[Buddha-l] buddha-l Digest, Vol 103, Issue 6
Dan Lusthaus
vasubandhu at earthlink.net
Fri Sep 13 01:08:54 MDT 2013
>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
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