UYGHUR HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT SPECIAL REPORT Resisting Chinese Linguistic Imperialism: Abduweli Ayup and the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education Rustem Shir, Research Associate Logo of the Ana Til Balilar Baghchisi (Mother Tongue Children’s Garden) May 2019 Contents Acknowledgement 4 Introduction 5 1. CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan 6 Foundations of CCP ethnic minority policy 6 Eras of minority language tolerance 9 Primary and secondary school ‘bilingual’ education policy 12 The Xinjiang Class 20 Mandarin as the language of instruction at Xinjiang University 22 Preschool and kindergarten ‘bilingual’ education policy 23 Suppression of the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education 26 The Hotan Prefecture and Ghulja County Department of Education directives 28 Internment camps 29 Discussion 32 2. ABduweli Ayup and the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education 36 Upal: Why couldn’t we study Kashgari? 36 Toquzaq: Oyghan! (Wake Up!) 38 Beijing: Our campus felt like a minority region 41 Doletbagh: My sad history repeating in front of me 50 Urumchi: Education for assimilation 55 Lanzhou: Are you bin Laden? 60 Ankara: Ethno-nationalism and a counterbalance 67 Urumchi: For the love of community 72 Lawrence: Disconnected 77 Kashgar: Rise of the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education 81 Urumchi: Just keep silent 89 Kashgar: You’re going to be arrested 93 Doletbagh Detention Center: No choice, brother 98 Urumchi Tengritagh Detention Center: Qorqma (Don’t be afraid) 104 Urumchi Liudaowan Prison: Every color had disappeared 109 Urumchi Koktagh Prison: Do you want to defend yourself? 124 2 Urumchi/Kashgar: Release and return 127 Kashgar: Open-air prison 131 Ankara: Stateless and stranded 138 Paris: A new beginning 146 3. CCP geopolitical ambitions and East Turkestan 148 Educational concerns 152 Legal concerns 156 The Uyghur language and symbolic power 162 4. Resisting Chinese linguistic imperialism with family language policy 167 References 174 3 Acknowledgement Thank you to the scholars who gave their time to review this report and provide feedback. 4 Introduction When media outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) report on Uyghurs in East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang), language is often mentioned as a source of contention. An article from the New York Times typified this practice when stating, “The U[y]ghurs, a predominantly Muslim and Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to the region, have faced economic isolation and restrictions on their language, culture and religious practices in Xinjiang” (RamZy 2018). This report was written to illustrate what “restrictions on language” look like in design and delivery. To preview the contents herein, Chapter One provides a history of CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan, tracing pivotal changes, from the inception of the CCP through nearly 70 years of rule. In this chronology, evidence is presented in support of an argument that the CCP envisions ‘bilingual’ education1 as a stage in a strategy to achieve Mandarin language assimilation among ethnic minority communities2 in East Turkestan. This review aims to be comprehensive, but it does have limitations. Information about CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan is incomplete because the public does not have access to conversations or debates among CCP officials on this topic – data that would contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of Chinese linguistic imperialism. Chapter Two is a narrative about Abduweli Ayup, of a grassroots effort to create and operate schools that offered mother tongue-based multilingual education, and the CCP’s repressive response to this initiative. Chapter Three describes CCP geopolitical ambitions in East Turkestan, as background for understanding why the CCP felt compelled to suppress Abduweli’s movement. This chapter also discusses educational and legal concerns attendant to linguistic erasure, and why the CCP is consumed with marginaliZing the symbolic power of Uyghur in East Turkestan. Finally, Chapter Four considers how methods associated with family language policy may be used to resist Chinese linguistic imperialism and maintain the intergenerational transmission of minority languages. 1 ‘Bilingual’ is used in quotes throughout this report to recognize that this mode of education, in the context of East Turkestan, denotes Mandarin language assimilation. 2 ‘Ethnic minority communities’ refer to non-Han peoples. 