The Chinese aim threats at western journalists. Again the western media comes under criticism in China. Nobody gains from slanted journalism, not the Han, not the Uyghurs, and not the West.

Until late at night on Sunday the 5th of July, when protests broke out in Ürümqi, capital of Xinjiang, the westernmost Chinese province, I was in touch with friends on the scene. Later that night telephone and internet connections to this place of the world were severed. I’ve not heard from my friends and acquaintances since then, and I have to rely on the international media for information from Ürümqi.

The rioting took place between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. The Han are familiar to the media. Last year they organised the Olympics. De Han fell victim to the earthquake in the southern province of Sichuan, and they were the ‘bad guys’ at the time of the Tibetan riots.

The Uyghurs draw less media attention than the Tibetans do, but their situation is comparable. The Uyghurs are one of many ethnic minorities in China but in Xinjiang, their native province, they form that largest ethnic group. Just like the Tibetans, Uyghurs feel their lifestyle and culture are under pressure due to mass migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang.

Since I rely on the international media for information from Ürümqi it strikes me that the media is very ignorant about Chinese policies towards ethnic minorities. I read many inaccuracies in the reporting on the recent protests. Such untruthful journalism fuels anger amongst the Chinese about the West, which doesn’t seem prepared to take China seriously at all.

Take for example the 8-o’clock news on Monday the 6th of July. In an attempt to provide the context of the Ürümqi riots the NOS (Dutch Broadcast Foundation) asserts that frustration among Uyghurs is immense because “Tukish at school is prohibited” and “mosques have been closed down”. Both ‘facts’ are just not true.

In the case of Turkish education the controversy is largely contained within the Uyghur community. The Uyghur language is related to Turkish. Parents are free to decide to send their kids to Uyghur schools. Educated Uyghurs often choose to send their kids to Chinese schools though, because a Chinese education gives you much better career prospects. This situation upsets many traditional Uyghurs.

Visiting a mosque hasn’t been prohibited for several decades. Imams are under surveillance from the state and their education is tightly regulated by the government, but such ideas can be heard in the West as well. There are some exceptions however. Youngsters are prohibited from visiting a mosque, and students and civil servants are likewise prevented from practicing their religion.

In the same week de Volkskrant also didn’t take its journalistic responsibilities very seriously. In their front page article ‘Peking wil van geen leed horen’ they claim that the Chinese government forces Uyghurs into low-paid jobs on the Chinese east coast. It is certainly true that there are policies aimed at finding employment for Uyghurs. It may even be the case that some Uyghurs are ‘forced’ to accept such jobs because of their economic situation. But the government in Beijing forces nobody to make their money in this way. Other ethnic minorities and Han from economic backwaters are equally encouraged to migrate east and find jobs on the prosperous east coast.

A remark in Trouw that “the Chinese government depicts the Uyghurs in the media as dangerous terrorists related to Al-Qaeda” is similarly untrue. The opposite is the case. In an attempt to create a harmonious society, Beijing often depicts ethnic minorities as peaceful, traditional, even cute. Through this approach a lot of tourists are drawn to economically underdeveloped regions. Uyghurs are annoyed at being labelled as ‘cute’ and prefer social and cultural liberties rather then economic investment. The Han find the Uyghurs ungrateful. ‘Strike it rich first, and then we’ll discuss these other issues’, so say the Chinese.

Not all is well about Chinese policies towards ethnic minorities. But out of ignorance or sympathy the western media is too quick to judge ‘powerhouse China’. The Han find this very upsetting; they are annoyed at mistakes in western reporting on China.

This anger shouldn’t be underestimated. In the future China will think twice before it invites western journalists to ‘come and look for themselves’ when problems occur in the restive areas. The West, which would like to gain a foothold with their international human rights, takes a step back instead. And the Uyghurs? If the eye of the international community doesn’t reach into Xinjiang anymore, then they have much more to fear from the Chinese government. It’s in nobody’s interest to slant reporting on the Ürümqi riots. Everyone is better of when facts and opinions are reported as accurately as possible.

This article is a translation of the original ‘Eenzijdige verslaggeving helpt Oeigoeren niet’, which was published in Trouw on Wednesday the 15th of June 2009.

