Performance Art, Cultural Memory, and the Uighur Crisis

Good morning, uh good afternoon, and good evening to all of you, wherever

you may be. Um, thank you all for joining us today.

So, um, again, I welcome you all to this panel

Performance Art, Cultural Memory and the Uighur Crisis.

Uh, our panelists are actually Jessica Batke and Dr. Mukaddas Mijit.

And I am Asma Sayeed, I'm the director of the Islamic Studies program uh, at UCLA and uh, the

um, I'm hosting this panel. I'd like to, before beginning, thank um our main

sponsors, the Cluster Program at UCLA which is part of the Undergraduate Education Initiative and this panel is

actually part of a new Freshman Cluster at UCLA called the Global Islam Freshman Cluster.

Uh, we are also uh, being supported by the UCLA Centerfor Near Eastern Studies and the Mellon-funded Minorities in the Middle

East Project. So I'm going to just take a few minutes

to kind of set the stage historically and demographically and then turn the panel over to our experts.

Um, so as many of you know the Uighur crisis is actually one of the most urgent and

probably the most neglected human rights crises of our times.

There are a number of prominent features of this state-sponsored, state-financed human

rights crisis that are very well documented by independent news outlets as well as reports from human rights

groups. And they include the things that I've listed here on this slide, um, such as

mass incarceration of a minority population in detention centers without cause or due process and

targeted arrests of the leadership of this community in an attempt to deprive it of all forms

of leadership.

There's physical and psychological torture, including family separation, a variety of forms of cultural erasure,

banning of cultural symbols and practices the destruction of cultural

and religious sites and the suppression and eradication of an entire language. Um, and there is of course also

the banning of domestic descent and severe suppression of any form of international criticism.

Most Uighur studies scholars and the Uighur community have characterized what

is happening as a cultural genocide. Our guest speakers today will cover this

issue in a lot more detail but as I said, I just want to kind of provide some very quick historical

background for those of you who may not be aware um, because uh, this is such an uh,neglected and overlooked

crisis.

Now this is a map of the early Muslim empire and I'm showing this to show some of

the ways in which Islam spread across this area that was all part of the early

Muslim empire. Muslims and Islam have actually been a part of the landscapes of China since

the late 7th century. So for a very, very, very long time, there were Muslim explorers,

scholars, traders, armies, mystics. They traveled across very well-known land and maritime

trade routes. Some of them are mapped here on this map and

one of them of course is the famed silk road. and they settled in areas that are

now governed by China. Over time, there was conversion and natural population growth

that has led to significant centers of Muslims in the area that we know as China.

And uh, over time I think it's fair to say, Islam and Muslims have really become a

profound part of the landscapes of China, part of its social, artistic, cultural, and architectural

fabric.

And at present, Islam is actually one of the most significant minority religions

in China and here I just have a few uh images of uh that are some of my favorites. Arabic

written in Chinese calligraphic style that says Alhamdulillah.

It's done with a brush instead of the traditional reed calligraphic uh, pen that's used for arabica calligraphy.

There's the Id Kah Mosque in Xinjiang, which is one of the largest and oldest mosques in China.

And there's some wonderful books about the ways in whichthe Uighur population has become a part

of the fabric, let's say of the life of China. These are two of them forthose of you who might be interested in

exploring this issue more. And Mukaddas will of course speak

about this in much more detail. So who are

the Uighurs? Um. This is something again that so many people don't know

in spite of the fact that this is um one of the greatest um, and most pressing human rights crises of our times.

They're actually a Central Asian Turkic Ethnic group um, similar to the Uzbeks.

So um quite uh different, I would say, in culture from the majority Han Chinese.

They're closer to Turkic neighbors such as the Uzbeks. The

language is more closely related to Turkish again than Chinese. And you can see in this,

what I found just yesterday a pentalingual street sign in Kashgar. Um and what looks

like Arabic or Persian, there is the modern Uighur script. The population is

around 11 point, around 12 million, let's say which is close to the population of Sweden,

Austria and it is predominantly Muslim. Most um uh Uighurs live in this area

known as Xinjiang. It's also known as east Turkestan especially by those who

continue to nurture aspirations for autonomy for this region.

You'll you might also see it being referred to as the Uighur

Autonomous Region or the Uighur Autonomous Province. Um, a final point that I want to

make here about um, other Islam in China is that

there are other Muslim minorities in this area. I've listed some of them, so Uighurs are by no

means the only Muslims. And although initially in this crisis, the Chinese state had adopted

fairly repressive policies against-- that were targeting the primarily Uighur population, these

policies have expanded um, to other Muslim populations as well.

Now uh, with respect to the current crisis, it's really difficult to pinpoint

exactly what the trigger was.

There have been restrictions on ethnic minority Muslims for centuries and

certainly for, for decades across the 18th 19th and

20th centuries. But it's around 2016 when the campaign to suppress dissent

underwent what most observers say was a dramatic shift. And uh please note that when I say

dissent, I'm talking about any form of cultural or religious expression. Alright, so speaking the

language in public. Uh public, you know, sort of any kind of public expression of Uighur identity is

considered dissent. So under um, uh Chen Guanguo, the uh, regional party secretary of

Xinjiang, he was appointed in 2016, it is said that the campaign has become against the Uighurs has become

unprecedented in its scale, its pervasiveness and its efficiency.

