The title of Robert Spencer’s article, “China Plans to ‘Sinicize’ Islam. We Can Learn From This, But Not in the Way You Might Think,” may be obnoxious—not necessarily the fault of the author. But the article itself makes the good point that rampantly repressing a people and their culture is not the right way to go about combatting terrorism.
Nor can it work. The Uyghurs and other Muslims may hide signs of being Muslim because the Chinese Communist Party is bearing down and monitoring their every move; they may adopt, instead, “Islam with Chinese characteristics.” But this doesn’t mean that their religious beliefs and sensibilities will disappear.
The U.S., and the West in general, can learn a great deal from what the Chinese are doing: it’s a grand lesson in what not to do….
The Sinicization is already well underway. Reuters reminds us that “rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in Xinjiang, including denying Uyghurs full religious freedoms. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.” Also, ChiCom President Xi Jinping has on many occasions called for the “Sinicization” not only of Islam, but of Christianity and Buddhism as well, so that all religious expression becomes just another way of demonstrating one’s loyalty to the Communist state.
Sinicization, in the case of Christianity, has involved rewriting parts of the Bible to remove or alter passages that might inspire readers to think critically about Communism, forcing Christians to celebrate as heroes Communists who betrayed the Church, and requiring Christian teachers to attend Communist indoctrination sessions.
A terrorist state using terrorist methods to “combat terrorism” or just cultural differences is indeed not a state or a policy to emulate.
Spencer believes that the Sinicization of Islam, when Chinese state regards it as having been completed, may at first seem to be a thorough success. But only at first. Traditional Islam will reemerge if and when the CCP shows any sign of weakening. Spencer’s historical evidence is the sequel to the Westernization of Islamic societies that began about a century ago.
The Westernizing trend continued: by mid-century, Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser was laughing at the prospect of asking Egyptian women to wear hijabs. [But now] Turkey has re-Islamized, and Western influences have receded drastically in Islamic societies. Where Nasser joked about the impossibility of getting Egyptian women to wear hijab, now virtually all women wear the hijab…..
The lesson for the West is not to follow China in its repressive measures. Western countries should uphold the freedom of conscience while drawing a firm line at violence that finds a justification in religious texts and teachings.
I agree with this generalization, which I suppose means that we can learn from China’s attempted Sinicization in the way I might think.