One town

It is hard to image how the army can separate two ethnic groups in a city of approximately 2 million people. The Uyghur neighbourhood is perhaps a little poorer than much of the rest of town. It’s full of Islamic restaurants, small shops, and the Grand Bazaar. Uyghurs are known for their entrepreneurship. ‘When Neal Armstrong set foot on the moon the first person he met was a Uyghur tradesman’. You can hear this anecdote everywhere in China.

But tens of thousands to Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities don’t live in the Uyghur neighbourhood. Ürümqi is a city of traders. Kazakh, Russian, Pakistani, you can hear all of these language in one of the sprawling trade centres dotted around the city. Uyghurs that have climbed to social ladder often take up residence in the rest of town, where apartments are newer and more luxurious. Ürümqi isn’t a city of two neighborhoods that the media makes it out to be; quite the contrary in fact.

Two schools

Uyghur parents have a choice between two types of education: ‘min-kao-min’ and ‘min-kao-han’. ‘Min’ means ethnic minority, ‘han’ is Han-Chinese. ‘Kao’ is Chinese for taking exams. ‘Min-kao-min’ are school where Uyghurs are educated in their own language. At ‘min-kao-han’ schools Uyghurs receive a Chinese education together with Han students. They sit the nationwide exam. Uyghurs that have attended ‘min-kao-han’ school have better career prospects than their ‘min-kao-min’ counterparts, but traditional Uyghurs regard them with some disdain.

When I was in Budapest recently the House of Terror both surprised and delighted me. This museum teaches its visitors about 20^th century Hungarian history. Through the many personal accounts that are on display, it provides a place for Hungarians to come to term with the recent past, of fascism and of communism. It perhaps fulfils a role similar to that of the Anne Frank House, and of former Camp Westerbork, in the Netherlands.

I would have liked to take Anthony there. Museums like these are rare in China. If exhibitions talk of recent Chinese history, then they always have ulterior – partisan or nationalistic – motives. It would be good for him to see how other countries deal with atrocities that happened in living memory, and how others come to terms with these parts of their past.

But it was the book of testimonials, a mandatory exercise just after the last displays and just before the shop with museum memorabilia, that caught my attention. As I skipped through the pages I made some observations that I’d like to share with you.

Comments seem to come in three categories, I wonder if this is true for all museums of this kind.

Roughly one in three comments are positive: “the museum is great, the displays are astonishing, and the narratives are moving. I’d recommend this museum to all of my friends.”

Another third of the comments go a little like this: “You’re English is terrible, the captions are completely imconpehrensable. Learn some English first.” (In one instance someone had replied with “Learn Hungarian instead, you idiot.” I concur.)

The last third are the most interesting ones though. These are the visitors’ who think the museum does a commendable job, they are moderately positive, but the exhibition is incomplete in some way.

Such comments go on to explain that part of history which the commentator wants to see under the spotlight. Without fail these commentators explain, possibly without realising it, why they feel this part of history deserves extra attention: “As a communist I think… Since I’m Hungarian I feel… I’m a Jew and therefore…” You get the idea.

It makes me question the motives of these people. Do they go to a museum to learn something, or do they go there just to see their believes and narratives confirmed by the exhibition?

Let’s take an example, a comment that I remember especially vividly. It read something like this:

The histories of those that were so affected by Hungary’s recent page are very moving. But as a Jew I’m shocked to find that this museum pays only lip service to the role of the Hungarian government in the destruction of Hungarian Jews. Instead you seem to put the blame solidly on international and foreign forces.

I would find such a comment very appropriate in the Anne Frank house, where a single narrative provides the context for the rest of the exhibition. The destruction of the Jewish community, that’s one aspect of Hungary’s recent past. But it isn’t the only aspect, and in my opinion a museum with the scope of the House of Terror is right to provide the international context, the rise of fascism after the first world war and Hungary’s subjugation to the Soviet authorities after the second.

That isn’t to say that those people from the Hungarian authorities, who were responsible for those horrible acts, are in any way absolved from the responsibility for their crimes. But surely the House of Terror would have been wrong to mislead its visitors by implying that these things happened in isolation?

Am I right, or is my international context just another narrative screaming for attention, to come to the forefront in the museums of the world, and in the critical analysis of historic facts?