Now of course the, uh Chinese government's official stance on all this

is that they are implementing a policy of re-education.

This is something that you see very often in in the news, That it's all part of re-education

camps. Um, which makes something that is incredibly repressive

sound uh, not so repressive. And they also call it vocational training.

They say that it's to deal with an internal threat,

uh, potential uprisings by Muslims within their, within their borders. Um, we should of course be mindful that this

is not a crisis uh, that is confined to Xinjiang.

It really is a global crisis. It's global in many, many dimensions. Uh first of all, it's felt by Uighur and

Chinese Muslims in diaspora who have had to flee their homes and who are trying uh, very much to reconstruct their lives

in exile, but are bonded to the suffering of those who are back in their homelands. It's

global in the ways in which it relies on what we might call global Islamophobia.

Right, this the idea that Muslims are perennially

the enemy within, whatever national borders they happen to be in. And it's a global

crisis most importantly because each one of us is embedded in a global economy.

And we are all connected to China's trade, cultural, and economic networks. There is little doubt that the technologies that

are being developed in China are being used to surveil and suppress dissent across the world. Right, um, and

there are leaders across the world who will be using this technology to suppress their own dissenting

populations.

And it really, is uh quite unfortunate that in spite of the fact that this is a

global crisis, it kind of pops onto our consciousness in very

limited ways. And I have here a few recent headlines just over the past two years.

Um, when the Uighurs and what's happening in Xinjiang has appeared in the news, it often has to

do with sports personalities or Disney. Um and then they kind of just leave our consciousness again.

So for all of these reasons, I am very thankful to our panelists for bringing us a more

informed awareness of this, of this crisis, uh and helping us to understand it in

its various dimensions. Um and I'm going to end with a quick introduction to both of them and let you

know what the format of the panel will be.

And then turn it over to them. So Jessica Batke will be our first speaker. She's a China File senior editor.

She's an expert on China's domestic political and social affairs and served as the State Department's

Bureau of Intelligence and Research Analysts for almost eight years before she joined the

China File.

In 2016, she was a visiting academic fellow at MERICS in Berlin where she published

papers on Chinese leadership politics and created databases of hard-to-find, high-level Chinese policy documents and

details about policy advisory groups. Our second uh, speaker will be Mukaddas Mijit who is an ethnomusicologist, a filmmaker

and a performer. She was born and raised in the Uighur homeland and moved to Paris in 2003.

She obtained her M.A at the university of Sorbonne where her research was on Sufi practice

in the Uighur region.

She was awarded her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of

Paris in 2015. Her research was on staging of Uighur

music and dance.She's published a number of articles and

edited volumes in peer-reviewed journals and has made four substantial

documentaries and a number of short films, some of which she'll be sharing

with us today. She taught visual anthropology and is currently involved in a research

program at the School of Oriental and African Studies and different creative projects in Paris and

in New York. And I know if we were in person there would be a rousing round of applause

to welcome them um, but uh you know we will do that virtually I guess.

Um, uh, and uh, I welcome you both Jessica and Mukaddas.

And I will turn this over to Jessica now.

Uh, thanks so much Dr. Sayeed for putting this together. This is really um, it's a real honor to be here again

with you um, and thank you to my co-panelist Mukaddas. It's always a pleasure to be

anywhere with you. Um, yeah so I'm here today to talk a little bit about um, to give some more background um, and

historical context for what's going on and then talk a little bit about the sort of work that um

Mukaddas and I are doing together to raise awareness um, in our artistic sphere about this crisis.

So just to give you a little bit of a road map about uh, where I'm going here.

I'll talk a little bit about why the repression of Uighurs and other turkic Muslims has

increased in the last decade. Uh, Dr Sayeed talked on, talked about some

of this, but I'll go into a little bit more detail.

We'll talk about what effects it's having on Uighurs outside of China.

Um, a common question I often get is how, you know, about the tension between some

of um, the Chinese government's international development policies and its treatment of Uighurs at home. So

we'll talk about that.

Um, I'll, I'll try to answer the question why this is more than just china's issue,

why I think people should be engaged on this issue, and then finally I'll transition a bit

to talk about my work, um the artistic work that i'm doing in

collaboration with Mukaddas and then and then turn it in over to her

to talk more about her work.

Okay, so why is this repression happening and why is it getting worse? Uh.

First, it's worth repeating again that it's not just Uighurs. It's other,

um, I think minority Muslims, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz in the region that are also

suffering.

Um and as Dr. Sayeed mentioned in her introduction, um, this isn't new. There's been

repression going on since since the founding of the PRC and, and before.

But in order to try to answer this question, I'm going to grossly over simplify here.

Uh, just know that this is actually quite a complicated question. There's no really

easy answer. There's, there's abstract factors. There's really concrete factors,

there's international and domestic factors.

But I'll just give a really, really simplified answer and

uh, part of that I'm going to cheat actually and go back, back beyond the one

decade. I think something really important to know is um

how much 9-11 and the U.S. declared global war on terror actually impacted Chinese government

thinking and policy about what's happening in the Uighur region.

