Jihad Watch: Muslim conflict now hits China as 148 die in ethnic violence

November 15, 2004

Muslim conflict now hits China as 148 die in ethnic violence

That headline comes straight from the original story, and you can see that it wants to have it both ways: it's "Muslim conflict" but also "ethnic violence." Yet we're told that there is no significant ethnic difference between the two groups. From The Telegraph, with thanks to Fanabba:

A convoy of military lorries roared along the dirt track leading to a fertile valley of rice paddies and ridges of garlic shoots in central China. Green-uniformed soldiers equipped with razor-wire and cannons stared out blankly at Chinese police, who stood to attention as they passed through a checkpoint.
They were heading for two neighbouring villages, Nanren and Weitang, which have co-existed peacefully for centuries - but where, earlier this month, martial law was abruptly declared after a row over a traffic accident escalated into pitched battles that left 148 people dead.

The soldiers' mission was to prop up the facade of ethnic harmony, constructed by the country's Communist dictatorship over the past 55 years but dramatically undermined by the eruption of conflict between Hui Muslims and their Han Chinese neighbours. The troops sealed off the villages to prevent other militants coming to the aid of their fellow Muslims and stop the fighting spreading across China.

At a checkpoint near the villages, a policeman boasted of his efforts to keep out "foreign" agitators and admitted that the situation was tense. "Our leaders are still holding talks between the two sides but there has been no resolution yet," he said. "Relations are very bitter. Too many people have died in a bad way."

Just 10 days since China's worst outbreak of inter-communal violence in more than a decade, Communist Party officials fear that the unrest in Henan province - the birthplace of China's 4,000-year-old civilisation - is a worrying sign of trouble to come....

The violence is a setback for the Chinese government's policy of permitting a modest Islamic revival among the Hui, one of the country's most moderate Muslim minorities. It was also a sign that underlying ethnic tensions across China's teeming territory are a continuing challenge to Beijing's rule. At stake is the imperative set out in the official government slogan, "The 56 ethnic groups are one family."...

A local imam said that one of his followers was found beheaded in rice paddy ditches, a Hui official told The Sunday Telegraph. "They share the same market, but the Hui people are insulted by the Han's behaviour," he said. "The Han stallholders try to sell them pork, pushing it in front of their faces all the time. Now the imam says the Han in Weitang are savages who mock our traditions by cutting our throats."

By appearance there is nothing to distinguish the 10 million Hui from other Chinese: only their faith sets them apart. They are descendants of Muslims who traded along the Silk Road between Europe and Asia, and married local women.

In that case, this hardly qualifies as an "ethnic" conflict, does it?

Perhaps ominously, the mosque leaders appear sympathetic to the insurgents in Iraq. The mosque's Ramadan letter declares: "In our Muslim world, our brothers are suffering a great disaster.
"Their actions in self-defence have been judged to be extremist terrorism, but they are struggling in an imperialist war that is killing people and rotting modern civilisation."

The defiant mood in Iraq is apparently shared by mosque elders, a foretaste of further problems ahead for the Chinese authorities. "If our brothers are being attacked," said one elder, Lao Mai, "it is a duty in our religion to join them in the fight."

Posted by Robert at November 15, 2004 2:02 AM
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Comments
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Proves that Islam is neither "racial" nor "ethnic" but an ideology that promotes violence and intolerance wherever it is planted. This truth can be repeated over and over again and still whenever the purveyors of the Islamic ideology cry "racist!" they touch a nerve in the multiculturalists who fear nothing more than offending anything that wraps itself in the mantle of "race," "religion," or "ethnicity."

Posted by: unicorns62000

at November 15, 2004 3:13 AM

In this conflict, I'm not sure that the fault lies entirely with the Hui. Most Chinese in areas with large Hui concentrations are sensitive enough to Muslim pork avoidance to refrain from offering pork to Muslims (the same way Christian Americans might prepare chicken, fish, or beef for a party where Jewish guests who are not well known might be expected). If it was people from southwestern Taiwan who offered pork to a Muslim, I'd chalk it up to ignorant hospitality; but in places like Yunnan, Qinghai, Henan, or other areas with noticeable Muslim minorities, offering pork to Muslims, drawing pigs on the walls of mosques, or making jokes about offering pork to Muslim ghosts are a little bit like white people yelling "NIGGER!" in Harlem or NE Washington--deliberate, tried-and-true, traditional, and generally uncalled-for provocations.

