In spring 2009, a Uyghur intellectual came to the University of Hawaii on a prestigious Ford International Fellowship to start his graduate work. When he was called by the name on his university records, “Zulifeikeer,” he responded with great emotion, “No, that is not my name! My name is Zulpikar.” To the faculty at the Department of Sociology, it was an introduction to China’s erasure of Uyghur ethnic identity. He could not use the name given to him in his own language on official Chinese documents. Zulpikar is now one of hundreds of Uyghur intellectuals disappeared, interned or imprisoned in a mass internment campaign that has taken about 1.5 million individuals.
After receiving a master’s degree, Zulpikar enrolled in a UH doctoral program with support from the East-West Center. He subsequently wrote his dissertation on the 1944 Ili Movement, a revolution culminating in the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic.
Zulpikar became the first Uyghur sociologist with a Ph.D. in China, and Xinjiang University subsequently offered him an assistant professorship. Since his wife and young son had joined him in Honolulu, many of his friends urged him not to return to China, but he was adamant that he needed to help his people.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, since 2017, the Chinese government has interned, imprisoned or forcibly disappeared at least 435 intellectuals. Of this group, there are 125 students, 77 university instructors and 58 journalists, editors and publishers documented. Xinjiang University faculty has been a focus for the Chinese authorities. Twenty-three intellectuals have been interned from the institution.
The persecution of scholars and artists constitutes an attempt to erase Uyghur identity in order to pave the way for Xi Jinping’s signature economic policy, the Belt and Road Initiative. The conscious policy of targeting intellectuals is integral in achieving this overwrite of the Uyghur experience. The loss of Uyghur epistemologies should alarm all academics. Without scholars such as Zulpikar, who will tell the Uyghur story to the world?
As students and faculty at the University of Hawaii, we want to express concern for our missing friend and colleague. We want to know the whereabouts and condition of Zulpikar and his family. We ask not only for personal reasons, but also to make clear that free speech and academic freedom are fundamental human rights.
We call for universities worldwide to press the Chinese government for proof of life, and the immediate release of detained Uyghur scholars and students. Governments, too, should urge the Chinese government for information on detained Uyghur scholars, students, journalists and artists.
Furthermore, universities, governments and private foundations should provide scholarships and fellowships for Uyghur students and scholars who cannot return home due to the grave risk of internment.
Scholars can join the Xinjiang Initiative to raise the issue of Uyghur human rights at public events, and sign the Statement by Concerned Scholars on China’s Mass Detention of Turkic Minorities.
We are certain Zulpikar has resisted with every fiber of his being this attempt to erase his identity. We only hope he does not lose his life in the effort, as have other Uyghurs in the camps. We do not know whether he is still in an internment camp, has been “retrained” to run a sewing machine, or has been sent back to his home with a live-in Han Chinese ideological minder. We do not know what has happened to his family. The only thing we can do is join the international chorus of protest against what the Chinese government is doing to its Uyghur minority. We hope you will join us in protesting this travesty.
Patricia Steinhoff and Shawna Yang Ryan are faculty members at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Henryk Szadziewski is a UH-Manoa student.