5 1. CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan This chapter describes and analyzes CCP language policy in the state-run system of public education in East Turkestan, first by surveying the ideological foundations and evolution of CCP ethnic minority policy (1921–1949) and the eras of minority language3 tolerance (1949– 1966, 1976–1992), interrupted by the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The focus then centers on CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan, a chronological review that includes the introduction and spread of primary and secondary school ‘bilingual’ education (1992), the establishment of the Xinjiang Class (2000), the adoption of Mandarin as the language of instruction at Xinjiang University (2002), the expansion of ‘bilingual’ education to preschools and kindergartens (2005), the suppression of the Movement for Uyghur Mother Tongue-Based Education (2013), the Hotan Prefecture and Ghulja County Department of Education directives (2017), and the escalation of internment camp detention (2017). The following sections illustrate how CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan has shifted from tolerance to the prohibition of minority languages, while concurrently promoting Mandarin language assimilation. Foundations of CCP ethnic minority policy CCP language policy on education in East Turkestan is an outgrowth of CCP ideology, and thus rooted in a combination of Marxist, Leninist, and Stalinist thought, Confucianism, and a legacy of dynastic relations with frontier communities. After the CCP was founded in 1921, Mao Zedong looked to Marx, Lenin, and Stalin to establish a theory for ethnic minority policy, to guide the prospective governance of people labeled as ethnic minorities, within the CCP’s imagined borders of the Chinese nation-state. According to communist ideology, minority languages have a natural law of development: minority languages change slowly while remaining relatively stable, but eventually yield to replacement or assimilation by a common language (Blachford 1999). From this perspective, minority languages can be tolerated “as a necessary and temporary stage before their final integration” (Blachford 1999, 94), a dynamic known as “linguistic convergence” in the Stalinist philosophy of language (Schluessel 2007, 3 ‘Minority languages’ are defined as regional indigenous languages of East Turkestan, excluding Mandarin (the majority language of the People’s Republic of China). 6 252). For the CCP, this idea held appeal because of its compatibility with Confucian philosophy; both views “share the same paternalistic, communitarian logic…with the gradual fusion of the Han majority and the fifty-five minority groups into a single [datong] ‘Great Unity’ remaining the ultimate goal” (Leibold and Yangbin 2014, 6). By conceiving of ethnic minority relations as a process culminating in a natural and gradual fusion, the nascent CCP distanced themselves rhetorically from earlier dynasties, whose interactions with ethnic minorities ranged from tolerance to forced assimilation (Blachford 1999). From 1921 until 1938, the CCP maintained a commitment to a different type of relationship with ethnic minority communities, emphasiZing their self-determination. In 1922, the Second CCP Congress published a manifesto that, borrowing from the Soviet model of federation, proposed a federal republic of China, with autonomous territories having the right to unite or secede (Blachford 1999, Hao 2016). In 1931, the Jiangxi Chinese Soviet Republic upheld this right in their constitution, affirming that ethnic minorities could, if choosing to secede from the republic of China, form independent states (Tibet Justice Center 2009). This policy contrasted with the assimilationist policy of Hanhua (Sinicization) endorsed by the CCP’s civil war rival, the Nationalist Party of China, and persuaded many ethnic minority elites to join or sympathiZe with the CCP (Blachford 1999, Zhao 2004). In 1932, at the First National Meeting of the Worker and Peasant Soldiers, the CCP declared that minority languages should be used in education and other domains, “to firmly reject the tendency towards dominance of the great Han Chinese ethnicity” (Lam 2005, 125). And in 1935, the CCP elaborated its stance toward Turkish Muslims and other minorities of the northwest, by calling on these groups to “establish their independent and autonomous political power and handle all political, economic, religious, custom, ethical, educational, and other matters” (Mao 1936, 35-36). The CCP’s ethnic minority policy changed in 1938, when Mao removed the right for ethnic minority self-determination, eliminating the legal provision to secede. The promotion of this right had been useful strategically, to demonstrate alignment with policies advocated by the Communist International, headed by the Soviet Union, and appeal to the sentiments of ethnic minorities. But when Mao no longer sought Communist International support, the CCP discarded the provision of self-determination. Instead, the CCP offered the right of regional