This Reuters article follows the standard mainstream media practice of couching all Chinese reporting about jihad activity in China as Chinese government claims, as if it were rather unbelievable that China could be facing a jihad threat. After all, who ever heard of a Muslim minority in a country agitating for a separate Islamic state and committing acts of jihad terror in service of that goal? (Pay no attention to the Philippines, Thailand, or to similar jihad violence in Nigeria, Syria, etc.!)
Note also the use of the all-purpose sobriquet “restive” for areas where jihad activity is common. In mainstream media reports, Xinjiang is restive, southern Thailand is restive, Mindanao is restive, Nigeria’s Kano state and other areas are restive, etc. It’s their standard Homeric epithet for places where Muslims are committing regular acts of violence in the name of Islam.
“China says station attackers wanted to carry out jihad abroad,” from Reuters, March 5 (thanks to Lookmann):
Beijing: A group of people from China’s restive western region of Xinjiang who carried out a deadly weekend attack at a train station were trying to leave the country to wage a holy war, state media said on Wednesday.
China says militants from Xinjiang, home to a large Muslim Uighur minority, launched the attack last Saturday in the southwestern city of Kunming, killing at least 29 people and wounding about 140.
Police shot dead four of the assailants and captured the other four.
Qin Guangrong, Communist Party chief of Yunnan province where Kunming is located, said that the eight attackers “originally wanted to participate in ‘jihad’,” state media, including Xinhua news agency, reported.
“They could not leave from Yunnan, so they looked elsewhere, and went to Guangdong province, but also could not leave, so they returned to Yunnan,” Qin was quoted as saying.
They then went to Yunnan’s Honghe county, which borders Vietnam, where they planned, if they were unable to leave the country from there, to carry out jihad either in Honghe or at railway or bus stations in Kunming, he added….
Many Uighurs say they are unhappy at Chinese restrictions on their culture and religion, though the government says they are given widespread freedoms.
Beijing says it faces a real threat from militant Islamists in Xinjiang who want an independent state called East Turkestan. Authorities say many have links with foreign groups, though rights groups and some foreign experts say there is little evidence to support this….
mortimer says
All regions have high percentages of Muslims. Coincidence?
What say you, Prof. Esposito?
Angemon says
I believe his response to that would be something along the lines of “ISLAMOPHOBIA!!!!“
Gharkad says
My guess is his would be the old ‘No True Scotsman’ excuse:
“Yes, they were done by people who were notionally muslim, but they were mentally unbalanced by their secular concerns about self government and their actions were completely unrelated to their religion. In effect they were not True Muslims, and for anyone to paint them as such is a more serious crime of Islamophobia which needs to be further suppressed, as it’s this islamophobia which is causing muslims to want to enact the prescriptions of islam and kill the kuffar, on a strictly secular basis, of course.”
The muslim inhabitants of Xinjiang lead lives much freer of religious oppression than that they would be subject to were they to live across the border in Pakistan. Were they to live under the religious oppression of community shari’a backed up with governmental shari’a, they would soon realise how free they currently are. No more music outside the main mosque in Kashgar.
Mazo says
Not one Muslim from other ethnic groups in China (Hui, Salar, and Dongxiang) have ever participated in terrorist violence or expressed seperatist views. The only people who committed this violence are Uyghurs from TIP.
Uyghurs are poorly integrated into China’s economic system, many of them lacking knowledge of Mandarin and live in a state of unemployment, social ills and poverty, unlike Hui.
Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad says
So, it is because they are poor, uneducated and do not speak the language. That caused them to go kill and maim a bunch of people who have probably done absolutely nothing against them. That is the age old liberal bullshit cheer. It has been applied to crimes all over the world. The truth here is this was a jihad attack as per the moronic book of the crazies. The only good use for a koran would be to use it to start a fire or as an alternative to toilet paper. Keep the excuses coming and we will continue preparing for the coming Crusade that the muzzies are going to force to occur.
gravenimage says
Mazo wrote:
Uyghurs are poorly integrated into China’s economic system, many of them lacking knowledge of Mandarin and live in a state of unemployment, social ills and poverty…
……………………………..
So—the only beef these poor oppressed Muslims have is with the Chinese government.
And yet, these Muslims planned to carry out Jihad abroad—just like every other Jihadist. Really, it’s a mystery…sarc/off
dumbledoresarmy says
I’m coming in late here, as I wander back through the archives, having been less able to visit this forum during the past month (March 2014) than usually.
But it strikes me that this description of a Muslim minority in China – “Uyghurs are poorly integrated into China’s economic system, many of them lacking knowledge of Mandarin and live in a state of unemployment, social ills and poverty” – could just as easily describe Mohammedan minorities just about everywhere, including in rich and free western welfare states.
For example, “Pakistanis are poorly integrated into Britain’s economic system, many of them lacking knowledge of English, and live in a state of unemployment, social ills and poverty”.
Or, “Moroccans/ Maghrebin Muslims are poorly integrated into French society, many of them being ill-educated, speaking bad French, and living in a state of unemployment, social ills and poverty”.
Nicolai Sennels’ observations upon Muslims in Scandinavia – Scandinavia!, with its generous welfare state – would fit this paradigm just as well.
Whether in first-world free countries, or in countries like Russia and China, and whether the Muslims in question are immigrants or indigenes (Malay Muslims, Indian Muslims) who converted to Islam generations ago whilst others of their compatriots did not, and whether in the first-world or third-world, Muslim-dominated suburbs (the banlieues of France), districts, provinces and regions tend to be dismally similar.
Mazo says
And Voldemort’s army ignores the fact that other Muslims in China like the Hui and Salar are very competent in speaking the national language and are skilled businessmen and very much integrated into China.
jeffpresidentlo says
Again this cold war enmity against China is outrageously conspicuous. While we can’t deny that the policies employed are precariously obnoxious, this menace is still eminent.
Roger says
I think the jihadist in the world is growing up and is trying to take advantage on others until Obama leave the white house
Buraq says
Well, Mazo?
Clown!
Champ says
The evil islamic cancer has metastasized and it’s spreading worldwide …radical treatment; eg, new laws dealing with this crisis, need to be enacted. Gosh I’m such a hopeless *realist*.
Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad says
Yes and this cancer will require radiation to treat it. “Hello, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos? Yes, I would like to place an order for fifty neutron bombs.”
Salah says
“Authorities say many have links with foreign groups, though rights groups and some foreign experts say there is little evidence to support this….”
These so-called “right groups” and “foreign experts” are the real problem. When it comes to Islam, they need to shut up!