10:27 pm, Tue 27 Nov 2012
Britain sees parliamentary changes every four to five years, but there exists a monarch that has?reigned?as sovereign for over sixty years. In the USA,?presidential elections?take place every four years and in France it?s five. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Sudan have seen their leaders surpass 20 years at the top? whilst some African states have seen their leaders exceed?thirty years?in power. In China, leadership changes take place every ten years.
Whilst leadership changes in China take place every ten years, the oppression of some of its citizens is continuous - just ask the Uighurs and the Tibetans if the Chinese will allow them to speak to you.?
Those ten years are now up and the Chinese Communist Party?s 18th Party Congress took place almost the same time as the recent US elections - the world?s attention set firmly on the two biggest economies - as it decided to install?Xi Jinping and six others?to lead the Politburo Standing Committee. The BBC?reported?that ?Xi is also expected to take over as China's president in March 2013.?
The leadership change may have overshadowed the plight of those that China oppresses, but a timely reminder was given by none other than the Dalai Lama and the Japanese. Western mainstream media also wasted no time in highlighting corruption in the upper echelons of China?s ruling elite. The New York Times?published?a report outlining outgoing-Premier Wen Jiabao?s $2.7 billion wealth and?Bloomberg?highlighted the wealth accrued by the members of China?s legislature and related it to the poverty suffered by most Chinese citizens: ?income[s] reflects the imbalances in economic growth in China, where per capita annual income in 2010 was $2,425, less than in Belarus and a fraction of the $37,527 in the US.?
With impeccable timing the Dalai Lama?appeared?in Japan urging Japanese politicians to visit Tibet to see the suffering that China inflicts on Tibetans. Two Tibetans died in self-immolations that week. Japanese MPs then put out a statement ?strongly urging China to improve its unlawful suppression of human rights against Tibetans and Uighurs".
The Financial Times also?reported?back in March 2010 of the Dalai Lama stating ?Let us also remember the people of East Turkestan [China?s Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region] who have experienced great difficulties and increased oppression, and the Chinese intellectuals campaigning for greater freedom who have received severe sentences. I would like to express my solidarity and stand firmly with them?. And a recent academic?paper?published in an Australian Journal,?The Journal of Sociology,?claimed?that inequality between Uighurs and ethnic Chinese Hans fuelled tension in the region.
Are the concerns expressed by the Dalai Lama, and similarly the Japanese, about the Uighurs genuine or is he using their situation in an attempt to undermine China and promote his Tibetan cause?
Who knows? What is important is that the Uighurs? plight is getting some media coverage ? the only shame is that their plight seems to be conveniently forgotten by most Muslims who should be the most vocal in highlighting the oppression aimed at Muslims and promoting the struggle of Uighur political activists like?Rebiya Kadeer?? Muslims are, after all, part of an?Ummah.
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