[Buddha-l] buddha-l Digest, Vol 103, Issue 6

[Dan Lusthaus]

>Dan, do you think that these resistance groups consult wikipedia before
determining how they identify? We are not talking here about what the
ur-identity of these groups may or may not have been.

If you are talking about ethnicity, and by that you mean something more than 
modern invented "identities", then that won't do.

This sort of identity-formation has a long historical record. Take the 
"identity" Hindu. It is originally a term used by invading muslims to 
indicate all who lived south of the Indus river -- a geographical 
identifier, not a religious or even "ethnic" label. It originally included 
not only Vaishnavas, Shaivites, etc., but Jains, Buddhists, etc., anyone 
south of the river. It became an official ethnic identifier when the British 
used it for their census, and included even then Jains, etc., for whom 
privileges, etc. accrued by identifying with certain groups. A label 
originally given to them by outsiders today has spawned hindutva -- they've 
added an abstract nominal ending essentializing the identity, with all sorts 
of questionable historical and universalistic claims.

But to call "Hindus" in either the original or current senses "ethnic" is to 
employ vague terms to lump together the otherwise difficult to lump 
together, aside from a certain religious affiliation, which itself is 
diverse and of plastic contours and borders.

Modern Uighurs began to identify as Uighurs in 1921, at that time 
acknowledging the absence of historical linkage with the earlier groups to 
which that name applied. To cite again the Wiki piece:

--
Use of the term "Uyghur" was unknown in Xinjiang until 1934, when the 
governor Sheng Shicai came to power in there. Sheng adopted the Soviets' 
ethnographic classification rather than that of the Kuomintang and became 
the first to promulgate the official use of the term "Uyghur" to describe 
the Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang.
--

Last three words: "Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang".

They call themselves "Uighurs" so that the uninformed will blindly accept 
their territorial claims and political aspirations, confusing them with, 
e.g., Tibetan, who have legitimate historical and political claims.

Since you are the one doing the eel-wriggling at this point, why don't we 
just move onto a more pleasant topic?

Dan