Etrange mutisme des musulmans face à la tragédie des Ouïgours

"L'indignation de beaucoup d'indignés m'indigne à mon tour." (André Glucksmann)

"A leurs yeux, nous [les Ouïgours] ne sommes que des Asiatiques, et puis, surtout, nous ne sommes pas opprimés par les Etats-Unis ou Israël, alors cela ne les intéresse pas." (Rebiya Kadeer)

Où sont les énormes défilés, les protestations indignées, où sont les défenseurs musulmans de leurs frères ouïgours ? Où sont les courageux musulmans qui hurlaient leur indignation pendant l'intervention de l'armée israélienne contre les terroristes du Hamas à Gaza en hurlant mort aux Juifs à Bruxelles (photos ci-dessous), à Oslo, à Madrid, à Duisburg, à Amsterdam et ailleurs ? Où sont les fatwas ? La réalité est bien intéressante, comme l'écrit El País (Musulmanes mudos), ils sont sourds, muets et aveugles à la tragédie des Ouïgours, mais pas à celle des Palestiniens ni à quelques caricatures danoises.

La cause oubliée des Ouïgours, par Caroline Fourest, Le Monde (extrait):

"Bizarrement, ce procès en terrorisme ne passionne pas les musulmans des autres pays. Le monde arabe s'enflamme pour les Palestiniens, mais jamais pour les Ouïgours. Rebiya Kadeer a son explication : "A leurs yeux, nous ne sommes que des Asiatiques, et puis, surtout, nous ne sommes pas opprimés par les Etats-Unis ou Israël, alors cela ne les intéresse pas." Alors que douze petits dessins danois peuvent mettre en émoi, le fait que des corans puissent être brûlés par des officiers chinois au Xinjiang (une information donnée par Rebiya Kadeer que je n'ai toutefois pas pu recouper) ne donne pas même lieu à une rumeur. Lorsque des dissidents ouïgours tentent de se réfugier dans des pays musulmans, ils sont immédiatement renvoyés aux autorités chinoises.

Aucun pays "frère" n'a voulu accueillir cinq Ouïgours libérés de Guantanamo... Il a fallu les envoyer sur une île du Pacifique dépeuplée, où ils vivent désormais. C'est dire l'indifférence du "monde musulman" (en réalité très divers) pour ces coreligionnaires asiatiques. Certains réseaux habitués à traquer l'"islamophobie" de "l'Occident" restent étrangement silencieux face aux persécutions, bien réelles, subies par cette minorité musulmane de la part d'un régime autoritaire d'Extrême-Orient."
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Deaf, Dumb and Blind: Muslim Reactions to the Uighur Tragedy (Z-Word)

"Writing in El País today, Moisés Naím condemns the silence of the Muslim world in the face of Chinese repression of the Uighurs and contrasts it with the indignation produced the the publication of a few cartoons in Denmark. Readers will be able to figure out for themselves the relevance of all this for the themes with which this blog mainly concerns itself. The following is my [Eamonn McDonagh] translation of Naím’s article.

"Where are the fatwas? Where are the huge protest marchs? Where are the protests in front of the embassies? What happened to the indignation laden speeches? What does Al Qaeda have to say? In other words, what does China have that Denmark didn’t? In China they discriminate against and kill Muslims and in Denmark a newspaper published cartoons which were considered offensive with regard to the prophet Mohamed. The same Muslim world which in 2005 reacted with indignation and fury to the publication of the cartoons is now playing it deaf, dumb and blind with regard to the violence and discrimination suffered by the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, at the hands of the Chinese government.

The reaction to the publication of the cartoons was instantaneous. Eleven ambassadors of Muslim countries formally protested to the Danish government. The prime minister explained to them that there existed freedom of the press in his country and that the government had had nothing to do with the decision to publish the cartoons. His response had no effect. Days later the Danish consulate in Beirut was burned down and a number of people died in violent demonstrations against the cartoons in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Newspapers in Norway and other countries republished the cartoons in a gesture of solidarity with their Danish colleagues. In Damascus thousands of demonstrators rushed to set ablaze the embassies of Denmark and Norway. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad decided to respond to the cartoons by putting on a cartoon exhibition of his own. The theme? Making fun of the Holocaust. Al Queda mentioned the cartoons published in Europe as being yet another example of the new western crusade against Islam. Fatwas ordering the severest punishments for those who drew and published the Danish cartoons were not long in coming.

Meanwhile… Since the 1990s the government of China has applied severe repressive measures against the Uighurs. Education in their language is forbidden and civil servants are not allowed to wear the beard favored by some Muslim, pray at work or fast, and female civil servants are not allowed to cover their heads, Uighurs are discriminated against with regard to access to health, housing, education and employment. Young Uighurs are frequently sent to work in distant provinces while people from the rest of the country are encouraged to settle in Xinjiang with promises of employment and other incentives. Some two million people have responded positively to these stimuli.

Those Uighurs who dare to protest against this discrimination and ill-treatment are arrested. Protests are brutally repressed. In Yining, in 1997, government forces reacted violently to street demonstrations and killed a great number of people. After 9/11 the repression of the Uighurs by the Chinese government intensified and some of their leaders were accused of having links with Al Queda and jailed. The repression of any group of Uighurs suspected of terrorism, religious extremism or separatism is implacable, systematic and permanent.

The clashes of recent days on the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, have left 184 dead, nearly 1000 injured and nearly 1400 detained according to official figures, Uighur organizations say that the real numbers are much higher.

All of this has been going on for decades. What have the political and religious leaders of the Islamic world had to say about it? Not much.

In various countries Muslim clergy have found the time and energy to speak out against Pokémon cartoons, having sex while fully unclothed, vaccination against polio and Salman Rushdie. Have they had anything to say about the Uighurs? No. What about the Arab League, the governments of Muslim countries and European and Asian Muslim organizations? Nothing from them either.

Neither have the Uighurs, who have deep ethnic links with Turkey and who speak a Turkic language, been able to count on the same solidarity from Turkish prime minister Recep Tayep Erdoğan that he expressed towards Palestinians during the most recent Gaza crisis. While promoting the international recognition of Hamas, Erdoğan denied an entry visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighurs leader in exile. However, he recently changed his mind and said that Kadeer would be allowed to visit and Turkey has increasing the force of its previously modest expressions of concern about the situation in Xinjiang. About time too.

The following is the reaction of an official Chinese newspaper. "The support of Turkey for the Uighur terrorists and separatists can only cause indignation in China. If it wants to maintain good relations with our country it ought to end support for these separatist mobs. It must stop being the axis of evil."

In politics, deafness and blindness are not illnesses, they are the product of interests. In the weeks to come we’ll see with what level of effectiveness China clarifies for the leaders of the Muslim world where their real interests lie. And the silence in the face of the tragedy of the Uighurs will very eloquent.""


- Proche-Orient : les illusions calamiteuses d'une géopolitique surréaliste, André Glucksmann
- The Jerusalem syndrome, André Glucksmann