Extracting Cultural Resources: The Exploitation and Criminalization of Uyghur Cultural Heritage
June 01, 2018The authorities are also increasingly promoting Chinese cultural performances among Uyghur children. In December of 2017 one village outside of Kashgar had its fourth graders perform Peking Opera for a visiting association of Henan businessmen to express gratitude for the 17,000 renminbi worth of winter clothing they had donated. The Chinese classics has become a part of the education of Uyghur children, and campaigns such as “mobile museums” which “resemble mobile propaganda teams” traveling to rural areas to ensure that the official historical narrative reaches even remote areas. History lectures are held in villages across the region on “local, ethnic and religious history” to help people be “more confident in their culture and socialism in the new era.” Events where children recite Chinese classics feature the costumes and are explicitly connected to learning Mandarin, making locals in Aksu “Sing red songs out of gratitude to the Party, and demonstrating numerous ethnic groups’ recognition of the mainstream culture of the motherland,” in the words of the local United Front Work Department.