Right, so if you before 9 11 2001, if you look at how the Chinese

government described anything, they didn't like in the region, they labeled it as or 'Separatism,' so meaning people were

trying to break away from China. Almost really, really soon after 9 11, that

rhetoric shifted to call anything they didn't like

terrorism. And this shift in rhetoric accomplished

a number of things. It kind of helped get more international support

for what China was hoping to do

domestically. but also I think this rhetoric has has really influenced over time how the

Chinese government uh, views what's happening in the region, uh, therefore views what solutions that

they want to try to bring to it.

And it and influences how they message to their own population and how their

own population thinks about this.

So even though that happened um, almost 20 years ago now, I actually do think

it's a really important inflection point in how the Chinese

government thinks about what is happening in the region.

More recently, um you know, tensions did did start getting worse uh in the late

2000s and the early 2010s.

There was a number of violent um, incidents of unrest. Uh there was a

number of you know, peaceful protests. Um, there were

a number of what probably would be considered

terrorist acts that occurred both in the region and

elsewhere in China.

It's really important to note that there's no evidence that there's any

sort of single terrorist group that's organizing these, either inside China or outside

China. These very much look like lone wolf sorts of attacks.

But there was just this increasing tension um, as repression continued. Um people

would sometimes respond to that and sometimes the state inflicted violence

upon people, average people. There's one incident, I believe, in 2013 where people were protesting

um, the jailing of an Imam. And uh, from best we can tell, the the police just shot them all down.

It's really, really hard to get a lot of information about what's going on because China,

the Chinese government does not allow independent reporting in the area.

So those sorts of things were happening in the late 2000s, early 2010s.

And it got to a point where in 2014, the central government called a meeting

to talk about policy in the region. and this is also another really important inflection

point. You can see from the from the public notes from that meeting

that they were going to start shifting to a much more security heavy

uh, presence in the region, which is saying something because it's already quite securitized.

Um, and steps were starting to be taken to tighten down uh, governance in

the region.

And then in 2016, as Dr. Sayeed mentioned, Chen Quanguo who had been the Party Secretary of Tibet was moved

to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. And that's when you started seeing

really intense hiring of security personnel, um and in 2017, the opening of these camps.

All of that also is happening in a larger sort of social and cultural environment where you know, Islam, Islamophobia is

quite common. um and racism is quite common. Um. there is not in general, a large, there has not been

large cultural discussions or reckoning about race in China.

Um, we're all living through one right now in the U.S. and and think about how hard one that

discussion is um if there hasn't there really hasn't

been that same sort of discussion uh, more broadly in Chinese society. So a

lot of um, what appears very obviously outside, from the outside to be racism isn't

really thought about or remarked upon at all.

And that plays into government policies and how the government thinks about governing this region. There's also a

very specific CCP (Chinese Communist Party) concern about religion um, that that plays into repression here.

Uh, the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like any religion very much at all. Um, but it especially doesn't like Islam

again after decades of global war on terror, terror rhetoric.

And really importantly to know, all of this is happening

at the same time as a more general political tightening

in China. Xi Jinping became leader in part because the Chinese Communist Party felt

that he was the right man to try to um, impose some more authority

and discipline on Chinese governance. There was a feeling that things had just gotten too

lax, people were allowed to do whatever they want, they weren't really holding to the

dictates of the party. And so while what is happening in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region

is unique and incredibly intense, um, it is. it is also happening at the same

time there's more general political tightening happening in China.

So to talk a little bit about we've talked now about what's happening in within the China and

within Chinese borders, so let's talk a little bit about what

this means for Uighurs who are living outside China because I think it's really important to note it's

not just people who are inside China who are you know. either put

in camps or um, you know, they're being surveilled all

the time. They're not the only ones that

are impacted by this. Uh, this has really uh, intense and consistent effects on people living

outside.

The first thing to note is that there have been a number of forced

repatriations. And that means um, the Chinese government convincing other countries to round up Uighurs and

send them back to China even if they were there in these other countries legally. Really

notably this happened in 2017 in Egypt. A number of students who were in Egypt to

study were picked up and forcibly sent back to China.

Um, but kind of on a more day-to-day basis and a more insidious basis perhaps is the the constant surveilling of uh,

Uighurs who are again living outside China.

Um, they are threatened sometimes.

Uh, they're, if they have family members back at home,

Chinese government officials may threaten uh, implicitly or explicitly those, those family members back at home,

uh to try to get Uighurs in the diaspora to do or not do certain things. So to maybe to report on other Uighurs, uh or

to not, to not um, speak out against what's happening in the region.

And also a lot of people um, are cut off from their family in the region.

Everyone knows that their communications are being constantly watched.

One of the few ways to stay in contact is through WeChat, which is an app that the government, the

Chinese government, has full access to. And so a number of people in the region have chosen to block

family members outside, so they don't get in trouble for talking to them.

So it really is having long-lasting and pervasive effects on the community um, outside China. It's not like if you

get out, you're magically free from from the effects of this.

Let's turn now to talking about this, it's a question I used to get all the time,

actually when I worked in the government.

Um and it's, it's trying to figure out how it is possible both to have an international

development strategy that is so focused on Muslim majority countries

and also be carrying out um, very anti-Muslim policies at home?

