Han and Uighurs Battle For Historicity
[via Rumbles on the Rim of China’s Empire by Edward Wong]
“A history exhibition in the main museum in this regional capital goes one step further. “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” it asserts, implying that Beijing or Xian or some other imperial capital has for time immemorial held sway over this land at the crossroads of Asian civilizations.
But many Uighurs, a Turkic race of Muslims that is the largest ethnic group among the 20 million people of Xinjiang, have their own competing historical narrative. In it, the region is cast as the Uighurs’ homeland, and the ethnic Han, who only began arriving in large numbers after the Communist takeover in 1949, are portrayed as colonizers.
Mechanisms typical of colonial control — the migration of Han, who are China’s dominant race, and government policies that support the spread of Han language, culture and economic power — provided tinder, some scholars say, for the conflagration of the past week in Xinjiang.”
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These arguments are consistent the world over when contending ethnic groups attempt to use history to support the legitimacy of their claims for controlling some geography. The Serbs consider Kosovo their homeland, the Israelis believe that Israel is ordained to be a Jewish state, and the Georgians and Abhaz argue about whose ancient kings were more ancient.
Whether the Uighurs have 1000 years or 1400 years of history in Xinjiang or not, the Han are definitely marching toward total integration of the area into China.
