China to Bulldoze Old Kashgar, A Major Center of Islamic & Uighur Culture

May 29, 2009

cp_28kashgar_650

kashgarmapThe Chinese authorities are demolishing ancient Kashgar (wiki) in far western China. Once an important stop on the Silk Road, Kashgar is a historic center of Islamic & Uighur Culture in China (over 77 percent of Kashgar city’s 325,000 citizens are Uighur Muslims).

The New York Times reports on this devastating blow to the Uighur people:

Nine hundred families already have been moved from Kashgar’s Old City, “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia,” as the architect and historian George Michell wrote in the 2008 book “Kashgar: Oasis City on China’s Old Silk Road.”

Over the next few years, city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of this warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.

In its place will rise a new Old City, a mix of midrise apartments, plazas, alleys widened into avenues and reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture “to preserve the Uighur culture,” Kashgar’s vice mayor, Xu Jianrong, said in a phone interview. (source)

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Of course, the idea that this architectural destruction will “preserve” Uighur culture is ridiculous:

“From a cultural and historical perspective, this plan of theirs is stupid,” said Wu Lili, the managing director of the Beijing Cultural Protection Center, a nongovernmental group devoted to historic preservation. “From the perspective of the locals, it’s cruel.”

Other resources:

map_of_kashgar

All photos by Shiho Fukada for The New York Times (via the wonderful Istanbul-based blog, Kamil Pasha)

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A farewell to kashgar - The diary of Jakob Knulp
12.22.09 at 10:54 pm

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 libhomo 05.29.09 at 9:50 pm

This kind of thing is being done all over China.

2 hv 05.29.09 at 10:00 pm

It’s soo sad.

3 Elizabeth 06.15.09 at 12:35 am

I am glad you posted this and are raising awareness of a humanitarian crisis. The information I have, which is based on Chinese and Uighur sources, is that there are a great many more than 13,000 families being displaced. I am not in Kashgar and do not have first-hand data, but evidently there are 220,000 people, or approximately 45,000 families, affected. I welcome you to get in touch with us, as we are forming an international team and hopefully, we can make a difference.

4 Ty Ali 06.23.09 at 10:45 pm

I felt the hurt and frustration of these people. Hatred and ignorance has many faces.

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