Uh, really quickly, I'll just say you know, Belt and Road.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which is the name of this. this international economic

development policy. Um, in case, in case you aren't familiar, it's a, it's a global infrastructure development

strategy. It's aimed at working in and partnering with uh, countries all

over the world but, but you know specifically, also in Central Asia, South Asia,

and the Middle East. Uh, BRI is super complicated. There's no way I'm going to

be able to cover it here. Um, but it is important uh to know that,

it's you know, it's the signer– signature foreign policy initiative of this administration, this, this

Chinese government administration. Um, it also involves a lot of work by private corporations

um and other non-economic sorts of partial partnerships and exchanges. So it's really, really extensive. And while

it is kind of state promoted and encouraged, it's not just state actors that are

carrying it out.

So, so the question is how do you have this signature foreign policy initiative,

right, that works with all these Muslim majority countries and at the same time,

is acting, enacting these really repressive, um

policies at home? Um, I think one of the ways to think about this is

to think about China's goals in these other countries. And

and China doesn't have any real aims to change

how say, Pakistan is governing its own people.

Right, their goal is to to set up economic or infrastructure development

projects. Their goal is not to mandate how the Pakistani government

manages its own people or the religion of their own people. And this is uh, something that the Chinese

call the 'principle of non-interference' in the internal affairs of other nations.

We will leave aside that China in fact does all the time

interfere in the internal affairs of other nations but, but

in general, this principle does uh, does explain a lot about

why BRI um, isn't isn't about kind of mandating how other governments govern

their own countries. And another important part about BRI is that

one of its goals is also to increase wealth in the Uighur region. Right, it's,

the goal is to economically integrate the Uighur– Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous

Region more deeply into international trade relationships with the idea idea being that if people are richer,

they will be more content with the government.

Um, so whether or not that turns out to be true

is another question, but the idea is to to try and increase wealth in the region. And so

BRI is part of this. And um, it does this, doesn't really answer the question. These two ideas are still

inherently in tension, but that's kind of the thinking

as I see it um, behind this.

So why is this more than just China's issue? I actually think Dr. Sayeed addressed this pretty well um, up at top.

And I also think that you know at a really basic level, I personally don't have a great way to

answer this question.

I'm, I'm pretty biased. A lot of my thinking and career choices have been

premised on the fact that I think that things that are happening on the other side of the world

are fundamentally important um, in some ineffable way even if they don't affect my life

this exact minute. Um, so you know, I am biased. Um, but at a

practical level, I still think it's really hard to say that

things that are happening in one of the biggest countries in the world,

and by biggest, I mean size-wise, I mean population-wise, I mean

um, you know economically, I mean in terms of international political clout.

All of that. It's really hard to say that things happening in a place like that are just completely untethered from the

rest of the world, right.

Um, people have gotten really used to the idea that things that are happening in the U.S. domestically, internally, you

know, can have major effects on the rest of the world.

And I think it's time that uh, we start thinking about

things that are happening in China in the same way.

Um, and we've already talked about some of the ways

that this is true, right: forced repatriations, uh spying on the the diaspora community, putting

pressure on foreign governments to you know speak out, not speak out about

what's happening, or to help round up people in your countries, right. But other

governments are already taking actions based on PRC pressure or enticements.

Um, and it's changing people's lives forever in those countries.

So this is already happening. This influence is already happening in

places other than China, making this not just a China issue. And, and this is going to

become more common only, become more common as the PRC gains more international clout.

Um and as Dr. Sayeed mentioned, you know, with China's integration into the global

economy, supply chains are, are tangled, convoluted, but, but we are complicit

um, as consumers when we're purchasing things that might have been made with

forced labor from the region.

Um, 80 percent of China's cotton comes from the region.

Uh, which means that if if we buy, if I buy a cotton from China, it may make me complicit even indirectly in

what's happening.

Um, so I just think there's a number of ways in which this cannot, this should not be viewed just as

China's problem. And I also think that um, this is just me speaking my personal

opinion here, I do think that a lot of times saying that something is

just China's issue is a way of sidestepping the really really difficult decisions that might

have to be made if if you wanted to actually engage with it.

It is a thorny situation. There's not a lot of

immediate obvious things, um, to immediately stop what's happening.

But just because the decisions are difficult doesn't mean they're not there.

Uh, so I think it's important to engage with the question, with the presumption that it is not just China's issue and

not allow the how difficult the question is to foreclose, forestall any any

discussion about it.

Right, so now, now I've gotten through all the context. I'll talk a little bit

about my work um, and then I'll, I'll, I'll hand it off to Mukaddas.

Um, I, I, prior to my current job, I worked at the State Department and the Bureau

of Intelligence and Research. And I focused on domestic, political, and social issues

there. So I worked a lot on issues in the Uighur region. And then in,

starting in 2017, I've worked at China File, which is an online magazine that focuses on U.S-

China relations.

And at China File, I've done a couple things, one of which is to just look at

really specifically how international nonprofits are able to work in China,

given changing regulatory conditions there.

And more recently, I've been working on a project which was just published so

everyone should go read it.

It's called 'State of Surveillance.' and it looks at surveillance of public spaces in China.

And specifically, the way that we did this research was to look at

government procurement documents, so looking at what the government was purchasing over

the last two decades in terms of equipment, services, et cetera.

And this is specifically because it's so hard to do reporting on the ground right

now.

Um, and for the last few years, completely separate from

from my job, I've been working with Mukaddas as well as a team of other really

wonderful and dedicated people who want to raise awareness and, and an

understanding of what's happening in the Uighur region. And this project is called

Everybody is Gone. It is a large scale art installation, performance, uh

immersive journalism. There's a lot of different words you could use to

describe it. And the basis of it is that we invite audiences, this is obviously not happening right

now, but once we are, it's all safe to be together in a room,

we will have invited audience audiences come through into a space and participate in a village meeting.

