It is all foreign to me ...

One of the many benefits to flying halfway around the world and making myself a home here in the United States is this: Over the years, I have had meaningful interactions with people from all over the world.  There is no doubt whatsoever that this has made me a better person.

Look at some examples that I have even blogged about:  Kugan from Sri Lanka. Siddiqui from Pakistan. Shahab from Iran. It has been a wonderful learning experience.

And there is a lot more to learn.  One life ain't enough.

Consider the Uighurs.  Yes, I have blogged about them too (like here.)  It was wonderful to have an Uighur student in class, who kept in touch with me for a few years even after she graduated.

Something new pops up all the time, even about Uighurs.

First, look at the person in this photo:

Source

She could be French, right? Or Spanish. Or Persian.  Or Turkish. Or even an Indian.  Yes?

"In France, people spoke to me in French, thinking I was French," she says. "In Italy, they spoke Italian to me."

And she is ... Uighur model Parwena Dulkun.

Yep, a Uighur.  Which means that she is Chinese.

The only country where she isn't mistaken for a local is her own.
"In many Chinese cities, people think I'm a foreigner," Dulkun says, giggling.
She uses these moments to educate her countrymen.
"They try to speak English to me, and I answer in Mandarin," she says. "Cab drivers always turn around and ask me what country I'm from."
She says she smiles proudly and concludes her lesson by announcing: "I'm Chinese."

She giggles, while many others might get upset at being mistaken for a foreigner in one's own country.

While politically it has not been good for Uighurs to be under the Party, the world of commerce apparently cannot have enough of them--as models!

Xahriyar Abdukerimabliz, a 19-year-old model from Urumqi, says:

"Not to brag, but we are very good-looking," he says. "Our facial features are naturally attractive. We've got great eyebrows, big, beautiful eyes and double eyelids that weren't created by a surgeon."
Abdukerimabliz blinks, revealing his naturally creased eyelids. More and more Chinese are undergoing surgery to create a crease in their upper eyelids that about half of all East Asians are born without. Abdukerimabliz's "double eyelids" are topped with striking eyebrows, a long nose and expressive eyes that look either Asian or European, depending on his mood — or pose.

The market system, like god, works in mysterious ways! ;)  Which is also something that I learnt in graduate school, after getting rid of my commie colors in the old country. ;)

Is the game over when even Buddhists engage in genocide?

Not too long ago, it was common for the United States to loudly complain about human rights issues in other parts of the world--in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Iran, ... a long list of countries.  Of course, the US had human rights issues within its own borders (and continues to have) and it also conveniently overlooked abuses in countries that were governed by "our son-of-a-bitch."

Now, it feels like the US has even stopped complaining, at least pretending to worry, about human rights issues.

President Obama will have plenty of opportunities to address human rights issues in the next few days, but my guess is that he will not.  In his post-shellacking 2.0, the President will be in China and then in Burma, and both countries have immense human rights issues, which he will certainly gloss over.

In addition to the lack of everyday democratic rights that people in those countries lack, there is that acutely worrying treatment of the Muslim minority in China and Burma.  With the economic ascent of China, the US has pretty much stopped even whispering about human rights there.  I would love to have a reporter ask the President a question such as, "Mr, President, what do you think about the student protests in Hong Kong?"  Or even, "President Obama, have you ever tasted traditional Uighur dishes?"

Money talks, and bullshit walks, as they say.

But, there isn't even money in Burma.  No nukes, a la North Korea, either.  Yet, we don't seem to care about human rights issues in that country, especially when it comes to the horrible treatment of a certain group:

The Myanmar government has given the estimated one million Rohingya people in this coastal region of the country a dispiriting choice: Prove your family has lived here for more than 60 years and qualify for second-class citizenship, or be placed in camps and face deportation.
The policy, accompanied by a wave of decrees and legislation, has made life for the Rohingya, a long-persecuted Muslim minority, ever more desperate, spurring the biggest flow of Rohingya refugees since a major exodus two years ago.

A few months back, I blogged here about Buddhist monks leading the protests to drive out the Rohingya.  Yes, Buddhist monks, who are supposedly the followers of the uber-pacifist Buddha!

The crisis has become an embarrassment to the White House ahead of a scheduled visit by President Obama to Myanmar next week. The administration considers Myanmar a foreign-policy success story in Asia but is worried that renewed conflict between Buddhist extremists, who are given a free hand by the government, and the Rohingya could derail the already rocky transition from military rule to democratic reform.

The news item mentions that:

Mr. Obama asked the Myanmar leader to revise the anti-Rohingya policies, specifically the resettlement plan. Myanmar must “support the civil and political rights of the Rohingya population,” he said.

A tiny little country Burma is, and all that the President of the mighty US can do is mildly ask his counterpart to do something.  The Burmese president is far from shaking in his military boots!

the government appears to be accelerating a strategy that human rights groups have described as ethnic cleansing.