You can judge the English captions for yourself on the House of Terror website. Click through the explanations to each of the rooms one-by-one, start at the top floor room 201 and work your way down.

“I recount my thoughts after leaving the desert. ‘Walking through the wilds freed me from worries and fear, but this is not real freedom. You need money to be free’.”

— Ma Jian, Red Dust

The years I spent in Xinjiang,
my desert;

the situation I find myself in,
my freedom?

As I was watching the London marathon on the telly yesterday, I wondered what drives to people to run 42,195 meters in up to six hours or more? Many of these amateur athletes are charity runners; the proceeds of sponsoring go to all sorts of good causes. But the big race is far from charitable on their joints, and some runners cross the finish line rather more dead than alive.

Could it be that through the selfless act of running hard to raise money for charity, the charitable runners are also working hard to achieve esteem and self-actualisation, the highest levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Charity running is then both a selfless and a selfish act. I’ll argue that our society is to blame for this selfish aspect, rather than the charity runners themselves. I’m guilty as charged.

The media pack that can be downloaded from the London marathon website is a veritable source of information, it nicely picks apart the demographics of the amateur competitors. Sadly I couldn’t find the amount of money raised for charity in recent years, but it tells us that charity fund-raising wasn’t always at the forefront of the London event. According to Wikipedia, more than 40 million British Pounds were raised in 2006. The number of people that ran for charity has steadily grown over the years. This year is stands at almost 4 in every 5 runners that raise money for a good cause.

It can also be found in the media pack that the economic background of most amateur runners is a white-collar, middle-class one. Secular, western nationalities are disproportionally represented among the foreign runners. What makes these people put on a tracksuit after work and tire themselves out? Why do they go around friends and acquaintances on weekends to beg for sponsorship money for their efforts?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a model in psychology that puts needs-fulfilment in a hierarchical order. It’s often depicted as a pyramid; as needs at the lower levels are met, so higher-level needs become more pressing. Only after needs from the physiological level – like food, water and sleep – have been secured, do people seek to fulfil needs such as employment at the level of ‘safety’, or that of sexual intimacy at the ‘love/belonging’ level.

Traditionally it wasn’t until late in their career that people sought to fulfil needs from the highest levels of the Maslow hierarchy. As they were approaching a pensionable age, people took on more socially relevant positions within the company, or engaged in voluntary and charitable work in their free time. These days a larger proportion of the population receives higher education, and 20- or 30-somethings already find themselves knocking on the doors of esteem and self-actualisation.

Their jobs don’t provide an outlet for these needs and desire, not at this stage in their career anyway. So these 20- and 30-year-old recruiters, consultants, account-managers, these white-collar workers seek for other means to fulfil their needs, to find that their hard work pays off not just for themselves, but also for the people around them. Training for a marathon and charity running satisfies this desire. It allows people to realise their needs from the highest levels of the Maslow hierarchy, it makes them feel very good about themselves.

I’m not cynical about all these charity runners though, far from. I’m very proud of all the people that raise lots of money for charity. But I also think it’s very sad that western society insists on raising the average level of education year on year, but fails to provide enough jobs at the right level for all these charity runners. Traditionally it was employment and career progression that allowed people to fulfil more and more of their needs, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I’m not cynical about charity running, I’m cynical about the Lisbon treaty, and about the West as a knowledge-driven economy.

I look at myself as a case in point. I’m looking for a job that doesn’t just pay the bills, but that is ‘relevant in some way’ as well. It’s why I volunteered to set up a press office for kids at the local primary schools, and it’s why I recently ran the Bath Half marathon. I intend to run a marathon at the end of the year, and I’m open to suggestions for charities that I can support through running.

As I was weeding through my administration of the last 7 years – I’m moving about, so I wanted to chuck a lot of old paperwork out – it struck me that life in one country doesn’t leave nearly as big a paper trail as life in another country does.

In the last 7 years my life was spread out across two continents, three countries. Which life was the greatest bureaucratic burden, nanny-state Netherlands, buttoned-down Britain, or communist China?