These village meetings are actual things that happen um, in throughout the Uighur homeland. Um,

Uighur and others are forced to come to a meeting once a week

where they have to, for example, recite propaganda that demonizes their own culture. Where they have to

read scripts that denounce themselves, that denounce their loved ones

for engaging in really, really day-to-day behavior like praying.

Um, and so we're hoping that having by having audiences be a part of

this and experiencing it firsthand, we're going to give them a more visceral

understanding and a more a more emotional connection to what is

happening in the region and to understand what it feels like to be

a physical body in a physical space that is really changing

around you with less with without your consent or without your control. After that we want audiences

to enter into a more gallery-like space where they're going to have an

opportunity to engage with a lot of the research

about what's happening in the Uighur region, so they can learn more about

village meetings, let's say, just experience. So they can learn all sorts

of other things that's happening in the region as Dr. Sayeed said, you know,

destruction of cultural spaces, separation of family, being put into one

of these camps.

Um, so what we're hoping to do is first give them an emotional experience

and then ground them in facts um, so they feel like they can truly understand

what's happening um, in the region as best as you can

understand without actually being there.

We also want to give a platform um to members of the Uighur community to

respond in their own way to this crisis and highlight works of art by by Uighur

artists in this space. Um, I actually see all of my work, so the work of work at

China File about NGOs and surveillance and this work uh with Mukaddas and this

art installation, I actually see them um, as as really closely linked. And

that's because, in all of these cases, I see a big part of my job

as gathering information, gathering data, uh, and bringing it together in new ways

to help people understand what's really going on. And in a lot of cases this

information has to be gathered in really roundabout ways.

That might not be necessary if I was working on another country,

But the Chinese government is very active in propaganda and disinformation abroad,

which makes it really important to try to again highlight the facts.

And because the Chinese government makes it really really hard to get

to do reporting on the ground in China. So part of what I feel is central to all

of my work is defying those attempts at silence,

defying those attempts at misinformation, and putting out as many solid facts as I can to help people feel like they are on a really

firm footing and they do know what's going on.

Um we talk a lot, you know when we're we're working as a team on this art installation, we talk a lot

about making the implicit explicit.

Again, that's something I think that that is a through line in a lot of my work.

And you know in terms of the art installation, that might be something as

simple as, why don't you have a half hour of footage from inside one of these camps?

Why can't we see that?

And the answer to that is simply because no one can get in and and independently

take a half hour video of what's happening.

Right, the Chinese government's not going to let you just go in and do independent reporting.

Um, but instead of kind of glossing over that question, what we want to do is make

that really central and make that really clear and really obvious. And part of the

message, part of the message here is that we are

providing facts and information um, that that otherwise wouldn't be out there because

because the Chinese government is trying to stop this information from getting out.

Uh and for this reason, I try to keep my

work my role in this work as fact-based as possible because I think it's important that people

hopefully see me as an honest interlocutor. It's not helpful if people

don't see me as reliable, if people see me as too invested in advocacy, and not invested in

facts. and that's a very tough line to thread.

But I don't primarily view my work as

advocacy. I view my work as about trying to

uncover and communicate the truth as best I can.

And as in as many different ways as I can to try to

to help connect with people who otherwise might not hear it.

So with that, I will turn this back over to Mukaddas.

Thank you very much, Jessica, um. I'm so touched to be here actually, to be in this panel because

this is our first time presenting anything related to our work and also

about um, uh anything related to Uighur issues. And I'm really grateful that uh Dr. Sayeed,

like provided us this platform and this opportunity to

not only just talk about who are the Uighurs and what's happening

to them, but um, we will come to my part of the the, the presentation today is

how we are reacting and then why art is important

um, in what's happening and what in what we are doing.

So and today, I'm I'm really glad that I'm I'm talking

after you too because you took out the the burden of introducing who are the Uighurs and where they are

and what's their problem. So, I can only just concentrate it on me and

myself and my work.

So that's perfect. This is the easiest panel that I can do. Thank you very much

for that. Um, and also that that's something that we

agreed on with uh Dr. Sayeed, that I will more talk about my

personal experience as a um, as a Uighur ethnomusicologist and artist and how if the musicology or all the

artistic work that I'm doing uh, is related to Uighur issue and how it

will play the role of advocacy for a Uighur cause.

Um, after I re um um, when I was started to to really think about what should I, how

should I introduce myself it really that drew me back to um when I was born and where I was born.

Um, I was born in the 80s in Urumqi in the specifically in the Uighur area

because um, our differences with Han Chinese or

with the government, our relationship with the government starts

from there, where we were born. And I was like I was born in this in this

area where um, a lot of people who was living in this area were um, primarily Uighur, Kazakhs.

There were of course Han Chinese but we didn't have really close relationship with them.

We only deal with um, Uighur, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, all the all these

Turkic um people um, in in our area. So i was I grew up in this kind of

a little bit bubble of um, all these Turkic people, talking all this turkic languages: Uighur, Kazakh.

