If the report of the “directive” of the Chinese government by the New York Times is accurate it highlights something important:
Islam has had followers in China for centuries. There are now 22 to 23 million Muslims, a tiny minority in a country of 1.4 billion. Among them, the Hui and the Uighurs make up the largest ethnic groups. Uighurs primarily live in Xinjiang, but the Hui live in enclaves scattered around the nation.
The restrictions they now face can be traced to 2015, when Mr. Xi first raised the issue of what he called the “Sinicization of Islam,†saying all faiths should be subordinate to Chinese culture and the Communist Party. Last year, Mr. Xi’s government issued a confidential directive that ordered local officials to prevent Islam from interfering with secular life and the state’s functions.
Critics of China’s policies who are outside the country provided excerpts from the directive to The Times. The directive, titled “Reinforcing and Improving Islam Work in the New Situation,†has not been made public. It was issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, in April of last year and classified as confidential for 20 years.
The directive warns against the “Arabization†of Islamic places, fashions and rituals in China, singling out the influence of Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites, as a cause for concern.
It prohibits the use of the Islamic financial system. It bars mosques or other private Islamic organizations from organizing kindergartens or after-school programs, and it forbids Arabic-language schools to teach religion or send students abroad to study.
The most visible aspect of the crackdown has been the targeting of mosques built with domes, minarets and other architectural details characteristic of Central Asia or the Arabic world.
Taken in isolation, some of these measures seem limited. Others seem capricious: some mosques with Arabic features have been left untouched, while others nearby have been altered or shut down.
But on a national scale, the trend is clear. Mr. Cui, the poet, calls it the harshest campaign against faith since the end of the Cultural Revolution, when so-called Red Guards unleashed by Mao Zedong destroyed mosques across the country.
Islam appeared in China during the Tang Dynasty not long after the religion was founded and has been a presence ever since, sometimes tolerated, sometimes repressed. Islam presents a challenge to the West but even moreso to China.
Islam is not just a religion. It is also an economic system and a political system. With the centrality of the Qur’an and the insistence that the Qur’an can only be read or recited in Arabic, “Arabization” is intrinsic to Islam. The interpretation of Islam that’s spreading around the world right now, heavily financed by Gulf Arabs, is particularly strict. For its adherents there is no such thing as “Islam with Chinese characteristics”.
The Chinese Muslims we hear most about these days are the Uighurs but the majority of Chinese Muslims are the Hui Muslims and there is antipathy between the two groups. The Uighurs are not Han Chinese and the Chinese government does not recognize the Hui as Han Chinese.
It would be no wonder if the Xi government were to “crack down” on Islam in China. Its emphasis is on the Han Chinese and Sinicization of non-Han peoples in China not the other way around.
Islam is incompatible any other system, so China is right to try to modify it. It probably can’t be done. Also, Chinese dependence on Muslim oil, Shia or Sunni, constrains what it can do.
The New Silk Road, which is central to China’s strategic goals, passes through Muslim countries. That fact has got to limit what China can do to the Uighurs et al. On the other hand, the New Silk Road offers real benefits to Muslim Central Asia. Some sort of compromise seems possible, especially sine we offer nothing but war, death, and destruction.
Whatever happened to us/US? When and how did we become monsters?
“When and how did we become monsters?”
Ever watch “Cops”? Suspect must exit the vehicle hands up, walk slowly backwards, lie face down on the ground and not move. If he moves before he is handcuffed he will likely be shot. For the safety of the officers.
America is the policeman for the world. Everyone else is a threat, our safety is paramount. Australia doesn’t have this responsibility, or this problem.
re:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/police-murder-daniel-shaver/
1968
A series of events and circumstances drained the last vestiges of post-war optimism out of the United States. I guess it could be argued that 1968 revealed that we had become monsters. There are other candidates but that’s my nominee.
As you’re presumably aware the NYT is presently running a series with the thesis that we’ve always been monsters, something I reject.
Hassan Rouhani said the presence of such troops in the Gulf has always brought “pain and miseryâ€, in a speech made at an annual military parade to commemorate the war with Iraq.
“Wherever the Americans or our enemies have gone, there has been insecurity afterward,†the Iranian president said. “The farther you keep yourselves from our region and our nations, the more security there will be.”
He’s right, of course, from his perspective. But America has interests in the region, interests we would never tolerate the Iranians to have in the Caribbean. This is not a matter of right and wrong, it’s a matter of power. As we project our power throughout the world, it will be harder and harder to present ourselves as “The Shining City on the Hill” Reagan envisioned. The things we have done or enabled to the Houthi rebels expose us as International gangsters rationalizing our every massacre or murder as necessary in the fight against “extremists”. I think, IMHO, that it was 9/11, that turned the U.S. into the fearful preemptive killer force we are today.
No, it’s nonsense. We’re not the cause we’re just the latest. The Turks didn’t keep peace in the Middle East for half a millennium with sweetness and light but by utter viciousness and repression. By comparison we’re Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Rouhani is falling back on the Islamic Republic’s creation myth.
“1968”
How about the early 1900s and our “help” in Latin America?
““I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.â€
― Smedley D. Butler
What percentage of American Indians did we kill? How did we treat them?
But, I am not sure that I would ever declare us monsters, at least so far, its just that we arent as altruistic and innocent as those who believe the mythology would pretend. We have always been a mix of very good with some bad. For some reason it is considered un-American by half of the country to acknowledge our past mistakes and weaknesses.
Steve