Day: April 8, 2023

While spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, Uyghurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region are still waiting for their spring to arrive, when they will be delivered from the repression of China’s government.

That’s the main sentiment expressed in a new online collection of 15 poems and short stories by writers with connections to East Turkistan, Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop released “Spring Will Come: Writings from East Turkistan” on March 20, the eve of the Nowruz Festival, when Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang celebrate the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one on the day of the vernal equinox, which usually takes place on March 21. 

The writings reflect the impacts of colonialism, lessons learned from past failures, and warnings for the future. They also deal with spiritual resistance, determination, adherence to one’s goals, and hope for freedom.

“[T]hrough the title ‘Spring Will Come,’ we express our desire and belief that we cannot live in cruel winter forever and that spring will come to our land eventually,” said Munawwar Abdulla, a researcher at Harvard University who translated some of the contributions.

The “cruel winter” she refers to is China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang since 2017. At that time, authorities began detaining Uyghurs in “re-education” camps where they were forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and sometimes subjected to torture, sexual assaults and forced labor.

Despite evidence and witness testimony about the abuse, Beijing has vehemently maintained that the camps were vocation training centers to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the restive region.

“Spring is the message of hope, resistance, resilience, and all good stuff.” Abdulla said.

When will winter be over?

The collection begins with famous Uyghur poet Abdurehim Ötkür’s poem “Calling Out for Spring,” the first stanza of which reads:

When will this bitter winter be over?

I call out for Spring with my every breath.

Like a lion roaring in pain in the night, 

I cry out for Spring to arrive.

The publication comes as calls mount for the international community to take concrete measure to hold China accountable for what the United States government and several Western parliaments have said amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.

The works also serve as a refutation of the Chinese government’s efforts to wipe out Uyghur culture, language and religion in an effort to Sinicize the region. 

Amid the crackdown in recent years, authorities have detained in the camps and in prisons Uyghur intellectuals, including writers and artists, prominent business people, notable sports figures, Islamic clergymen and academics.

“When more people in the world recognize that the Uyghur people have become genocide victims, it is important to let the world know that Uyghur people are a civilized people with a unique culture,” said Rahima Mahmut, a UK-based artist who also translated some of the pieces in the collection. 

“They have writers, poets, artists, and talented people in every field,” she told Radio Free Asia. “China has portrayed Uyghurs as uneducated, uncivilized people who must be ‘re-educated.’ They have been making such efforts to paint Uyghurs in a negative light for many years. That is the main purpose of publishing this collection.”

Voices of the diaspora

The collection includes poems written in the 1940s in Xinjiang and ones written in English by diaspora Uyghurs as late as last year, said Mahmut, who also serves as UK director for the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur rights group. 

“It manifests the connection diaspora Uyghurs have with their homeland,” she said. 

The poem “My Plea” by Ilminur, known among diaspora Uyghurs as Efvan, is based on the 2017 crackdown in which her relatives were caught up. The first stanza reads:

Oh, Heavenly Mountains,

Behind you are corpses, 

Before you is troubled silence.

How many rivers are flowing deep red 

Within your valleys?

Oh, rebellious savage wolves,

Will your howl save the world?

Chinese authorities took Ilminur’s parents to the camps and sentenced other relatives to 10-to 18-year prison terms, she said. 

“These events impacted me deeply, and I wrote this poem hoping that our land under the heavenly mountain will be free,” Ilminur told RFA.

Ilminur, who illustrates Uyghur children’s books and magazines in the diaspora, provided bright sketches for the collection of works that evokes a sense of home and hope. 

Her favorite drawing depicts three Uyghur women making round flatbread, or naan, by hand and placing it in an over. The drawing accompanies Abdushukur Muhammet’s poem “The Road Home.”

“I feel good whenever I see this picture because I immediately think of my home and mother, Ilminur said. “Any sensible person will remember his mother, his home, when he sees it and feel the warmth.” 

‘Light in the darkness’

Mahmut, the UK-based artist,said she was particularly moved by Ilminur’s poem and Abdurrahim Imin’s poem, “The Beloved Will Come.”

Efvan’s poem “depicted the reality that our people are suffering tremendously, and the world turned deaf,” said Mahmut.

Imin’s poem, meanwhile, expresses hope that despite hardship and oppression, there must come a beautiful time when Uyghurs will be free. 

“That poem gives our readers hope and tells them there is a light in the darkness, and we will get our liberty one day, and we can be free,” Mahmut said. 

Mahmut and Abudulla were involved in the project from start to finish, collecting writings, translating them to English, and editing them after the Asian American Writers’ Workshop first contacted them about the compilation in June 2022.

Other works in the collection are “If Needed” by Muyesser Abdulehed, “Elegy for a Home Besieged” by Munawwar Abdulla, writer Zunun Qadiri’s short story “The Edict,” and contributions by Uyghur writers currently in prison in Xinjiang, including Abduqadir Jalalidin’s “Boredom” and Perhat Tursun’s “Guest.” 

The collection also includes pieces by two Kazakh writers. 

“The global community must not just see our cries for help, our misery, and suffering,” Mahmut said. “I hope they also feel by reading our poets’ writings that we are courageous, resilient people.”

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

No more wedding photos of bride and groom clinking wine glasses. No wedding veils. No extravagant banquets or over-the-top flower arrangements. And no pictures of the bride lighting the groom’s cigarette.