And um, also having this very um, strong and colorful, cultural

environment. My father was a chemistry professor in the University of Xinjiang and my mother was a

journalist of Xinjiang Daily. And they had a lot of friends who were artists, intellectuals, poets

and researchers. And um, I think also, um when I was born is important

because in the 80s, I think for for the whole China, it was a kind of um, very a little bit relaxed

moment after the cultural revolution. So people started to to reconnect with the outside world and

to to learn there were a lot of massive information from the West coming through.

I remember my, my, my young teenager self listening to all different kinds of

music coming from the United States and feeling like

I belong to this world and I can also go to a big concert and

screaming the names of the big rock stars.

So um, when I was uh, 12 years old, there were um

a project um, launched by the uh Art Institute of Xinjiang.

They had this genius idea of having a class

only from ethnic minorities from the region to create a future ballet ensemble, the first ever ballet

ensemble, classical ballet ensemble of the region. So we were 40 students

who recruited to be become, the future of Xinjiang Autonomous Region's ballet uh,

Ensemble. When we arrived our third year, the plan changed.

And we started to hear from our um, um, response, like our our teachers that

we will not have the, the, the planned um, school years uh uh as they told us in

the beginning of the the the, the, for uh the

um um um, in the beginning of our journey. to say you know you will have two years of

school in Urumqi. And then we will send you to Beijing. You will have the best

teachers of of China. But that changed at that moment and we realized that

the problem, the only problem that we had, it's not because

we were backwarded or we did, we couldn't we didn't know how to dance classical

ballet dance. It was only because we didn't have any Han Chinese in our class.

So the whole um, whole um, uh destiny of this 40 people, 40 young

teenagers changed like that to say. Um, it was not the official announcement

but we understood that because there were no Han Chinese, so we couldn't

become the future of this uh classical ballet ensemble.

So I also changed my plan because my mother wanted me to become a

classical pianist, so I did this

I spent my time to catch up with the program and I was accepted in the undergraduate

program in the Art Institute uh for, for four more years in the school. So when I

finished my um, my program as a classical pianist, of course, I went

through the same exact education as any Han Chinese students that

we had in in the in our school, But um, when I finished, I wanted to become a

teacher at this institute, but unfortunately there was another Han

Chinese um, who graduated at the same time. So we both um, send out our applications for

becoming to become the teacher. Of course, I was not chosen.

She instead got the job so anyway, I wanted to go abroad and I

wanted to see the world, so I applied for a music school to continue

my journey as a classical pianist in Paris. So I got my uh visa to only two weeks

before the SARS pandemic. Uh, so I left china. I came to Paris, that was my first time i was alone. I

didn't speak French.

Um, I had to start all my journey in Paris. Um, it was,

it was very complicated beginning for me. I was of course very excited to

discover the world and the whole whole world for, it was like opening up for me, uh. But um,

one problem is, I didn't know how to explain um, I knew how to explain

who I was but no one knew who I was and where I

came from. And that was, that came to me as a shock because um, it was in 2003.

I thought as anything, that I know from the western society,

at least they will know who are the Uighurs. So when I came to Paris, when I

speak to people I had to go through this half a,

half an hour of explanation of,

Yes, I'm from China. I have a Chinese passport but I'm not Chinese. I'm Uighur.

It's not the same culture. It's not the same language. We have a different

belief system. Uh, we actually central asian, it's a turkic nation. "Oh,

you're from Turkey?" No, no, no, I'm not, I'm I'm not from Turkey. But I'm Uighur.

"Oh, are you Chinese? You don't look Chinese." So

it was this kind of questioning all the time. And I

really, I was puzzled. That was a big identical, identity crisis for me

because it was huge. I grew up with this um big maps at the classroom feeling like

I'm in the center of the world. Suddenly, I mean I'm in Paris, no one knew

about me. So, um, I didn't know what to do and at the

same time I realized that uh, classical, Western classical music

didn't need me. And I didn't need that neither. So um, very luckily enough um,

I saw there were a world music festival happening near my language

school in Paris.

So one night, I saw there were Kazakh musicians from Kazakhstan

performing in this festival. So I went there with a friend.

I saw the the director of the festival introduced,

introducing these musicians as the masters of traditional Kazakh music.

I was like, is this, this is also something possible for Uighurs to come.

And we are also, we can also, we should have rights to perform in

these big stages.

It should be possible. I was really enraged.

I loved the music, the concert, but I was also thinking about like, we also should

have this right to be on this global stages. Um, yeah and a few days

after, I met the the the same director at the at the lobby of

my language school because it's it was in the same building.

So I went directly to them to him and I told him,

mister you should program Uighur traditional music.

I will bring Uighur musicians to you. And that's how I started actually um, my

my real journey, I would say. Because from that moment, it was

something really, a switch happened in my in my life,

because it was the moment that I realized that

Uighur music actually or Uighur culture actually or

art actually needed me. So we went through all this

very complicated uh, procedure that I will not

talk about it right now, uh, to bring the

um, a group of musicians from a very far away village in in the southern um, Xinjiang.

And they were Dao Lang musicians. And um, they had three very nice

concert concerts in Paris. And we recorded um, um, a cd uh for them.

But I also realized at the same time that

these kind of concerts happens every night in Paris.

And Parisians didn't really give a give any big deal for this kind of music

from somewhere that they don't really know. But um, interestingly enough, something really

positive happened. When these musicians went back home, because they were

farmers and they were like people who really

like no one really cared about, because no one really understood their music.

