My class of Uyghur English students (and Jennifer)

UYGHUR
Conclusions

“Is Arnold Schwarzenegger the master of Texas?” –Curious Uyghur English Student

The headmaster’s office at a popular night school in Kashgar was littered with posters of American action heroes. The room was filled with the alternating grins and grimaces of Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the English teachers told me that he’s heard that the one American women really like is Tom Cruise. “When he smiles the women just go nuts!” he said. That aside, the real hero of every Uyghur young man who knows anything about the world is Arnold Schwarzenegger – particularly as he is portrayed in his miraculous movie Terminator. Since all of these Hollywood movie stars speak Uyghur in the over-dubbed films shown on Xinjiang State Television it is not difficult to understand the sort of impression an indefatigable muscle man like Arnold can make to a Uyghur confronted with the hierarchical and systematic discrimination of the Chinese state. That such a man who looks and sounds much more Uyghur than Chinese could become a major political leader in America (the chief international defender of minority rights in China) – does not strike Uyghur students of the world as ludicrous (as it does many Americans!), rather Arnold the Fearless Magician might seem something like a modern day Shamil – a charismatic defender of the oppressed. As a guest lecturer to a classroom of advanced Uyghur English students, much of the questions I fielded had to do with my knowledge of American pop stars: their openness to Islam, their political position in American life, and whether or not life in America resembled life in the movies.

Like societies under tight state control the world over, the Uyghurs of Northwest China are hungry for news fom the outside world and curious as to whether that news supports their presuppositions as to how the world works. During the most recent wave of destruction of the centuries-old town of Kashgar and its replacement with Chinese –style super wide avenues and chintzy tourist shops, the vastly broadened main square in front of the iconic Id Kha mosque was equipped with a 20 foot Jumbotron television. It is not unusual to spot old grey-bearded men on their way home from evening prayers standing transfixed next to snot-nosed ragamuffins catching up on the latest news out of Urumqi or the latest Uyghur dance video. Although it is impossible to know what is running through their minds as they watch these flickering images, I believe with James Clifford that partial truths of who an-other subject is can be known. I have tried in this essay to show to some small extent what Uyghurs might be thinking when they meet to dance, sing, cook, cry, and love. Of course, I was not able to express all I know even though what I know is severely limited by the constraints of time-space and lack of deep language learning. I hope I have at the very least illustrated that the source of Uyghur identity is multiplex and not simply an opposition to Chinese hegemony, in fact in many ways it is not the case at all.

Uyghurs share a deep familiarity with Central Asian lifeways. Their ritual practices owe a large debt to Sufism and in particular the local Naqshbandi variation of it. Though some may argue that shamanism rather than Islam had a greater shaping power on Uyghur lifeways, for Uyghurs the argument in a moot point – as for them theirs is the true Islam and their way the “clean path.”

Uyghurs have resisted Chinese colonialism and Orientalism in pragmatic ways which produce a fluid “natural” soundness of identity. As of yet there is little pretence, little “selling” or marketing of culture, in their production of what others view as an exotic identity. This is changing rapidly since the all-new railroad which cuts through Altishahr is bringing thousands of tourists into the region each summer. As job opportunities are continually undercut by Chiense migrant workers fluent in the language of Chinese money, Uyghurs may be forced to join the “happy dancing natives” simulacrum that permeates much of minority society in China; or they may be forced to join the economic refugee crisis in that effects so much of urban China. In the main, Uyghurs live their lives the way they do for no other reason than that they believe their way is “pure and true” (in Chinese qing jin). For now, Uyghurs are Central Asian subjects who live in Northwest China; and until Arnold Schwarzenegger or some other modern day “master of Texas” (sic) or master of Altishahr arrives most of them are content to grumble and continue performing their lives in the same pragmatic sort of way.

There is a really nice article on life in Kashgar at Slate.com if you are interested in reading more about Uyghurs.