There’s something to say for all our candidates. In a nanny-state, such as the Netherlands has turned into, a wealth of social services has left a wealth of bureaucracy, of rules and regulations, all accompanied with a host of checks and balances that require endless cross-referencing and paperwork. I keep forwarding documents from one organisation to the next. Admin-work often piles up as forms and documents sit on my desk waiting for the appropriate attachments to arrive.

Britain’s recent track record of CCTV surveillance, and legislation that infringes on people’s privacy more with every change in policy, doesn’t spell good. A lot of organisations and a lot of companies keep a lot of information on each and every one of their clients. In my experience it’s all rather compartmentalised though, which reduces the paperwork dramatically. Government bodies check with each other, you’re not required to play the traffic warden and forward stream or paperwork-traffic this way and that.

Communist China has the name of knowing where every one of its billion citizens is at any time. It may well be so that it keeps a file on every one of them, but I doubt it very much. If they do, then the Chinese have the most streamlined, well-integrated social security system in the world; how likely is that? Theirs involves very little paperwork. In fact I could only find three or four A4 sheets of paper when I weeded though my admin-stuff earlier today. It’s true that striking down in a Chinese city can be a major hassle – the language barrier undoubtedly sticks its ugly head around the corner here – but in my experience, when it’s done it’s done, and the paperwork just ceases after a while.

In conclusion, let’s throw in a sports metaphor. Paperwork in the Netherlands, it’s like the marathon, or the 4 x 400 meter relay. England’s compartmentalisation is a 110 meter horde, a triple-jump at worst. The 100 meter dash strechtes it for China, it’s more like a high jump: one big, high leap and you’re there.

Would Shihezi University have a language department for exchange students?

Tongue in cheek, but you should really consider Xinjiang universities when you consider a study exchange in China. Why? Because its universities employ the best professors that China has to offer.

The professors with the novel ideas, the ideas that don’t fall comfortably on communists’ ears, can all be found in Xinjiang.  When a professor crosses a boundary, expresses ideas that are just a little too revolutionary for the cadres in Beijing, they’re send to western China. “Part of an academic co-operation programme,” is the official reading of these forceful migrations. It’s just another way of saying that such thinkers are no longer welcome in the mainstream of Chinese academia.

I’ll provide you with an example, to support my recent reflections. So I publish an article I recently wrote to accompany a job application. It’s an adaptation of an earlier blog posting from my hand. Notice how some of the changes in style have occurred in the 2½ years that separate these articles.

One-child pension plans
Adapted from “One child pension plans,” 7 June 2006.

China’s population is ageing, which is in no small part due to the one-child policy. This policy has shaped Chinese society in several interesting ways. One such consequence is called the “little emperor theory.” But children in today’s China, even those from a wealthy background, don’t live the courtly life this name implies.

In city-dwelling, new middle-class families both parents now have jobs. Children are often brought up by their grandparents. Since these new Chinese families realise that neither their companies nor the great socialist state will pay for their pensions, they look at their children for their future income: one child, two parents, four grandparents.

And so, children needn’t have to ask for anything. Guardians, especially grandparents, who have experienced great hunger and poverty during the cultural revolution, don’t want their children to experience any of that. Obesity is fast becoming a problem, also in China. Taking your child to KFC, weekly rather than monthly, is seen as good parenting. A crying child is a badly raised child!

This practice has raised a whole generation of spoilt brats, little emperors who expect their every wish to be fulfilled at the blink of an eye. At twenty these children hang out in internet cafés, not able to take responsibility for their own lives. But that’s not to say that Chinese teenagers have an easy life. Personally I’d never swap places with them.

Because those little emperors pay a high price for their luxury. As the children have to foot the bills in the future, and pay for their parents’ pension, so every parent thinks their child is the next Olympic gold medallist, the next political or corporate hot-shot. Yet high-paying jobs don’t come easy in a market that has many, many more people than it has jobs. University is the surest ticket to a steady income, but again places are scarce, especially at the better ones.

So parents push their children to study hard. Going to school seven days a week is the norm for children whose parents can afford it. After school they’re sent to private institutions to brush up on their English, their maths, their chemistry. Bribing teachers is commonplace, even though it’s illegal. In the evening it’s homework. Most teenagers sleep barely six hours a night. They do their homework until well after midnight, and get up early again to make it to school on time.

