News coming out of Eastern Turkistan shows that the violence occurring has reached massacre proportions. Even numbers reflected by limited means to the outside world are sufficient to show the oppressive policies of the Chinese administration. The rosy picture that was painted during the Urumchi visit that President Gül made recently has suddenly turned bloody.

Without taking into account Eastern Turkistan’s historical background and the Chinese occupational regime’s intentions in regard to the region, optimistic expectations will remain only a diplomatic photograph. It is not possible for the Turkish intelligentsia to comprehend the situation of Muslim Uygurs in Eastern Turkistan, which the Chinese named Sinjan.

Contrary to migrant Turkish clans, the Uygurs had a settled civilization from very early periods and the contribution they made to Turkish culture within the circle of Islam is great. For this reason, the resistance of the Uygurs to the Chinese was strong both culturally and politically.

We can say that in the near future the Uygurs, more generally the Eastern Turkistan issue, will be one of the important areas of conflict that will catch the world’s interest. Just as the occupation and assimilation policies that China applies are not independent of international balances of power, they are also closely related to the Chinese national identity that it wants to form.

Within this framework, a future perspective for the Eastern Turkistan issue can be developed under three headings: 1- How the Uygurs define their own state of belonging, 2- China’s approach to Muslim Uygurs, 3- The approach of the international balance of powers towards the Eastern Turkistan issue.

1- Their Uygur identity and their position as a minority under the Chinese administration are directly related to their cultural and historical position regardless of what their political status is. This necessitates that the Uygurs establish a direct correlation with their belonging to the Islamic civilization, or Muslimness. For the most important factor that separates the Uygurs from the Chinese is their being the most important representatives of a different civilization in the center of Asia.

In parallel to this, it would be the greatest mistake to take up the issue separately from Eastern Turkistan. Just as much as it is a geographical unity, Eastern Turkistan is also a home for different Muslims living there. In addition to sheltering people of Turkish roots like the Khirgiz and the Kazaks, it is also a refuge for the Hui Muslims.

Reducing the Eastern Turkistan issue to a human rights issue, particularly for America to use against China, creates the risk of making the struggle controlled. Protecting the language of Muslim Uygurs, introducing their rich written culture on a world-wide basis and passing it on to future generations should be determined as a basic strategy. Protection of their language and religion is the most important source of resistance faced by Chinese policies.

2- As the dominant civilization, China’s policies aimed at wearing down Eastern Turkistan and the Uygurs demand continuity. It is helpful to remind that the Chinese identity emphasizes belonging to a civilization rather than an ethnic base. For this reason, the Uygur issue cannot be understood with an ethnocentric approach. Rather than ethnic differentiation, the policy of forming a nation that has been melted in Chinese civilization has continued from the empire period to today. With a Marxist approach the communist Chinese regime tried to construct a Chinese nation based on the production process that shaped the cultural and social structure, while going towards a structuralist definition of identity synthesis.

It is not necessary to say that it was only the Muslim identity that resisted this.

Some of the most important dangers facing the Uygurs are China’s operating Eastern Turkistan’s natural resources and the Chinese policy of using Eastern Turkistan as a population and military barrier against Russia. The beginning of rapid deterioration of the demographic balance brings together with it cultural and socio-economic dissolution and conflict.

3- In respect to the relationship of the international balances of power with the region, the biggest dilemma for the Uygurs is to be an actor among the competition among Russia, China and America. It is clear that this competition is advantageous from the vantage point of powers who want to use the Uygur issue to contain China’s rising star. In fact, America’s already extending a hand to the Uygur Diaspora within the framework of “a human rights problem” and their efforts to form a leadership in their control needs to be watched carefully. Under no circumstances should the struggle the Uygurs will give against Chinese oppression take form outside the Islamic world. If the vacuum that will be created by the power struggle to be made in the heart of Asia is taken advantage of, it will have a greater chance of finding its own voice. The process that allowed for the political existence of Eastern Turkistan since the 19th century was made possible by taking advantage of these balances. A controlled leadership makes this almost impossible.

Ýlgili YazýlarEnglish, Siyaset