The Happening Sinopsis
Latisha Gervase
I first became interested in Uyghur society and culture when I visited their homeland in 2003. At the time I was a photography student. I was really taken with the vibrant street life in the Uyghur oasis cities. The courtyard houses and twisting alleyways seemed to have a real vitality, but I could also see that this native way of building a society was on the verge of changing. Chinese state and commercial investments in resource extraction industries such as oil and natural gas were beginning to change the basic fabric of Uyghur native ways of life. This is what prompted me to focus my research on this part of the world. Over the years, this interest was deepened as I built relationships with Uyghur friends.
I am interested in understanding the forces that are shaping the lives of a younger generation of Uyghurs. I wanted to know why young Uyghurs want to leave their villages and travel to the city. I also wanted to understand what they find as the enter city life and how they represent this experience. I wanted to know how they navigated new forms of policing and control.
One of the most interesting things I found through my research was the role of friendship in the lives of young Uyghur migrant men. Since many young migrants were delaying marriage in order to travel to the city to make money and follow their passions, they relied on close friendship networks for moral support. These friendships also provided financial stability, helped them to find jobs, and drew them into communities of Islamic piety and cosmopolitan living. I found that the rhythms and intimacies of these friendships, which were cultivated on a daily basis by sharing meals and walking the streets of the city, built tight bonds between men. They also helped young Uyghurs to cope with the overwhelming fear of being disappeared by the Chinese state.
You have been in Xinjiang recently, what is the most striking difference between now and then? Is there something that you think might have escaped all the media attention the region has been getting lately?
It also means that there are tens of thousands of young police officers, both Uyghur and Han, who perform spot checks of IDs and smart phones, throughout the Uyghur areas. Many Uyghurs have joined the police force as low-level officers in order to protect themselves and their families from being sent to the reeducation camps. In the villages, there are over one million state-sponsored civilian workers, most of whom are Han, who monitor Uyghur activities and train villagers in political thought. In many villages a significant percentage of those of military age have been taken to the camps for indefinite periods of reeducation. The camps function as minimum to medium security prisons and demand that detainees confess their crimes, speak Chinese and demonstrate loyalty to the Chinese state.
I was not overtly harassed by the police. At times I was stopped by police at checkpoints, but typically when I explained that I was a foreigner they were happy to let me continue on my way with only a cursory glance through my passport. Low-level Uyghur police who stopped me at checkpoints were often happy to chat with me in Uyghur.
I was watched more closely in more rural Uyghur areas and at times prevented from traveling beyond checkpoints by police. My sense is that I was most likely watched via camera systems in urban areas. In more rural areas, the police were alerted to my presence and knew who I was as I approached their checkpoints. I was followed on several occasions and stopped from traveling in those areas.
Yes, many of the Uyghurs I met during my fieldwork have been taken by the police. In some cases, I have been able to confirm that they were taken to prison or the reeducation centers. It is actually now easier to confirm who has not yet been taken. Of 25 Uyghurs with whom I built my closest friendships in 2014 and 2015, I have been able to confirm that five remain free and that 11 have been taken. These friends range from university professors to precarious migrant workers.
At this point there is no overt or open resistance to what is happening in the Uyghur homeland. People are simply too afraid to speak or act in defiance to the state. Of course, Uyghurs have embodied memories of a more autonomous forms of Uyghur life that are deeply resilient and resistant in their thinking. But these thoughts can only be expressed in deeply private moments and spaces.
Although Han who have grown up in the province express more sympathy for the Uyghurs, in the end there is not a significant difference between how they treat Uyghurs and how recent arrivals to the province treat Uyghurs. The security industry and transformation program has produced a power dynamic that pits Han against Uyghurs in nearly all aspects of life. Individual attempts by Han to mitigate the violence of the system may have the effect of making violence less severe in an individual instance, but at the end of the day Uyghur society is still being erased.