In the West we think childhood should be the happiest time of your life. In China it’s adulthood that children live for, and so they are told by their parent. I think that’s understandable, I can appreciate all the money spend on schooling, and the little sleep these children get. Compared to most of us it’s not an easy life that this children have ahead of them.

Yet sometimes their stories break my heart. Children come home from school, exhausted, hours of homework await. To their parents it’s still not enough. That’s when it dawns that mum and dad don’t really care for their child’s health or happiness anymore, waving it away as something of concern only after a university education. That’s when they send me a text-message, the foreigner, the only sceptic about all of this. They’ve come to realise that their parents see them not as little emperors, but as a one-child pension plan.

When I visited a secular funeral service not so long ago, I realised just how poorly secular societies, humanists, have been able to provide a context for life and death, for the big questions in life.

The function, the venue, the atmosphere, it all has a resoundingly religious symbolism attached to almost everything that goes on.

• The hall, in which the funeral takes place, has a church-like quality to it. It’s design has obviously been inspired by modern church design.
• After the visitation, the coffin is taken into the ceremonial hall in a processions, where flowers and pictures of the deceased take the place of religious symbols, and the coffin that of a religious icon.
• The layout of the room is similar to that of a church. The coffin takes the place of the altar. A lectern is placed to the left and the front of the coffin, similar to a pulpit in churches.
• The coffin is covered with pictures of the deceased and it’s close relatives, all very reminiscent of religious symbols. The ‘altar’ is decorated with flowers and candles are lit around the coffin.
• The ceremony itself resembles mass, where the life of the deceased is remembered through particular episodes, lessons are learned through it, and there are musical intermissions.
• At or near the end there is an opportunity to take a private moment with the deceased. Friends and family step forward to ‘have communion with the dead’, similar to taking communion in church.

Why have seculars never been able to provide answers for questions arising from life and death? Or maybe the question should put differently. Why are the answers that secularity provides, on issues of life and death, insufficient when people are confronted with such questions in real-life?

Does secularity not ‘provide’ in such circumstances? Does it not have the answers? Does it revert to religious symbolism because it’s a worldview that, almost by its own definition, refuses to acknowledge the validity of –asking– such questions?

Santa Muerte – the Grim Reaper, the Holy Death – I’d heard of him, off course. Those of my own faith call him the Devil. But not until a week ago did I know him as an object of devotion. Then, in just six short days, I see two very different faces of Saint Death.

Theological reading

The first face shows in Around the World in 80 Faiths, a BBC programme from the religion & ethics department. Peter Owen-Jones, extreme pilgrim and Anglican vicar, travels around the world “to take the religious pulse of the planet.”

In episode 7, on South America, reverend Owen-Jones finds himself in the slums of Mexico city, visiting a Santa Muerte shrine. The doors of the shrine are open to everybody, from every walk of life. To Owen-jones, a theologist, it’s an accepting faith, a faith that draws in people from the back-alleys of society: ex-convicts, criminals, murderers.

Unlike the Catholic God, so omnipresent across South America, Santa Muerte expects little of its devotees. Thus, says reverend Owen-Jones, it is no surprise that faith in Saint Death is on the rise in a society like Mexico’s, torn apart by drug-related crime. Santa Muerte, Death, brings hope to those who’s past has been tainted by violence. You always receive a warm welcome among other death worshippers, even when the doors of the Church are shut.

Social reading

Marjon van Royen, journalist, foreign correspondent for the NOS to South America, introduces us to the second face of Santa Muerte. She’s back in Holland, and talks to Pauw en Witteman about her experiences in Mexico, where she shot several items on drug related crime.

She mentions Santa Muerte worship. In a society where the leaders of drug syndicates are idolised, where violence is accepted, even encouraged as a way of life, it’s telling, says van Royen, that Saint Death has it’s own devotees.

Santa Muerte isn’t drawing castouts back into society, it’s casting people out, into the arms of the drug syndicates, of violence, crime, and death. Santa Muerte isn’t an accepting faith, accepting Santa Muerte means accepting a society where violence and death are commonplace. The growth of the Church of Santa Muerte is indicative only of the problems that face Mexican society, of people coming to terms with the violence that surrounds them.