But when they went back after giving these concerts in in Paris, people suddenly realized that

oh these um, music that we forgot about, like people from France they're interested in. So that

must be something that we should be getting interested in.

And they were received by the the head of the the

the region and then they give them some money and then they become

state treasurer of intangible cultural heritage.

Um so, that had a very strong echo for people to understand actually like

to to to have a space or place or have an impact in the world, we should

bring something from our culture, from our art.

Um, that was really beautiful but of course I didn't really know at that time

that all this very exciting, a lot of excitement from the government,

it was only related to uh, the the policy of cultural um uh intangible cultural heritage that UNESCO

put um put up there. And that's why people like the government was really

interested in what was going on with this farmer musicians. Um,

after this experience, I felt like I did something useful and I could be this bridge to bring

people uh, to this stages that they deserve.

Um, but I didn't really know like how to continue. Um, I was very young

and uh of course the the director of this festival again, he said well if you want to have um, um

a voice, some legitimacy to raise awareness about your culture you

should go and study ethnomusicology. I was like, I

don't know what is that but I will do that.

So I was accepted in in the Paris university. I started this

very complicated um, undergraduate program where I didn't

know anything and I was not at all prepared for

uh for ethnomusicology. I didn't know that existed

before. So I had very hard time really getting used to it.

Of course there was a language problem.

I was just starting to learn, my French was not that good. But

interestingly enough, there were um specialist ethnomusicologists,

French specialist who worked in Uighur music. I thought that's great, so

she could help me and we can do things together but not at all um.

I think uh, when I um, of course, there's like some personal

reasons that she didn't really like my presence there. But

there's also something else, it's um. I think pretty

much the problem of this discipline, because of course, if the

musicology anthropology, there were the disciplines that were

created by the Western scholars or even uh colonial, um

scholars to study these uh savages, or these people from from other

places of the world. So the Western society can understand, the

Westerners can understand these culture.

So me being an indigenous um student

arriving there in front of this big very prestigious scholar,

and she, the first thing that she told me she said,

you know, in ethnomusicology the the students from their own culture,

they don't have right to study their own culture.

That's that's how I was uh welcomed to ethnomusicology actually. And

of course, I will not, she was not very nice to me. And I think there were some

personal reasons for that as well. But there's something really problematic

about that kind of mentality or point of view, to see students from these cultures,

willing to to study their own culture with the tools developed in the Western

universities. And again it was also very complicated to adjust because,

why I shouldn't have right to use those tools that you developed

to study my own culture. So my whole, uh PhD process

was also um based and built on that kind of struggle

for being someone from inside and trying to to have this exact amount of distance

and, and I have a proper analysis to to really like write about what I can,

what I understand and about my own culture.

Um, of course, I had wonderful teachers as well, she's not the only one.

And I learned a lot. And I um I really, um, appreciate that I had this experience

to really um, do researches on my own culture.

Of course um, as I, as I told you, I was born in in Urumqi. It's the capital city of um

the Uighur region. So I didn't like, Uighur region is

really like three times bigger than France. It's a huge region. So I couldn't know, even born,

being born in Urumqi, everything was happening in the whole

region, and all the different diverse culture

that people created over the the centuries. So I was

in some sense, also stranger for some some topics that I was studying.

I needed these tools of ethnomusicology to really understand what was going on, um.

But at the same time, I was I started to realize that being a scholar doesn't give me a

lot of possibility to really advocate um,

Uighur culture or Uighur arts. Um, there's also other ways that I can, I can

use as. I mentioned I was a trained dancer, I

was a trained musician. So um, I also wanted to use these artistic

tools to, to explore my own culture and do uh, more about my to to talk about

who I am and where I'm from um. So what happened, what

ends up happening is I became this um, three or four-headed monster

who who's really uh struggles to find its own

um, shape, I would say, because um, I was this. I had this training of a

musicologist who wants to analyze everything, to say

this is constructed, this is propaganda from

Chinese government, and this is how the Uighurs

um, also um accepted this propaganda, appropriated these propaganda

and how they they're expressing themselves.

At the same time, I had this artistic head, saying like oh, you can

be free and do whatever you want. But so it's really um,

all of my work is really very contradictory, at the same time, but at

the same time, also I think, turns around like what is Uighur culture

and what we want to to say to the world uh, as a

group of people who uh, who has this very complex history and complex situation

by being in in um, in the edge of Central Asia, having uh,

this oppression of Chinese government, at the same time uh, having this uh, eager to define ourselves as as different.

But yeah, so um, so I felt at the urge of uh, using um, video to express

these things because um, of course I did a lot of different um,

performances, uh, in different stages in in festivals.

Of course, I continue to bring being the bridge to

bring, people from from Uighur region to um, to the European stages. We did a lot

of uh, performances and festivals all over the world with different artists.

But I felt that there's um, there was a need to express

myself, my world, um, my way of being an artist, through video, through

images. So, I will now share some videos with you, which is really uh, which

really um, very close to some of the um, the

the problematics that I um, I mentioned. Um there was the need of expressing

myself, at the same time, presenting what is

Uighur culture, but at the same time, presenting in a in a lively way but

not in a folkloric or in a very uh crystallized way. So I

always try to find a balance in between uh, what is defined culture, what is the very like,

um defined Uighur culture, what is something in between or the culture,

and in between these very multiple identities that we

Uighur people has and myself um, I have. so i will start with the um,

first um, um, video that I wanted to share with you

that's um, that's from a um. I'll send it in in the chat so

you can go and see that video and then come back again. I'll just say

few words before I start it um. This is a song written by a very um, close collaborator

that I had up until 2016.

