What if the Uighurs were Christian rather than Muslim?

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

According to The New York Times this morning, violent clashes between Chinese government forces and Muslim Uighurs -- that country´s long-oppressed minority -- have left at least 140 people dead and close to 1,000 injured.  This incident in Western China highlights an important fact about America´s "War on Terror."

Just imagine if the Uighurs were a Christian -- rather than Muslim -- minority, battling against the tyrannical Communist regime in Beijing, resisting various types of persecution, and demanding religious freedom.  They would be lionized by America´s Right, as similar Christian minorities, oppressed by tyrannical regimes, automatically are.  Episodes like these -- where a declared Tyranny like China violently acts against citizens with whom we empathize -- are ones about which, in general, the American political class loves to sermonize.

But the Uighurs are Muslim, not Christian, and hostility towards them thus easily outweighs the opportunity they present to undermine the Chinese Government.  Rather than support and venerate them, we instead spent this decade declaring them to be "enemy combatants" and locking them up in Guantanamo -- despite the fact that they have never evinced any interest in doing anything other than resisting Chinese persecution, and have certainly never taken actions against the U.S. (as even the Bush administration ultimately admitted).  Yet even now, both Congress and the administration actively block release into the U.S. even of those Uighurs we wrongfully imprisoned for years, while the Right screams with outrage -- and fear -- over the administration´s commendable efforts to find a home for them elsewhere.

For all the Serious analysis about the War on Terror, so much of it has been driven by nothing more complex or noble than sheer hostility towards Muslims.  Muslims generally -- not just Al Qaeda -- replaced Communists as our New Enemy and became the new enabling force for our endless state of War and never-ending expansions of executive power.  Rather obviously, the Uighurs were swept into the Enemy category solely by virtue of their status as Muslims.  What more compelling evidence of that could be imagined than the fact that we imprisoned -- and continue to imprison -- people at Guantanamo whose only political interest is in resisting oppression by the Chinese government?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/06/uighurs/index.html

Well, i believe it would have been a good tool for the West to make more pressure on China, they would have used everything, even asked the Pop to go there and demand mercy !

Threaten to Recognized and support their independence ! 

But now...

China is playing same game the West playing it, so NONE dare to say anything about it and to the HELL with muslims there !

I think you are over estimating the fact the people even know who or what the Uyghurs are.  Most people have never even heard of them, let alone know what religion they are.  I am not saying this to defend Westerners but I think this is something that is skipped in most school civics classes.  If I wasn´t married to a Turk, I wouldn´t have known myself.  

 OK......you can start chastisements, I deserve it! 

The article refers to the political ground not the average person in the west. Btw, anyone who at least checks out cnn will know that the Uyghurs are muslims.

 Same here, really! Apart from being married

Perhaps not everyone is glued to the TV or even reads a news paper regularly.  I was just stating that there is a general ignorance about who they are.  It makes no difference to me personally whether they are Muslims, Christians, Chinese, Turks.....I think it is crappy when governments pick on people. 

 Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Lis!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You are giving bed amerikans a bed name!!!!!!!! 

 Well, It seems that everyone thinks badly of us anyway gg, so we might as well admit that we don´t know who these people are.  I would be willing to bet money that our politicians don´t know either. 

I have hypothetical question....

What if the Uyghurs Were Not Turks.....Would any Turk care? 

What if they were Christian.....Would Turks care about them then? 

In all honesty, I don´t see Turks taking too much interest in the horrors that go on in the rest of the world unless it involves something that has to do with Turks/Turkishness/ ect.... 

 But I DO know who they are!!!  Offfffffffffffffffffffffffffff! 

 But you are "special", GG!

Same here, really! Apart from being married to a Turk

 Well yeah that´s true

hiccup! 

Edited (2:29 pm) by girleegirl [oh my, that hasn´t happened for a long time!]

Rubbish!  You just wanted to be told you are special twice!! 

 Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!  Don´t give away my secrets!!!