Torchlight Uyghur Group
Artwork from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Scream_Pastel.jpg
Shouting against injustices was originally thought to be a trait that belongs only to human beings, but recent studies of the animal world have concluded that animals also have natural instincts to protect the weak. You can find some interesting videos on YouTube, such as rhinos saving fawns from crocodiles, or baboons saving antelopes from cheetah’s mouths. Although rhinos and baboons are very different animals than fawns and antelopes, they stood up for the vulnerable, and shouted against the strong and protected the weak. In the 21st century, as we humans are witnessing in awe the love between different animals, we can’t help but question and challenge the so-called Jungle Rule.
Regrettably, in this 21st century, while even the animals have become known with their compassion, 1.4 billion Chinese people collectively lost their voice on the Chinese government’s genocidal policy against Uyghurs. What is the reason for their silence? Do they think that Uyghurs committed crimes so heinous that they are not worthy of sympathy and voice of support?
The reason for their silence is not because the Uyghurs are guilty. We believe that the complete indifference of the Chinese people against the suffering of the Uyghurs can be attributed to the following three major factors:
The first factor: Traditional Chinese political culture
The traditional Chinese education teaches the Chinese people that “the country is home, the officials are parents, the people are grass, and to be filial is the moral standard of life”. Let’s take a closer look at the written character for filial in Chinese – 孝. The top half of the character is from the top half of the word “old” (老) in Chinese, and the bottom half is from the word “child” (子). The word “Old” in Chinese not only means parents or older people but in ancient Chinese, it also was an honorary name for senior officials, such as advisors, prime ministers, etc. The main thread of traditional Chinese culture is a Confucian culture. Filial piety is the core value of the Confucian culture.
In this culture, people, families, and countries are integrated into a single concept. Confucian education teaches the Chinese people that they should be family-centered, and they should respect the old as children of filial piety. In Chinese, the word “country (国家)” is represented by two written characters, “country (国)” and “home (家)”. Since the Chinese word for “official” has the same meaning as the “parents” and the “country” is equal to “home”, the scope of filial piety in the Chinese people’s mindset covers filial piety to officials and as well as the government. To the average Chinese people, the government and the officials must not be offended, no matter if they’re good or bad, clean or corrupt, or else they will not be filial. It can thus be concluded that the Confucian culture is a traditional political culture in China.
For this reason, in China, as long as the government allows people to live, no matter what bad things the government and officials do, the people will not resist. In Chinese history, all the uprisings against the various dynasties happened basically when the people could no longer live, and in order to survive, they had to rise up to resist the government’s inaction. As long as they are alive, the Chinese people regard the spirit of “willing to be cattle and horses (做牛做马)” as filial piety.
The majority of Chinese people have never lived for personal dignity and rights. The dignitaries and cynics of the past worked for hand in glove with each other and used the “right to survive” to force the Chinese people to act as “cattle and horses” for them, making it the best policy for keeping the political power. The Chinese government now claims that the “right to survive” is the highest form of human rights for the Chinese people. This declaration does not come from the communist party’s culture, but from the history and the culture of the Chinese themselves. When survival in the 21st century is the most basic right in the human and animal worlds, it has still been advertised as the highest and only form of human rights in China.
The conclusion is that when the “right to survive” becomes the only human right, humans will deprive all other living beings of their living spaces. This is why life in China has no metaphysical meaning. For the last bastion of the “right to survive”, everyone becomes selfish and ignores the lives of others. The majority of Chinese eat everything they see, torment the soul, and even consume vulnerable groups, such as children when hungry. These phenomena are the result of the Chinese people’s unlimited extension of their “right to survive”.
When the “right to survive” becomes the highest right to be a person, there is no room left in China to accommodate other higher levels of rights. Therefore, when the Chinese children are repeatedly crushed by the passing vehicles on the roads, as long as this incident does not affect other passersby’s right to survival, they will walk away in complete disregard for this fragile life that is being crushed in front of them.
In China, as soon someone’s “right to survive” is challenged, the lives of others can be ignored. Therefore, the prices of healthy human organs are clearly marked in China. As long as you have the money, you can have surgery at any hospital for a healthy organ. And this organ comes from a living person, who is either an Uyghur, a Tibetan, or a Falun Gong practitioner, who just happened to ask for a little religious freedom in addition to the “right to survive”.
In China, Uyghurs and Tibetans are cattle and sheep that have been circled to be slaughtered, while the Chinese are slaves outside the circle. The people who outside eat the people inside the circle, in order to obtain their “right to survive”. For this reason, the Chinese people are indifferent to the incident in which Uyghurs were put into concentration camps by the Chinese government.
More links about Torchlight Uyghur Group:
https://www.facebook.com/torchuyghur/
https://twitter.com/torch_uyghur
http://blog.freedomsherald.org
http://freedomsherald.org/ET/unb/
https://www.change.org/search?q=Torchlight%20Uyghur%20Group
(Originally published on freedomsherold.org on Feb. 4, 2020, republished with the consent of authors)
mesheluyghur@gmail.com
February 5, 2020
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