in less than 48 hours, I managed to learn about the cultural characteristics of several ethnic groups living there, and I can safely say that what I learned there saved me from reading dozens of books about those ethnic groups. cultures, customs and traditions. Throughout the city there are dozens of cultural centers for all ethnicities and entire neighborhoods have been built to preserve their cultural heritage.
My meeting with a girl from the Russian ethnic group in Xinjiang. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
In a funny coincidence, before we got to the Russian Quarter and discovered this “cultural discovery”, we took a tourist car to get to that quarter and the driver was a female with full Russian features, so I asked her if she was Russian, she replied, “I’m Chinese.” Immediately, a Russian friend who was sitting next to me said that there are Russian Chinese in this city. So, to document this discovery, I asked the driver to take a picture with it. However, the biggest surprise came when we entered the Russian Quarter. Monuments of Russian culture can be found everywhere. So where did the idea that the cultural characteristics of ethnic minorities are hidden come from? This is an ethnic group whose population in China does not exceed ten thousand, and it has all this space to display its heritage and culture.
In the Kazakh quarter
I had a group of Kazakh classmates when I was still a student in Wuhan. I had visited some of them in their university residence. They, like most students, brought cultural symbols from their homeland to decorate their rooms. So I was familiar with Kazakh culture in some ways. I was also aware of their love of carpets in light colors and rose prints.
However, when I visited one of the Kazakh quarters of Ili, I remembered the famous Arab traveler Ibn Battuta, who was amazed by the huge size of a Chinese rooster in India, when its owner replied that there is something even more amazing that his cock in India. China. This story is recorded by Ibn Battuta, who added: “When I reached China, I saw the truth of what he told me.”
When I entered the home of one of the Kazakh families who had welcomed us, I realized that what I had seen in my friends’ rooms was incomparable to the scene in front of me. A courtyard at the entrance of a house more than a hundred years old is topped by a canopy made of grape branches, it helps to hide the sun’s rays while also offering a wonderful view of the hanging bunches of grapes. It’s a familiar scene.
The floor of the house is fully furnished with carpets. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Most houses in the villages of Lebanon, including my family’s, have such a space. As for the rooms, the owners politely request that you enter them barefoot, which is one of the customs of Muslims in general and Kazakhs in particular, where the floor of the house is completely furnished with carpets that I have only seen in the lanes of of the Levant, where Iranian and Oriental carpets are sold.
For a while, I thought this house was unique, but when I entered many other residences, they all had the same layout. Large backyard, carpets of different colors, especially red and green. On the main table of every house there are fruits and sweets as a welcome gesture.
I was also intrigued by how the house owners maintain their traditions, rituals and heritage. I noticed that most of the men, especially the older ones, wear a circular hat with embroidery representing Kazakh ethnic heritage, and that most of the women, especially the older ones, wear a scarf that covers their hair. Many people mistook one of these ladies for one of my hometown women after I posted a photo of one of these ladies on my Facebook page. This was completely predictable, since most of the old women in my town wear such a scarf.” And in a humorous incident related to special traditions. As a South Korean friend and I walked around the house, a room was closed, unlike the others. When this young man did not open the door, he asked the owners of the house what was in that room and they told him that it was their daughter’s room and she was still single, it is a tradition that does not enter foreigner.chamber of an unmarried woman.
Between Syria and Urumqi
Most countries in the Middle East are ethnically and religiously diverse. Since the arrival of Western colonialism in our country, this diversity has become the curse of the region rather than its blessing. Arab countries are used to witnessing religious or ethnic-based wars and crises, and the same scene may have played out hundreds of times in Africa, Latin America and Asia. I believe that no country or region in the world today, which is led by the United States of America, is free from ethnic or religious tensions. Even within the United States, we find that the American system continues to produce and perpetuate racism, discrimination, and inequality, so the issue of race is still very much alive in this country.
Arriving in Xinjiang, I discovered that the city’s airport is expanding significantly, and large areas of the city’s outskirts that looked like desert are now alive with hundreds of new buildings being built on them. In fact, active infrastructure development is one of the Chinese characteristics.
When you visit any Chinese city, you will notice construction projects everywhere. All these new constructions are built around the old city, and during our visit, we entered one of the relatively old mosques, and it is a delightful coincidence that the name of that mosque in Chinese is exactly the same as my Chinese name ( Yang Hang), but with a different meaning. The imam of the mosque who greeted us speaks fluent Arabic and studied in Libya in the 1980s.
Furthermore, the region has experienced years of continuous economic and population growth.
How did China achieve this? Of course, the answer to this question requires a long research, so I will content myself with a general answer that was always in my mind before the visit and strengthened after it, but there is no doubt that the topic should be expanded further.
Either socialism or barbarism
The Chinese model is essentially a socialist model, it prioritizes human interests and deals with the causes of problems rather than their consequences. Terrorism and extremism are symptoms, not the disease itself. The Chinese treatment was based on addressing two main aspects: ignorance and poverty. In other words, more work needs to be done to develop education and provide employment opportunities for young people.
Ignorance and poverty provide fertile ground for terrorist organizations to spread their ideas. Naturally, this was accompanied by intensive security operations aimed at suppressing active terrorist groups, as the region witnessed a number of terrorist operations. As a result of these measures, China has been able to suppress terrorist groups, with no terrorist operations since 2016.
Was it easy? No, my friend from Xinjiang assures me, it was not easy. And she continues: “But, as you know, everything is relative; if we compare what we’ve been through and what we’ve achieved with what you’ve been through and what you’ve achieved in Syria, Iraq and Libya, yes, we’ve had a thousand. times easier than you”. We have not experienced displacement, destruction, or total war. He was limited to security checks and inspections. “As in economics (which is our area of expertise), there are short-term and long-term results. ,” she adds. It was relatively difficult in the short term. As for the medium and long term, I know that my son, who was born three years ago and did not witness the terrorist acts of 2009 in our city Urumqi, will have a stable life and a promising future in which there is no fear of terrorism or lack of job opportunities. I see him growing up safe, attending the best schools and getting a high-level education.” “Now,” she asserts, “we are reaping the fruits of sacrifice, just as the Chinese before us have reaped the fruits of misery throughout their history. . . . Today, we live a prosperous life that we could not have achieved without all the hardships of our history.” “.
I would say that this interpretation is correct. And I would add that socialism is the solution to all national, ethnic and religious issues. “Either socialism or barbarism,” declared Rosa Luxemburg a century ago, as world wars raged around her. This premise still holds true. Without socialism with Chinese characteristics, Xinjiang would not have survived this crisis with minimal losses.
Villagers collect pomegranates in Qira Town of Qira County in Hotan Prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on October 1, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]
I was told that the pomegranate is a symbol of Xinjiang, as the “pomegranate cone” represents Xinjiang in terms of the cohesive, shiny seeds that come together to give us this beautiful and delicious fruit, implying that the seeds of pomegranates represent different but united ethnicities and religions, and their diversity and unity is the source of their strength and beauty.
I wished, deep in my heart, that the pomegranate would flourish in my country and we would be able to solve all our problems by turning our weaknesses into strengths and creating our own socialism that transforms religious, ethnic and sectarian diversity in strong points. , instead of the weaknesses our enemies use to kill our children and crush our future.
Adham Sayed is a researcher at the BRI China-Arab Research Center at Zhejiang Gongshang University and the author of “That’s How It Was in Wuhan: Diaries of Quarantine Days.”
The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and the China Daily website.
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