He's a rock singer from Urumqi and um, he's also um, a very interesting figure. Like we will

not have time today to talk about his work.

Uh, he was this singer from a bar in Urumqi, but by being uh, in a

festival in Germany, that I uh, put, I did the coordination with uh, he became

internet sensation. And then he was invited to

participate The Voice of China and then he ended up

being the second finalist.

So suddenly, this musician from a bar became the huge star of

of China and um, now he mainly sings in in Chinese and I have no

contact with him anymore since 2016.

But this song, particularly, um he wrote the song many years ago before everything started, about a prisoner who wants to

be free and to become a whole uh, person who can embrace um, life, um. And the video that I did, I shot it in um

in an island, in um, near Morocco in a Spanish Island called Lanzarote. And um, I found the the nature is really interesting

and also that was in 2016, I think, uh, when everything started to become really stressful for for us um, for people who whose um, who

was in outside of the in the region. And we started to have these echoes of some things going wrong in the

region.

So I didn't really know but I wanted to poetically express my stresses

um, with a song for someone imprisoned uh, and his wishes for

freedom. So here we go, you can click on it and go see it.

I hope you had a chance to to see the the video and um,

originally I plan to show you two more videos,

but um, I'll just share one link and the other one, I will just share a

little bit of it because we are running out of time and also there's a lot of question to be

answered. Um, so since 2016, 2017, um, I really started to understand that things are getting

really um, worse and worse in the homeland.

And I was um, as Jessica was saying, I was cut off, um,

the communication with my friends and a lot of people said, sorry, I cannot talk to you anymore, but I

wish you the best. I love you. And um, I started to realize that I cannot be silenced

anymore, so I, um before that, because of my my work with musicians to

protect them, to um, I never took um, a public speech to talk about political issues um, in

in any media. So um, in 2017 I had this big trip to Urumqi, to Turpan with a friend of mine, a collaborator of mine, called um

Lisa Ross. We wanted to go to there, but we couldn't go there because

everything gets really, um, really really bad, um.

So I started to, the only only way for me to stay, um

I don't know, a little bit sane was to um, to be active, act artistically and also

uh, produce videos with dance, with uh, with music.

And the the video that I wanted to share with you. The second one is um,

um, is a perfect example of this. If you could please share share it with the participants.

Um, it's because I was um, forbidden or not forbidden, I was

restricted to go back home. So I needed to do something. So I came up with this

choreography and I worked with a musician, a friend um, and we created this this piece called

Home. Um, that all the movements that I was, I was

doing, it's uh really, um um, the expression of how I cannot, I

I'm afraid of um never being going back to homeland to

see my loved ones my, my friends and um my

family and and also the fear of never being able to see my homeland again.

So that this piece is really related to that. And I will be really quick quick and

then show you a last bit, a little bit of, um the last video that, um

which is kind of a project ongoing project

about uh, musicians um, um, elder Uighur musicians in the world in the diaspora and especially um, a very um,

strong uh, singer um, that we had. And she has this amazing story of

being born in the, in the 30s in the 40s, I think.

And going through this political shift in between um, um, Eastern Turkestan and then how

um, how her whole career whole life changed when Chinese government arrived in the 50s.

Should I share a little bit of that video or do we have time?

Okay, unfortunately, she passed away last year

so, my idea was to to do, um, to make a documentary film about her life

especially uh, what was it meant for her to be an artist in the um, in the

administration of Eastern Turkistan in the 40s and then how everything changed, the whole

situation changed when she, when a Chinese government arrived

um, to the the region. So she was a daughter of a very rich businessman, she was of course sent to

jail when Chinese government arrived because they were fighting against everything and every

rich person in the region. So in this very short clip that I will show you maybe,

30 seconds, she is talking about one of her experience by being forced to sing

um, in a ex, after an execution.

So she you will see what she's singing and how she's singing it. I will share my screen.

"The song was dedicated to the leader Mao Ze Dong this one... I've forgotten the lyrics ... it was excellent. We were very afraid of the situation and wrote this song, 'We crossed the high mountains... Long life, long life to Mao Ze Dong.' We said to ourselves: 'Let's sing this song tomorrow after the execution.' That night we wrote five or six songs. Without rest, while others slept, we whispered as we wrote these songs. 'Tell my beloved. Denounce me my beloved. I'm the one to blame, my sin is my song. Hang me!' They brought a man..."

Sorry, I will stop the video here and the story um, that she was talking about is an

execution of someone innocent, who was claiming his innocence, but it was that period of time.

People were caught arbitrarily and put into jail and to be executed. So just to finish

that, my talk, and to respond to any uh, questions is um, the situation since

the government Chinese government arrived didn't really changed.

And um, yeah the the role of art is document everything and to, to make them known, and that's why the

work that we're doing with Jessica is so so, so important and I'm so lucky to be in it.

Thank you very much. I will finish here.

Thank you so much Mukaddas and Jessica. Um, we benefited from your wonderful insights, the talks were excellent.