The Burmese government knows how to keep the Americans off:

In a gesture in advance of Mr. Obama’s visit, the government released 15 political prisoners in early October, including three Rohingya. Among them was U Kyaw Hla Aung, 75, a prominent lawyer, who was jailed after the violence in Sittwe in 2012.
One of the few Rohingya trained as a lawyer — Rohingya have since been barred from studying law or medicine — Mr. Kyaw Hla Aung said it was illogical for the government to insist that Rohingya were not citizens.

Amartya Sen, is among a few who is intellectually involved with raising the awareness of this human rights issue and is even ready to use the "g" word:

Sen said it is important that the word “genocide” not be tossed around lightly, and he acknowledged that this situation looks different from the murderous examples of Nazi Germany and 1994 Rwanda. Still, he said, the term applies in this case, with lives lost not just to the outbursts of violence, but also to the denial of healthcare and the right to work.

Of course, the American people couldn't be bothered about all these.  For one, we are all into worrying about our First-World-problems.  If we do manage to look beyond our own petty problems, then there is that distraction of nude photos of celebrities.  Who cares about some genocide somewhere, particularly if it is Muslims who are targeted!

The global war on Muslims is ... stupid and dangerous!

I wonder how a typical Muslim feels.

When in the company of the select few of their innermost circle, when they will have no need to worry about anything and can be completely at ease to express themselves, do Muslims feel their lives are like everybody else's, or do they worry that the global rhetoric and action are seemingly anti-Muslim?

Line up the world's largest economic and military powers of the day.
In the US, there is rabid Islamophobia, especially worrying when it is led by "liberal" atheists like Bill Maher and Sam Harris.
France has issues even with the veil.
Russia's shirtless Putin doesn't ever come across like he might want to accommodate Muslims.
Israel.
India.

And, of course, the "war on terror" subliminally and explicitly leading people to equate Muslims with terrorists!   It could easily seem like there is a global war on Muslims!

China has its own way to treat Muslims.  Particularly those in Xinjiang--the Uighurs.  You push a group hard enough and at some point they are bound to react with "I'm mad as hell" and will demonstrate how they can't take it anymore.  I am saddened, but not surprised at all, with this latest incident:

An attack on a farmers market in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang has reportedly left at least 22 people dead and dozens injured, Radio Free Asia, the news service financed by the American government, has reported.
Radio Free Asia said on Saturday that the rampage, which took place Oct. 12 in Kashgar Prefecture, was carried out by four men armed with knives and explosives who attacked police officers and merchants before the men were shot dead by the police. Most of the victims were ethnic Han Chinese and the assailants were ethnic Uighur, the news service said, citing local police officials.

Awful!

Violence has been mounting in recent months despite a crackdown on what the authorities describe as Islamic-inspired terrorism. Human rights advocates say harsh security measures and tightened restrictions on religious practices are aggravating discontent among Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking minority who complain about job discrimination and Han migration to the region, which many see as an effort to dilute their ethnic identity.

The Beijing government is all fucked up!  How supremely confident in their inhuman approach they are when they try their best to wipe out the religious and ethnic identities that humans value.  Heck, if even the peaceful Tibetan lamas will set fire to themselves because they can't take it anymore, should we be surprised when the less peaceful humans decide to take up arms, however crude they might be?

This latest incident suggests that the intensity of violence has increased: last May, about 43 killed, and in July nearly a 100 died, in a "pattern of recent attacks in which Uighur assailants, often using crude weapons, target Han civilians as well as Uighur police officers and government officials."

The fucked up Beijing government is so panicky about the Uighurs that:

Ilham Tohti, a scholar who has been an outspoken critic of the government’s treatment of people of his Uighur ethnicity, was sentenced to life in prison for separatism. The ruling by a court in Urumqi, the capital of his native region of Xinjiang, was the harshest known sentence in years for someone convicted of a non-violent political crime in China. By jailing Mr Tohti, who says he supports Chinese rule, the government has signalled a desire to silence even moderate voices of dissent in Xinjiang, where Uighur separatists have often resorted to violence to express their grievances.

Why target him?

No other Uighur inside the country has come close to speaking out on such issues with his persistence. But the government, though unsettled by his pro-Uighur sentiments, has for a long time also worried about how to handle him: he taught economics at a prestigious university in Beijing that was established precisely to win over ethnic minorities like China’s Uighurs. Arresting such a calmly spoken academic risked fuelling even more sympathy abroad for the plight of Uighurs, most of whom are Muslims and many of whom chafe at China’s rule in Xinjiang.

I guess the world tolerates China's behavior because we are all happy with everything from cheap plastic stuff to iPhones manufactured there.  Who cares about some Muslim group in China that is ill-treated by the government when we deserve all the goodies, right?

It is not the Beijing government that is fucked up. We are!