The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated the way totalitarian systems of control have the effect of normalizing sadistic forms of interpersonal violence. In such systems, whether on an institutional level in a camp or prison or on the level of a police state as in present day Northwest China, former-colleagues, neighbors and friends are compelled to exert authoritarian forms of domination in order to perform their assigned tasks and to protect themselves from punishment. Because totalitarian systems normalize the inhumane treatment of others by saying it is for the greater good or simply because it was what those in authority have determined to be appropriate, it is difficult for those subjected to these systems to refuse to participate in them.
There are several things that make what is happening in Northwest China different and more extreme than the Stanford Prison Experiment. First, what is happening is much larger in scale in terms of time and space. It extends over years and effects an entire society as whole. Second, because it focuses on the elimination of a set of religious beliefs and cultural values much of the trauma that is being inflicted is more directly psychologically damaging rather than simply dehumanizing. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the camps use cutting-edge technology to monitor and control inmates which has the effect of radically reducing all forms of physical and mental autonomy. In the camps, we are told, the sounds and movements of inmates are monitored. Words and gestures are recorded. Even their faces may be monitored for emotions of resistance. It is likely that in some cases these forms of surveillance are automated, using AI-enabled computer vision systems. This use of technology has the effect of further dehumanizing the inmates and removing prison workers from immediacy of the violence they are enacting.
The current campaigns eradicating Uyghur culture have started in 2016 at the latest, yet the global public has only learned about Xinjiang in the last couple of months, why do you think that is?
Uyghurs are a stateless people who have been colonized by an authoritarian state that is attempting to exert totalitarian control over their society. As a result, it is extremely difficult for Uyghurs to find spaces where they can explain what is happening to them. It also makes it difficult for independent researchers to gain access to accurate information as to what is happening on the ground. At the same time, China is now a major player on the world stage and because of this many nations and international institutions are fearful of criticizing China. The Chinese state has also mobilized a vast propaganda machine to obfuscate or gaslight the violent actions they are carrying out toward Uyghurs. These factors, taken together, are what has made it difficult for Uyghurs to access institutional support from international organizations.
You have been studying Xinjiang for many years, it has never gotten much attention up until recently and now you get to appear on the TV, give public talks and interviews like this one. How does it feel to come from a researcher of an obscure region to one of the most outspoken actors in the heated debate about Xinjiang under these circumstances?
Being placed in this position has made it clear that it is important to stand as an accomplice in Uyghur struggles. This means being willing to utilize a bit of my own privilege as a white, male, US citizen and scholar to advocate for Uyghur rights, amplify Uyghur stories, and stand up to the Chinese regime. It also means being willing to shape my research, teaching, and public advocacy around these issues.
My Uyghur friends, colleagues and acquaintances have sacrificed so much to tell their stories. They are the real carriers of knowledge about what is happening to them. Acting as an accomplice in their struggle, means that I need to speak as a listener. At this moment, Uyghurs need friends to listen to their stories and show them that their lives matter.
Uyghurs in diaspora need friends and colleagues to support them and help them tell their stories. This may look like organizing interfaith events and human rights advocacy actions. It may mean working with Uyghur friends to translate the accounts of disappearances. It may mean making documentary films about life in the absence of loved-ones. Or it may simply mean inviting a Uyghur friend out for coffee and asking them if they are doing ok.
It also means advocating for Uyghurs to people in positions of state and institutional power. It means supporting Uyghur institutions. It also means speaking to your Han friends about what is happening to Uyghurs and asking them to speak to their parents and loved ones about what their state is doing.
A lot is happening in True Detective: Night Country, making it hard for viewers to keep track of all the moving parts. Although True Detective: Night Country has still not resolved many overarching mysteries, the show has laid the foundation of intrigue and complexity to finally answer all the underlying questions in its finale. However, since True Detective season 4 is unfolding several subplots with the main storyline, one may find it challenging to keep up with everything that is happening.
c80f0f1006