… und die Chinesen Israelis, dann würde sich die muslimische Welt vielleicht auch für sie interessieren, meint Mona Eltahawy in einem Kommentar für die HuffPost. Doch was müsste passieren, damit die westliche Öffentlichkeit sich für sie einsetzen würde? Wenn die Uiguren Buddisten würden, hätten sie deutlich bessere Chancen auf ein Benefiz-Konzert mit Bono, Björk und Sting. Tja, Pech gehabt, falsche Minderheit mit dem falschen Unterdrücker!
If they were Buddhists, Bjork, Sting, Bono and all those other one-named saviors of the world’s poor and oppressed would have held „Free Xinjiang“ concerts already. But the West continues to largely ignore the Uighurs. Maybe they’re not as cuddly as the Tibetans or their leader the Dalai Lama.
Perhaps the U.S. State Department would issue stronger words in their defense if only the Uighurs weren’t the wrong kind of minority in a country that produces half the goods we use and which currently lends the wobbly global economy enough money to keep it just this side of total collapse.
The Uighurs aren’t Buddhists but are instead Muslims and us Muslims don’t get much love these days. You’d think the U.S. at least would be paying a bit more attention to Uighurs after locking up four of their brethren at the prison camp at Guantanamo without charge for seven years. They were released earlier this year to Bermuda.
If the West seems deaf to Uighur complaints, then where are their fellow Muslims? Surely this is a chance for Muslims across the world to march in protest at the stranglehold the godless Communist Chinese keep over the Uighurs?
Think again.
The Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas put it bluntly on the micro-blogging site, Twitter — where thousands follow him — when he asked why no one was paying attention to the Uighur „intifada,“ the Arabic word for uprising that is usually associated with Palestinians fighting back against Israeli occupation.
That’s precisely the problem — the Uighurs are no Palestinians and the Chinese are not Israel. Many Muslims — Arab Muslims especially — pay attention only when the U.S. and Israel are behaving badly. Palestine followed by Iraq always take precedence leaving little room for other Muslim grievances.
Look at Darfur, where the suffering goes ignored because those who are creating the misery are neither Americans nor Israelis but instead fellow Arab Muslim Sudanese.
China is coincidentally one of Sudan’s biggest trade partners and sells Khartoum plenty of weapons which Darfuris complain are used against them. So it’s unlikely Sudanese President Omar Bashir, who declared himself the guardian of Islam in 2007 by putting on trial a British teacher for insulting Muslims when she named a class teddy bear „Mohammed“, will condemn Chinese oppression of Uighurs.
Perhaps Israel can save the day and invade Xinjiang.