Impact on Local Society

 

Education

 

Policies of Bilingual education present obstacles for many Uyghur students. Regardless if a student is mainly studying Uyghur language attempt to major in Uyghur or Chinese, he/ she is required to be competent in Chinese in order to pursue college level education. Moreover, According to Dwyer, The largest University in Xinjiang, Xinjiang University has ceased to teach any courses in the Uyghur language (Dwyer, 39-40). But the fact is, nearly 82 percent of Uyghurs over the age of fifteen are unable to read Chinese, an additional 10.8 percent can read Chinese with difficulty, and only 7.3 percent easily read Chinese(Wang, 56).

Not only the learning of their own language has been banned, their religious practices have also been restricted. In the Education Law of the PRC, it is explained:

                       …it is banned to preach religion or install religious ideas into students, to force students to follow a religion, to suspend class for collective religious activities, to put religious teachings into the curriculum, to give religious lectures, or to use religion to interfere or disrupt normal teaching order in schools. (Li, 198)

 

Culture and Religion

 

Islam in Xinjiang has been consistently influenced by the region’s proximity to and communication with eastern Central Asia, which is strongly resembles in language, culture and physical geography. Islam entered Xinjiang from Central Asia in the Tenth Century. Fuller and Lipman pointed out that the coming of Islam deepened the cultural differences between China and Turkic World (Fuller and Lipman, Xinjiang, 335). In order to minimize the difference, Chinese Government has been making rules and laws to prevent minors and teens to being religious. For example, the state now strictly enforces rules against religious instruction or even mosque attendance by anyone under eighteen. According to Fuller and Lipman, this gives rise to a process of deculturalization which may ultimately lead to the ignorance regarding to Islam and Uyghur culture (Fuller and Lipman, Xinjiang, 335).

One fine example that has been provided by Fuller and Lipman was Ramadan. In China, religious professionals and privately employed Muslims may fast as they please and eat after sunset and before sunrise, as religion and custom dictate. But there are many reports of government employees, teachers, cadres, and especially schoolchildren being offered specially prepared meals during the days of Ramadan to thwart their desire to fast in favor of their desire to conform and to continue in their current jobs or studies. (Fuller and Lipman, Xinjiang, 338)

In the eye of Many Uyghurs today, the vast Migration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang represents the single greatest threat to their religion and Culture. To meet this challenge, they aim to strengthen their own national identity by emphasizing those ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious characteristics that distinguish them from Han Chinese. Mosque Attendance on Friday, for example is consciously recognized as a mean reinforcing the distinctiveness of the Uyghur community from the dominant han population and the Chinese State that demands openly expressed atheism and abandonment of Islamic practices as requirements for those seeking public education or civil jobs in the province. This creates a terrible dilemma for ambitious and upwardly mobile Uyghurs. (Fuller and Lipman, Xinjiang, 338)