Short Breaks in Mordor: Dawns and Departures of a Scribbler's Life by Peter Hitchens

Author:Peter Hitchens [Hitchens, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction
ISBN: 9781983244797
Amazon: 1983244791
Publisher: Independently published
Published: 2018-10-18T23:00:00+00:00

The Streets Run with Blood in Old Kashgar

The streets of Old Kashgar were running with blood on the day I arrived, with slaughter on every street corner. I am relieved to say that on this occasion the blood was from the throats of hundreds of sheep being ritually slaughtered - the highlight of the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha as celebrated in this lovely old oasis on the Silk Road, which was already ancient when Marco Polo passed this way in the 13th Century.

But in this tense, racially divided and unhappy part of China's hard-faced and increasingly muscular empire, human blood sometimes flows on these streets as well. And it may do so again, Heaven forbid.

We do not really know how much killing there has been. Modern China has liberated money and trade, but not information. Locals talk in low voices about anything remotely political.

This, however, is certain: last year, just before the Olympics, two Kashgar Muslims drove a truck into a group of jogging Chinese paramilitary troops, then attacked them with knives and home-made grenades, killing 17. The two were caught and later executed - probably shot in the head, still a common method of capital punishment in the People's Republic.

The anger follows aggressive colonisation. Ethnic Chinese people have come West in their millions in the past 30 years, encouraged by the state to settle and make the region their own. The locals fear their homeland is being snatched away from them before their eyes, by strangers who wish to change the place to suit them, rather than adapt to the customs of the country.

What seem to have been race riots broke out in Sinkiang's provincial capital Urumchi last July, with an official death count of 156, plus 800 injured, many, it is said, in horrific slashing attacks by inflamed Muslim mobs. Women were not spared. Ethnic Chinese retaliated soon afterwards, taking to the streets with iron bars and axes and looking for suitable candidates for gory vengeance. Rumours suggest that the real butcher's bill was much higher than the published figure, around 2,000. Who can say?

A few weeks ago, the authorities announced the executions of 12 more men for their part in the carnage - ten Muslims and two ethnic Chinese, to prove they are not wholly one-sided. Actually, the proportions may be more or less just.

Any sane person must be appalled by such outbreaks of ancient bloodlust, and - as in Tibet last year - the cause of the local people is severely set back in the West by being linked to such cruel horrors. China's response is understandable, if overdone. It is physically impossible to telephone abroad, or use the internet, throughout Sinkiang, China's vast, western-most province, thanks to the official and unlikely Chinese belief that the trouble was fanned by exiles in the United States.

In Kashgar and Urumchi, which are both in Sinkiang but 700 miles apart, squads of paramilitary riot police patrol or set up sudden road blocks - in many cases they are in full battle kit, and some wear uniforms of Cold War-era dark green.

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