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

[Antonio Ferreira-Jardim]

In terms of understanding modern resistance movements in Western China, why
does it matter when the people we now know as Uighur first began to use
that name to identify themselves? The fact is that they now refer to
themselves as ethnically Uighur and it is this identification in addition
to their religion that forms the basis of the resistance movement in
Western China. It is not simply the fact that they are Muslims. They view
themselves as part of an ethnic identity (whether historically accurate or
not) seeking self-determination. Take the time to read and listen to the
leaders of these resistance movements, they rarely ever mention the
religious aspect of their collective identity, instead they emphasise what
they perceive as their collective ethnic identity and desire to determine
their own destiny.

Your discussion regarding the appellation "Hindu" was apropos nothing.


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 5:08 PM, Dan Lusthaus <vasubandhu at earthlink.net>wrote:

>
>  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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