During a two-week trip to my native Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China, I contemplated the following question: Born and raised in the region until the age of 18, how can I tell the stories that unfold here to people on the outside? The stories of ordinary locals are very simple, to the point that many people feel they hold no real “news value.”
But for those who have lived through Xinjiang’s difficult times, the present is hard-won.
One topic that never received much attention in international media is how the region suffered terrorist activities, and how that tension influenced daily life.
From my childhood to early adulthood, under the influence of ethnic secessionist forces and violent religious extremism, communication between ethnic groups was discouraged in parts of the region. Uygur children were, in certain cases, not allowed to make friends with Han Chinese children—the Han being China’s largest ethnic group.
And with the Uygur being a largely Muslim ethnic group, many Uygur women were required to wear burqas that exposed only their eyes. They were also not allowed to work and were expected to have more than five children. Even in the 2010s, a Uygur friend of mine received death threats on the spot just for wearing a short skirt and walking down the street with a Han man.
What is even more frightening is that from 1990 to late 2016, violent terrorist incidents took place in Xinjiang, according to a 2019 government white paper. The victims were not only Han people, but also Uygurs who were brutally killed because they refused to be
