The Communists of China.. From Islamophobia to the war on identity

Residents of the village of Nejia Ying, in Yunnan province in southwestern China, woke up on Saturday, May 26 last, the authorities mobilized troops and equipment to destroy 4 minarets and a dome of a mosque dating back to the thirteenth century, rebuilt by “Hui” Muslims at the beginning of the current century.

People went to perform prayers, the gathered 1000 officers leading anti-riot forces, evicting worshipers, supervising the installation of scaffolding to demolish the minarets of the mosque and its high dome. Citizens were offended, as” Hui " with Chinese roots, worshiping in mosques with official licenses.

The destruction of minarets has alarmed the religious elite of citizens who, since their ancestors converted to Islam 1000 years ago, have been accustomed to adapt the teachings of religion and the practice of rituals, according to the directions of the authorities.

The " HUI " preserve the cultural identity of the state and speak Chinese, although they are subject to the tides of different nationalities and religions from the Han-led majority in the Imperial and communist eras.

In the shadows of power

The “HUI” do not differ from the “Han” in form and ethnicity, but the keenness of most of them to have their Islam with Chinese characteristics, their adherence to staying under the power, and their spread across different geographical areas throughout the country, created some differences in the practice of Islamic rituals. We have seen the cults of some of them mixed with Confucian and Taoist actions, which turned religiosity into a mystical phenomenon, full of incense rituals, begging for Graves, drinking alcohol, and accepting membership in a party that officially professes atheism and claims state secularism.

Liu Zhi, one of the “HUI” scholars in the eighteenth century, tried to link the sayings of the Chinese sage Confucius with the hadiths of the prophet of Islam Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), considering that both of them call for Virtue and social harmony. This call still has a wide resonance, which we heard during our numerous visits to the Islamic Society, The Great Mosque of Niujie in Beijing, the headquarters of the official religious institution and the complex of Imams of mosques in the country.

The " HUI "believe that they are part of the state, and they have to adapt to it to survive, to a shocking degree for their young people, who panic when they travel for pilgrimage and abroad, and find that their parents' practice of religion has become a mixture between popular mysticism and Taoism deviating from the faith.

Han obsessions

The rulers of China hate the border tribes, descended from non-Han Origins, since the Qing dynasty in the XIX century, failed to control the northwestern borders inhabited by Uighurs, Kazakhs and Uzbeks with Turkic roots. Their hatred has increased in the current era, after the Tibetan and Mongolian tribes were included in a basket of nationalities possessing linguistic and ethnic distinction, and it has increased even more against Muslims because religion makes them feel strong and desire to separate from an atheistic state, of which they were not part, and they were not associated with it until after the decline of the Ottoman state.

The " HUI " remained outside the circle of hatred, throughout imperial history, and the beginning of the communist revolution, where the leadership of the “HUI” in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, participated in the convoys of the people's Liberation Army, led by Xi chunxun, the father of current President Xi Jinping. The “HUI” in Yunnan and the cities of the South joined the communists, and gathered hundreds of thousands of them from Shanghai in the South, nanjin and Tianjin in the East until they entered the capital Beijing in 1949, and the communists rewarded them by awarding them membership in the House of people's deputies and official positions, and gave their gatherings autonomy, eroded with the growing racial nationalism of Xi broadcast among the youth of a party claiming that”Islam represents a danger to its existence within the state.

"Hui" versus”Han"

The " HUI " lost part of their status in the sixties of the last century, as their mosques were demolished, during a cultural revolution that fought against ancient religions and creeds, and then the authorities revived interest in the”HUI” in the Eighties of the last century as part of a socio-political correction, and an attempt to get closer to the Arab and Islamic worlds, to support China's obtaining international recognition of its territorial integrity and permanent membership in the Security Council.

The Communist Party allowed Arab countries to finance the construction of Islamic schools and the reconstruction of “Hui” mosques in various regions, especially Ningxia in the northwest of the country, which enabled them to revive mosques demolished by fanatical communists, mixing Islamic architecture with Chinese.