Further, Muslims have been present in many places in China since the Tang Dynasty. It's not as if these Sinophone Muslims are the equivalent of Ibrahim Hooper or John Wlaker Lindh.

Henan province is also notorious for a rotten record on respecting religious freedom. Lightly evangelized in 1949, it experienced a mushrooming of unregistered Christian groups in the 1980's and 1990's, and, in good Scientific Socialist fashion, the police and Party responded with arrests, beatings, razings of buildings, and similar methods of enlightening the supersititious masses. Hence, even if the Muslims engaged in the most harmless of exercises--more frequent prayer; more conscientiousness in keeping hallal; teaching prayers to children; etc.--they could easily attract the ire of the authorities, and even some official encouragement of anti-Muslim bigotry among the Han majority.

Also, by attacking the US intervention in Iraq, the imam may have been catering to his government, saying, "Look, I'm a patriotic PRC citizen as well as a good Muslim"--since China has been no ally of America's war on terror; and also wanted to undo the UN sanctions against Sodom Insane after Gulf War I. A decade ago, though, China's dissident Muslims generally had a positive view of America. Chalk one up for State's over-sensitivity to a bad government in Beijing, and a clueless, klutzy public diplomacy.

As for the ethnic portion of Hui identity, chalk one up for Communist servility to the ghost of that expert on nationalities, Joseph Stalin (whose inspirational portrait can still be bought at official bookstores in China). For Chiang Kai-shek's government, Hui were just Muslim Chinese, to be fed mutton or beef rather than pork when in uniform.

Posted by: Kepha1

at November 15, 2004 4:29 AM

Goes to show that the 'Muslim Problem' is GLOBAL.
Wherever you've got the Buggers, you got TROUBLE.
Even the Han Chinese are admitting it these days.

Posted by: Morgane

at November 15, 2004 4:50 AM

When Muslim violence erupts in China, I think that it is quite significant.

While many western governments are reluctant to act against the sadly misguided followers of "Mohammed the Mass Murderer", because of the undue influence of the "politically correct" blind-clowns, the Chinese will never stand for this sort of PC bull-shit.

Deng Xiaoping said something to the effect, that if the Chinese government has to kill one million Chinese in order to restore law and order, then they will happily do it. In a country of one billion people, to sacrifice one million in order to save 999 million is a wise choice. China will never accept the type of Muslim extremism which is so often excused in the West, and elsewhere in the world.

China may well turn out to be the "wise old man" in this regard. The West may come to change their tune in the future, and not be so critical of China's stand on religion in general.

Posted by: PrinceHarry

at November 15, 2004 5:16 AM

I read a news item that Osama has tried to cut a deal with China that if gets safe haven
there he will assure China won't be attacked in the Global Jihad he's spearheading.

Lets watch and see how our gutless leaders
handle trade issues with China if Osama is given refuge there.

Posted by: ala-sux

at November 15, 2004 10:49 AM

I can't wait to see Jihadis from all over the place flocking to China the way the have to Chechnya, Iraq, etc., to come to the aid of their co-religionists.

Posted by: waterdragon52

at November 15, 2004 11:06 AM

What is this? Has every major city in every nation unlocked the gates of their zoos?

Posted by: DCWatson

at November 15, 2004 11:15 AM

"If our brothers are being attacked," said one elder, Lao Mai, "it is a duty in our religion to join them in the fight."

This is why the honeypot military doctrine works so well against jihadis. It was Sun Tzu himself who said, "seize something that the enemy cherishes, and he will conform to your desires." If the enemy wants to revive the Caliphate, seize the capital of the defunct empire and the one-time seat of the Caliph then invite the enemy to retrieve it. They have no choice; their ideology compels them to respond. Posted by: Hulegu Khan

at November 15, 2004 11:48 AM

I've been saying for years that as soon as the jihadis start seriously messing with the Chinese, they're finished. At least in China.

Peking don't play that. See Tibet (and the Tibetans were never a serious threat, just a target of opportunity).

Bu-bye, Sinophone jihadis. Enjoy your raisins.

Posted by: Cato the Elder

at November 15, 2004 4:07 PM

Prince Harry: China isn't the wise old man of the world. It's a spiritual colony of 19th century Germany, flitting between socialism and arrogant nationalism; and utterly contemptuous of ordinary people. I'm of the mind that a ruling Communist Party and a jihad deserve each other richly.

Posted by: Kepha1

at November 16, 2004 8:05 PM