I. Forms of Othering and their Consequences

A. Two key questions from Schein, Chio, and Strassler

1. How are the processes through which Miao in China or Chinese in Indonesia defined as other similar to or different from Orientalism, as defined by Edward Said?
2. What are the consequences of this othering in the different contexts we've explored? When it provides the chance to get a job or run a business or when it provides a means from which to engage in constructing a sense of what the nation is, is it harmful?

B. Uyghur (China) and Rohingya (Burma/Myanmar) crises provoke additional questions about othering and violence

1. What forms of othering propel these processes?
2. Where do they come from in a historical sense?
3. Are they different in quality or kind from the kinds of othering that fuels Miao tourism or Chinese photographic depictions of Indonesia? Is there a slippery slope from one form of othering to the other?
4. How are these processes of othering connected to global systems of power, such as colonialism or contemporary capitalism and discourses about Muslim extremism?

 

II. Lawfare and Spaciocide (MacLean)

A. Burma/Myanmar government cleared 55 villages in Northern Rakhine state
B. 2016-2017 crackdown --> exodus of more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim to Bangladesh
C. Erasure of villages: http://newsvideo.su/video/8362063
D. Lawfare

1. Radiating centers of power versus container state
2. Autonomy through statehood versus Tatmadaw (military) settlements and businesses
3. Internal divisions among Rohingya leaders
4. Lawfare = the use of legal codes and systems to achieve military or political goals (5)
5. Rohingya = stateless non-citizens
6. Colonial heritage

a. British concept of "'national ethnic races'" (6)
b. 135 national ethnic races today, but Rohingya are defined as Bengalis who migrated after 1823; Rohingya activists disagree
c. Focus on language and culture as key to nation privileges ethnic Burmans

7. 1982 Citizenship Law stripped Rohingya of citizenship
8. "'People who believe in Islam in Rakhine state'" (8)

E. Spaciocide: destruction of a group's space

1. Military forces (national and local), entrepreneurs, and Buddhist Rakhine communities
2. 2016-2017 clearances
3. Movement

a. Rohingya need to pay to travel
b. Loss of farmland compels travel for labor

4. Eviction

a. 1990s government took land to construct model villages and military camps
b. External actors: agri-business

5. Internally Displaced Person camps

a. Mass violence after three Rohingya men received death sentences for the rape of a Rakhine woman
b. 140,000 people were displaced, 95% of them Muslim
c. Spatial segregation between Buddhists and Muslims
d. Now 120,000 IDPs in camps, 78% of them women and children

F. Result

1. Military seen as protecting population from internal threat
2. Post 9/11 discourse of militant Muslim threat
3. Theravada Buddhism as unifying force for Burma/Myanmar
4. Fear that crisis --> privileges for minorities

G. Erasure of Rohingya is enormously popular in Burma/Myanmar

 

III. Forced Cultural Assimilation (Thum)

A. Uyghurs = majority ethnic group in Tarim Basin
B. Conquered by Qing Empire in 1759 --> new administrative region of Xinjiang (New Territory)
C. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: map
D. Uyghurs are one of China's 56 nationalities
E. Most Uyghurs live in regions where they are the majority; almost all are Muslims and farmers
F. Uyghurs see PRC rule as illegitimate; China sees Uyghurs as threat --> strict security regime
G. Emergence of Uyghur identity as such from 20th-21st century

1. Uighur = ancient name in the 8th to 15th centuries, unclear whether those peoples are linked to contemporary groups
2. Muslim speakers of Eastern Turki dialects with roots in Xinjiang wanted to revive an ancient name as part of identity
3. 1930s: some political recognition, including USSR
4. PRC (1949): ethnic identity term Uyghur emerges
5. Xinjiang becomes full-fledged PRC colony, Chinese administration

a. Prior late Qing Sinicization: political leaders and Confucian schools
b. Circulation across border with Russia --> pan-Turkism and Uyghur nationalism
c. Republican period (1911-1949): uneven political control, financial problems, growing USSR power and nationalities policy
d. Uyghur identity emerged: Taranchis and Kashgaris (USSR); Altishahris and Taranchis (China)
e. 1930s

i. Short-lived state of East Turkestan, aka Uyghuristan
ii. Chinese Republican governor of Xinjiang depends on Soviet support
iii. Uyghur as designation for Altishahris
iv. Formalization of writing system: literacy as form of control
v. Movement across the border with USSR --> Turkic intellectual world, Uyghur elite
vi. "Uyghur" probably isn't meaningful term to farmers

6. Post 1949 Mao period

a. Islamic court system replaced with state system
b. Land reform undermines Islamic institutions
c. State codifies music, restores tomb, collects folklore, formalizes language
d. Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution: reshaped economic relations, forced conformity to Han Chinese cultural norms
e. Uyghur leaders purged
f. Islamic religious institutions dismantled, many practices go underground

H. Hanification through migration: 6.1% (1953) --> 32.9% (1964) --> 40% (1982)
I. Today: Uyghurs not majority in Xinjiang overall, but they are in the southern half
J. Post-Mao Uyghur Islamic revival: mosques, pilgrimage, modified Arabic alphabet

1. Not clear whether economic growth has benefited Uyghurs
2. Globalization --> access to Muslim and non-Muslim cultural products, global Islamic piety
3. Political agitation and violence

K. Post-9/11/2001: China depicts Uyghur resistance as terrorism

1. Urumqi uprising (2009) --> nearly 200 bystanders, mostly Han, killed
2. Government shut down internet, People's Armed Police set up checkpoints
3. Today: Uyghur passports have been confiscated, cars have mandatory GPS devices, phones carry government spyware, and some checkpoints have facial recognition technology
4. Assimilationist policies: ban Uyghur language education, cash incentives for interethnic marriages

L. 2017-present: reeducation camps

1. Up to one million detainees
2. Uyghurs stopping social media activity
3. Construction projects: satellite images
4. 5-10% population now interned. Gearing up for mass killing?

M. Policies claim that belief systems and ideas incite resistance, not government restrictions, economics, or status
N. Camps "treat and cleanse the virus from their brains"
O. Generational divisions

1. Interning large percentage of those born between 1980 and 2000
2. Children surveil parents

P. Dehumanizing terms: tumors and weeds
Q. Material factors: Xinjiang has...

1. 1/6 of China's land area, less than 1% of population
2. 1/3 of China's natural gas and oil reserves
3. Lots of mineral resources
4. 60% of China's cotton production