China Razes the Cradle of a Culture
Paul Mooney reports on the demolition of Kashgar’s old town and of a centuries old way of life:
A government plan worth US$440 million (Dh1.6 billion) calls for the relocation of 65,000 Uighur households, about 220,000 people, whose families have lived in the Old City for centuries. Until a few weeks ago, the area housed 40 per cent of the city’s residents in its labyrinth-like alleyways, where the naturalness of the life made it a popular tourist destination and one that was not ruined by tourism.
For centuries, children played on the cobblestone streets of the Old City, mothers standing in the doorways of their mud-brick dwellings chatting with neighbours, their faces covered by scarves. Bearded men wearing embroidered doppas (skullcaps) have walked daily to the many small neighbourhood mosques that pepper the area for prayers, passing by coppersmiths hammering pieces of metal into shiny pots, butchers cutting lamb in the open air and bakers slapping traditional flatbreads on to the sides of a tandoor, a makeshift clay oven.
According to the state media, the ancient district – which provided the exotic backdrop for Kabul in the movie The Kite Runner – chosen for its close resemblance to that vibrant Afghan city of the 1970s must be torn down because of poor drainage, unsound construction and susceptibility to earthquakes.
Irritated residents claim the government made no attempt to discuss the demolition plan with them or to consider other ways of dealing with the problems.
POSTED COMMENTS: 16 Responses
“… must be torn down because of poor drainage, unsound construction and susceptibility to earthquakes.”
What a hypocritical argument!
The old city of Kashgar has stood for centuries. In contrast, it was “modern” buildings, in particular schools, built by the government (not government buildings, though) that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake…
The CCP wants to bulldoze Uighur culture as they plan to do with the Tibetans by forcibly settling hundreds of thousands of nomads in Potemkin villages.
How much longer will the CCP be allowed to get away with such policies in the 21st century?
The CCP wants to bulldoze Uighur culture as they plan to do with the Tibetans by forcibly settling hundreds of thousands of nomads in Potemkin villages.
jh your fertile imagination must be admired. Desertification is not some kind of ploy to torment the Tibetan or Uyghur it is a real menace to habitation.
The reason why, is because as China grew rich demand for meat grows which in turn motivate nomade to grew their flock. The problem is Sheeps is the wrong herd to feed on the ecologicaly fragile dessert because sheeps has teeth on both jaws and have sharps hoof to dig the root of vegetation Therefore they are destructive machine single handedly turn semi dessert into dessert in one generation .Effort has been made to replace the herd with Cows, like they do in Mongolia. So it not out of malice to torment the Tibetan or Uyghur but self preservation Here is a good article by Canadian NGO
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008693.html
In China, desertification is exacerbated by overgrazing by sheep and other animals. As Chinese make more money, they are eating greater quantities of meat; by last year, herd numbers had increased fourfold over 1960s levels. The Chinese government has responded by imposing grazing bans and relocating rural residents to settlements that are effectively ecological refugee camps.
And as of Uyghur, You cannot live in the past the world move on, agree that some kind of relic preservation is warranted, but to stop the progress in the name of Ethnic nostalgia is just wrong. No China is not in the business of tormenting her ethnic minority To the contrary China literaly tranform barren land into land of milk and honey thru hard work and sacrifice of untold generations, Starting from Xibe tribe in 1800 all the way to million of demobilized korean veteran, Red guard, who were told to guard and developed the frontier Here is the excerpt from Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5269895/Chinas-transformation-pictures-reveal-explosive-development-in-Xinjiang.html
When Mr Li, now 72, first arrived in the desert town in 1956 with a military construction gang sent to “Develop the West”, he found a dusty clutch of buildings settled around a mosque belonging to the indigenous Uighur Turkic minority.
place appeared little changed from days when the British explorer Francis Younghusband passed through “Korlia” in 1887 to discover a mud-walled town with “one main street about 700 yards long”.
“There was virtually nothing,” Mr Li recalled of his first sight of the city, “just the old mosque and some narrow streets which were full of roaming donkeys and sheep and strewn with animal dung.”
Half a century later, Korla, 125 miles southwest of the provincial capital Urumqi, has been transformed into a thriving metropolis of 450,000, built on land reclaimed from the adjacent Taklamakan desert whose dust now wreaths clutches of high-rise apartment blocks and five star hotels.
I absolutely adore the Chinese people and their remarkable country and culture. On one hand, I believe that we Americans could learn a lot if we studied Chinese history. On the other hand, I am saddened by the Communists’ total disregard for Chinese tradition that was fostered by Mao (e.g.: gunning down Shaolin monks on sight; Tibet, etc., etc.)
Well, John,
it was Chinese policies that led to the first famines in Tibetan history in the first place!
