4 December 2019
There is a genocide occurring in the west of China, a modern-day Holocaust of the Uighur people. Despite the awareness of this crisis, those appointed to preventing such horrors (namely the United Nations) are startlingly silent. My decision to address the UN is due to my disbelief at the fact that they are very much aware of the ongoing terror the Uighurs are facing, yet they are allowing their own indifferences to prevent much-needed intervention. My message will be written in the form of a letter because of their authoritative power–something that addressing the Secretary General demands. And more importantly, letters are personal, conveying genuine concern. In this letter, I am trying to convey the importance of the topic and hopefully cause the addressee to take action.
Dear Mr Secretary General,
Imagine: it is the end of an incredibly taxing semester, you are overjoyed to be finally going home and seeing your family. Your mother’s warm hugs, the wrinkles around your father’s eyes when he sees you, it brings a skip to your step, a smile to your face. You rush home only to find stone-faced Chinese officials waiting for you with no trace of your family in sight. Your home, your haven, feels different–disturbed. You muster up the courage to ask about your family and are informed they have been placed in special “schools” and that if they “behaved,” they would be allowed to come home. Your stomach begins to knot and your palms grow sweaty. The officials then take you to see your family, with strict orders to comply–or else. And this is how you and all your neighbors are gathered. You see the lady down the street who feeds the neighborhood cats, the shopkeeper, your teacher with the crooked glasses. You even see your cousin, the one who always teases you, but his laughing face is drawn, his brow furrowed, and his movements jerky. The feeling in your gut worsens.
China’s treatment of the Uigher Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region is nothing new, it can be likened to that of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany. The world could not save the billions of Jewish lives lost. Everyday, more and more Uighurs are subject to the brutality of the Chinese government. We must take immediate action to prevent history from repeating itself.
Victims have come forward and shared their experiences, opening up on what it was like to escape the clutches of the Chinese government. They are willingly reliving their nightmarish memories repeatedly in hopes of getting the attention of people like you. People in positions of power who can help stop the suffering of their people. There are hundreds of thousands of people in need of our help and it is our duty to help them.
Four-hundred Chinese documents were leaked. These documents included the government of China’s plans to cleanse the region of Muslim majority groups. “The documents also include several speeches given by President Xi Jinping where he lays the groundwork for how everything should play out” (Ramzy and Buckley). The President himself is directly responsible, ordering Chinese officials to gather these groups and place them into reeducation camps. He went on to say that the officials should be “sharing beds with” the detained women. China claims that they are trying to cleanse its country of “radical Islam,” they claim that they are trying to rid their country of terrorists, a baseless claim (Maizland). In the words of the Council on Foreign Relations, “their only crime is being Muslim.” President Xi Jinping is using “radical Islam” as an excuse to murder the Uighur people. Again we see the parallels between the Uighurs of China and the Jews of Nazi Germany. Is faith so heinous a crime that it may justify genocide?
I understand that the members of the United Nations are divided in terms of China’s treatment of these minorities. I urge you to consider the severity of the situation and put aside your differences to act immediately. Every moment spent postponing a solution means lives lost. I urge you to do something, anything.
The Uighurs need you to act on your promise to be the upholders and preservers of peace.
Sincerely,
Shzeen Cheema
Works Cited
Deutsche Welle. “UN Members Divided over China’s Treatment of Uighur Minority: DW: 30.10.2019.” DW.COM, www.dw.com/en/un-members-divided-over-chinas-treatment-of-uighur-minority/a-51046710.
“History of the UN Seventieth Anniversary.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/un70/en/content/history/index.html.
Kirby, Jen. “China’s Brutal Crackdown on the Uighur Muslim Minority, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 7 Nov. 2018, www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17684226/uighur-china-camps-united-nations.
Press, Associated. “Secret Documents Reveal How China Mass Detention Camps Work.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 25 Nov. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/mass-surveillance-system-flags-uighurs-for-detention-camps/2019/11/24/f8077904-0f19-11ea-924c-b34d09bbc948_story.html.
Ramzy, Austin, and Chris Buckley. “’Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html.