All those smack of anti-socialist attitudes, and don’t embrace traditional North Korean ideals, authorities in the country say.

Instead, women should dress in traditional if colorful attire (men can wear Western suits), and weddings should be humble, “patriotic” affairs that are less wasteful as the country suffers chronic food and fuel shortages, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia.

The wedding guidelines, which also tell newlyweds to avoid sunglasses, clothes emblazoned with foreign letters, large flowers worn on the bride’s head and long vehicle processions, were announced in recent community lectures, a resident of the South Hamgyong province said on condition of anonymity to protect her safety.

“The core content is that weddings should be frugal, and done in [the North Korean] way,” she said. 

Those who are seen to be violating the “noble morals of socialist lifestyle” were threatened with unspecified punishments, she said.

‘Unpatriotic’

Even in North Korea, weddings have become an occasion to show off wealth and status, and authorities appear to be alarmed about that. 

Also, many weddings were postponed during the coronavirus pandemic, so officials held lectures on acceptable wedding practices in anticipation of a nuptial surge this spring, the sources said.

“The lecturer talked about how some people set up lavish wedding banquets or show off their power and status or arrange for a long procession of cars when the groom takes the bride away,” the first source said. 

“Acts like these, they said, are unpatriotic because they waste fuel and food during this difficult time,” she said.

Wedding photos should also be formal to avoid displaying behavior that isn’t considered appropriate, the lecturers said, according to the residents RFA spoke to.

Attendees were told to avoid taking wedding photos that are not in the North Korean style, “such as of the groom holding and lifting the bride above his waist, or of the bride and groom clinking wine glasses or of the bride lighting a cigarette for the groom,” said the source. 

In nearby North Hamgyong province, these lectures focused on being humble in what types of poses are used in wedding photos, and spent a considerable amount of time discussing the choice of flowers during weddings, a resident there told RFA.

“Many years ago, the authorities issued guidelines on the size of the flowers that the bride and groom should wear on their chest and hair at weddings, as well as what they should not do when taking pictures,” the second source said. “We should not decorate the chest with flowers larger than 7-8 centimeters (3 inches) and on the head, no more than 15 (6 inches).”

She said that every flower shop has a picture showing the government’s standards for the size of wedding flowers.

Don’t miss much work

Also, wedding attendees were told to miss as little work as possible, the first source said.

“Young people attending a wedding were advised to go after work,” she said. “And groups of 10 or more young people should not follow the bride and groom when they are on their photo shoot.”

The lecturers threatened to punish couples who violated the standards, but didn’t specify what their consequences would be. “The intention is to impose punishment according to recently adopted laws,” she said.

The source may have been referring to the 2020 Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which lays out punishments for various cultural offenses such as spreading South Korean or foreign cultural practices.

The law does not specifically list which acts are considered “reactionary,” the Seoul-based Korea Joongang Daily noted in a report published shortly after it was passed. 

But authorities have used it to prevent people from dancing in a “capitalist” way, speaking or writing “like a South Korean” or lending money at high interest rates. 

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. Illustrations by Amanda Weisbrod.

Forty-two Chinese warplanes and eight ships were detected around Taiwan on Saturday, officials said, as Beijing announced a three-day combat readiness exercise and patrols near the island after the Taiwanese president met with the U.S. house speaker in California.

Twenty-nine of the morningtime sorties involved Chinese air force J-10, J-11 and J-16 fighter-jets that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait – the de facto boundary between Taiwan and mainland China – Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said. 

It marked the largest incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) this year. An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before flying farther into a country’s airspace.

China carried out the maneuvers three days after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy near Los Angeles – the first meeting of its kind on American soil, despite angry warnings from Beijing.

The ministry “condemned such irrational actions and will defend Taiwan’s security with solid combat readiness,” it said.

Also on Saturday morning, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command announced in a statement that “United Sword” drills would take place from April 8 to April 10 “as planned.”

The Command’s spokesman, Col. Shi Yi, said the exercise would be held in the Taiwan Strait and in the sea and airspace to the north, east and south of Taiwan.

Last August, the Eastern Theater Command held a week-long military exercise around Taiwan right after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.

China considers Taiwan a Chinese province and has repeatedly protested against support extended by “external forces” to the island.

In addition, the Chinese military will conduct live-fire drills for five days in April in waters off Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern Fujian province near Taiwan, according to the provincial coast guard, which issued a navigational warning for the area.

Another live-fire exercise will be held on April 10 at Pingtan island in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said it was monitoring the situation and would respond accordingly “to defend our country.”

In recent years, China has “continued to send aircraft and ships to harass the region,” the ministry said in a statement.

“It even used President Tsai’s visit to the United States as an excuse to conduct military exercises, which has seriously damaged regional peace, stability and security.”

Taiwan’s military would respond calmly and rationally in order not to escalate tensions, it said.

On Thursday, after the Tsai-McCarthy meeting in California, Beijing promised to take “strong and resolute measures” as it condemned the U.S. for “crossing the line and acting provocatively” against China.

“This [the meeting] is essentially the United States acting with Taiwan to connive at ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists’ political activities in the United States,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

President Tsai is now back in Taipei. Upon her arrival on Friday, she said her trip proved that “when facing pressure and coercion, Taiwan will only become more unified.”

“We will never give in to attempts to hold us down, nor will we shy away from obstacles or cease engaging with the world,” Tsai said during remarks at Taoyuan International Airport.