See for example:
http://www.essays.cc/free_essays/d1/xaf34.shtml
I wonder how the Tibetans managed to live happily in their environment for millenia without famines and overgrazing, and why these problems have only come about since the occupation of Tibet by China…
Further, I am not aware that areas of Tibetan culture and lifestyle outside authoritarian China, e.g. Ladakh, Lahaul, Sikkim, Bhutan, have the same problems leading to the forced relocation of people.
“Les Amis du Tibet.” Available from: http://www.amis-tibet.lu Shakya, Tsering. The Dragon in the Land of Snows. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Stein, R.A. Tibetan Civilization. Translated by J.E. Stapleton Driver. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. Thomas, Lowell Jr. The Silent War in Tibet. New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1959. “Tibet les Droits de l’Homme.” Available from http://www.mabbh.org “Today’s Tibet.” Available from: http://www.friendsoftibet.org Tucci, Giuseppe. TIBET Land of Snows. Translated by J.E. Stapleton Driver. New York: Stein and Day, 1967
Reading the sources of this Lie and vilification of China I am not surprise
They are just that Lie and distortion of the truth. But proof well we don’t want to talk about it
So there was neither a famine in Tibet nor in China proper during the Great Leap forward?
And all sources who claim such, like the above or wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet) or any other non-CCP source, are “lying and vilifying China”?
There are people who believe that every word that is written in the bible is true. They read papers like “The Watchtower” and are very serious about it. Your bible obviously is the CCP propaganda…
With the Bible it is not easy to prove that it is wrong as all those fellows mentioned in it have passed away millenia ago (if they existed at all).
How can I prove that there was a famine in Tibet? Those Tibetans that starved to death are dead, and those who reported about it are Tibetan, and you don’t trust Tibetans because they are anti-China…
So proof well we can’t talk about it…
That is all the CCP does,,,they talk one way,and turn around and do the opposite. They only destroy and commit genocide,they kill the Uighurs,Tibetans,and replace with Han replacements,and make up cheap copies of the disappearing cultures they destroyed,so they get tourist money,they are all corrupt liars,that is why in the Olympics they used Han children to depict all the once living in china who have been “EXTERMINATED”.
How can I prove that there was a famine in Tibet? Those Tibetans that starved to death are dead, and those who reported about it are Tibetan, and you don’t trust Tibetans because they are anti-China…
Very easy to explain the 300,000 discrepancey is due to 150,000 people left for India 100,000 die in the war and maybe 50,000 due to GLF or other Mao failed policy.
The same argument applied that 50 million people die in GLF based on some mathematical number that a population statician concocted and since then regurgitated by any China basher
Lie repeated thousand times will become truth Joseph Goebbels
http://thenewvoice.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/the-myth-of-tibet-genocide/
Even Free Tibet Compaign director Patrick French said the allegation has no basis: “the Free Tibet Campaign in London (of which I am a former director) and other groups have long claimed that 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese since they invaded in 1950. However, after scouring the archives in Dharamsala while researching my book on Tibet, I found that there was no evidence to support that figure.” [9]
“The emigre myth is an obstacle to negotiated settlement on the Tibet question ” Barry Sautman
Tibet Myth and Reality
http://www.marxmail.org/tibet.pdf
…and the PRC’s (and supporters) BS continues.
With continued colonistic tyranny in Tibet and “Xinjiang”; and land-grabbing of Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, and now the Spratly Islands…its only a matter of time before the World has enough.
I like this guy proposal
http://thenewvoice.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/the-myth-of-tibet-genocide/
terminator
July 22, 2008 at 11:13 am
To JC:
Yeah, I’d love to stop fighting for the death figures – if the Exile group stops lying on it. Before that day comes true, I will not stop.
Regarding to the Tibet monks, I think the first thing the Chinese government should do is to remove the monks from the government payroll. A modern country should separate the church and the state. The Chinese government is stupid to be one of the few governments that financially sponsor the Tibet monks. I bet this will solve a lot of problems. When the monks struggles for everyday’s meal, they will pay less attention to independence and democracy.
Once again I am with you, John:
“A modern country should separate the church and the state.”
1) Tibetan monasteries should receive no money from the state, neither should monks or nuns.
2) Entry fees for all monasteries should go fully to the monastery.
3) Politically motivated temple management comitees have to be dissolved.
4) The government has to cancel its legislation on the recognition of Tibetan lamas and to stay away completely from meddling in the reincarnation process of Tibetan lamas, including HHDL, Panchen Lama, Karmapa etc.
Hmmmm….I wonder how the institution of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama came to be established?
A fascinating question to research.
The West again & again starts acting as if like a big, fat & ugly headmistress shouting endlessly to her class of supposedly inmatured students : hey guys! You can’t do this …& that….; You should just listen & do this & that…One day, these students can bear this no more & give her the 2-fingers & say: F#@*k off, you ain’t my dad!
Yes! This is exactly what Chinese should tell these white-skins in no unclear term!
i am for kicking chinese ocupants out of ocupated countries. those ethnics can live on their own without dumb chinese trying to teacvh them how they will find their leaders and what to do with own monastries and lifestyle.