"If Only the Uighurs Were Buddhist and China Was Israel"

From Mona Eltahawy's piece, titled "If Only the Uighurs Were Buddhist and China Was Israel," at HuffPo.:

Following the news that did make it out of Xinjiang, I thought if only the Uighurs were Buddhists like the Tibetans with whom the Uighurs share almost mirror grievances against Beijing. If they were Buddhists, Bjork, Sting, Bono and all those other one-named saviors of the world's poor and oppressed would have held "Free Xinjiang" concerts already. But the West continues to largely ignore the Uighurs. Maybe they're not as cuddly as the Tibetans or their leader the Dalai Lama.

AND

That's precisely the problem -- the Uighurs are no Palestinians and the Chinese are not Israel. Many Muslims -- Arab Muslims especially -- pay attention only when the U.S. and Israel are behaving badly. Palestine followed by Iraq always take precedence leaving little room for other Muslim grievances.

Look at Darfur, where the suffering goes ignored because those who are creating the misery are neither Americans nor Israelis but instead fellow Arab Muslim Sudanese.
China is coincidentally one of Sudan's biggest trade partners and sells Khartoum plenty of weapons which Darfuris complain are used against them. So it's unlikely Sudanese President Omar Bashir, who declared himself the guardian of Islam in 2007 by putting on trial a British teacher for insulting Muslims when she named a class teddy bear "Mohammed", will condemn Chinese oppression of Uighurs.

Perhaps Israel can save the day and invade Xinjiang.

Additional stories on the situation:
"Mute Muslims" (Foreign Policy)
"Unrest in Xinjiang: Where's the Muslim Outrage?" (CS Monitor)

Inspirational Words Found in My Purse

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.

Now you must go back and tell people that this is the Hour.

And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those will be afriad.

They will try to cling to the shore.

They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will sufffer greatly.

Know this river has it's destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.

Least of all, ourselves.

For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitutde and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

-The Elders ~ Orabi, Arizona, Hopi Nation

So these words are not a totally random find. A fellow protestor handed them to me at the Olympic Torch protests a few months ago in San Francisco. The paper had just been sitting at the bottom of my purse, forgotten. I remembered and found it when news broke recently of China's ridiculous Ramadan restrictions. I pray we really are the ones we've been waiting for.

Privilege

Subhan'Allah. This story is another reminder of just how fortunate and privileged we are.

Chinese Leave Guantánamo for Albanian Limbo

TIRANA, Albania — Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the four years he spent as an American prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before his captors mumbled a brief apology and flew him to this drab Balkan capital to begin a new life as a refugee.

It is this new life in Albania, Mr. Basit and other former Guantánamo detainees say, that is driving them to desperation.

The men, Muslims from western China’s Uighur ethnic minority, were freed from their confinement in Cuba after they were found to pose no threat to the United States. They have now lived for more than a year in a squalid government refugee center on the grubby outskirts of Tirana, guarded by armed policemen.

The men have been told that they will need to get work to move out of the center, they said, but that they must learn the Albanian language to get work permits. For now, they subsist on free meals heavy with macaroni and rice, and monthly stipends of about $67, which they spend mostly on brief telephone calls to their families. But some of the men have already lost hope of ever seeing their wives and children again.

“We suffered very much at Guantánamo, but we continue to suffer here,” Mr. Basit said. “The other prisoners had their countries, but we are like orphans: we have no place to go.”

Mr. Basit and four other men here, who spent time at a hamlet in Afghanistan run by Uighur separatists, are still considered terrorist suspects by China’s Communist government. Only Albania’s pro-American government would give them asylum, but Albanian officials have since told the men they cannot afford to give them much else.

Things could be worse, the former prisoners note. At least 15 of the 17 Uighurs who remain at Guantánamo have also been cleared for release, but not even Albania will accept them — and neither will the United States. Instead, American diplomats say they have asked nearly 100 countries to provide asylum to the detainees, only to find that Chinese officials have warned some of the same countries not to accept them.

Read on at: NY Times