The religious dimension of the Uyghur Freedom Movement Oetkur UMIT Poet, Writer and Friend of the Uyghur People Ladies and Gentlemen; Honorable Members of the European Parliament; Distinguished Panelists, Speakers, Members of the Press, and Guests; M. Dupuis et les membres distingues du Partie Transnationale Radicale, je vous remercie pour cette opportunité; Asalam Aleikum Hormetlik Uyghurlar: 1. Thank you for this opportunity I am grateful to the East Turkestan National Congress and to the Transnational Radical Party of the European Union for hosting this occasion and providing us with the opportunity to support the cause of freedom for the Uyghur nation of Eastern Turkestan. I am impressed by the number and calibre of individuals and organizations represented at this conference. This meeting is a historic occasion because for the first time the European Community has invited the Uyghur community to present their case for determining the future of their existence as a people. It would be wonderful to one day hear that the Uyghur freedom movement is supported by the "collective will of the world," to quote US President George Bush Jr. The Uyghur movement is about the deepest human aspiration for freedom and self-determination; an aspiration supported by the "western values" enjoyed in Europe, the USA and the rest of the free world. This conference, providentially, also takes place at a very significant moment in the context of human history. It is difficult to separate current world events from the situation of the Uyghurs in China. One is forced to put the Uyghur struggle for self-determination within a global context, a background that involves a deeper understanding of ethnic conflicts carried to the brink of world war, the so-called "clash of civilizations". It is also fitting that this conference takes place in this building, the parliament of the European Union. The European Union is engaged in a social experiment of vast proportion and momentous significance. Uniting such a diverse range of cultures across a continent; peoples with distinct histories, religions, and languages, uniting under one monetary and administrative system-this is truly radical, even revolutionary. Can I also thank the good people of Brussels for their hospitality, and the Belgians of Vlaamerden and Wallonia for inspiring us to live in harmony, despite differences in language, history and religion. You know, more than others, that a united nation, like a good marriage, requires communication, patience and hard work. 2. I am a poet of love, a writer of freedom, and a friend of the Uyghur peoples I come to you today as a poet of love, a writer of freedom and a friend of the Uyghur peoples. I do not represent an organization, institution or group in any official capacity, though I do bring you greetings from the leaders of the Uyghur American Association, who unfortunately could not be here today. I speak to you today under difficult circumstances, following the events of an evil day that changed the world, a world that now waits in uncertainty and apocalyptic fear for a new world order to emerge from dust and ashes. My speech is entitled "The Religious Dimension of the Uyghur Freedom Movement." I speak as a Christian who for some years now has been impressed by the high moral values and deep spiritual faith of many of my Uyghur Muslim friends and I believe this is a strength that they need to develop in their freedom movement. NO TERROR A few days ago I spoke to the president of the Uyghur American Association, Turdi Huji. He told me that on September 11, he had returned to the United States following his involvement at the United Nations Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa. On that fateful Tuesday morning his flight had arrived early in New York. On the way home his train passed the skyline of that great city and he saw the World Trade Center towers burning in the wake of the terrorist attack. Deeply shaken, Turdi Huji and the Uyghur American Association expressed their outrage and sadness in a statement that read, "The Uyghur American Association deplores and renounces the use of violence to achieve political ends. The Uyghur American Association does not support any organization or individual that advocates violence for any purpose." The Uyghurs also responded with more than words. The Uyghur American Association called all Uyghurs in the USA to donate blood for the survivors of the attack. This show of support from Uyghurs extended as far as Central Asia. There a young Uyghur refugee fleeing the terror of a Chinese crackdown on Uyghur students in the city of Gulja, asked to donate blood for the survivors of the New York City attack. The Uyghurs are willing to give their blood for the survivors of terrorist acts, because they have experienced first hand the effects of state-sponsored terror. We who are citizens of the civilized world decry acts of barbarity, terror and violence against men, women and children, in whatever form that terror takes. As human beings, on the basis of religious beliefs, moral convictions, and humanitarian ideals, we must condemn acts of terror of any kind. We must say NO to terrorism, whether perpetrated by a lone individual with bombs strapped to his waist, whether conducted by a group of hijackers armed with box cutters, whether orchestrated by a shadowy international terrorist network claiming divine rights to violence, whether executed by the righteous anger of a nation that drops bunker busting bombs on villages, or whether administered by a state that conducts institutional terror, forced abortions, ethnic cleansing, and cultural genocide on its citizens. We must say NO to terror of any kind. STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM We do not agree with the distinction that terror can be justified on the basis of resisting foreign occupation, or that terror can be practiced on a population that resists domination. There is no justification for terror. Those who support terror or practice terror must forfeit their right to be heard in any assembly of peoples. There must be zero tolerance for terror of any kind in the world-individual, organizational or state-sponsored terror. We have God as our witness to take this stand against all forms of terrorist activity. There is no justification in any holy book of any major religion in the world that supports terrorism. Even if one distorts verses in the Bible or the Quran to support violence, these are superseded by more verses that in effect say, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL." In history there have been justifications for the use of force and the waging of "just war." The authority of the state to execute justice includes the penalty of death; in the same way the authority and power of a government or a revolutionary group to wage war for the sake of a right moral cause has been understood in religious and legal terms. However, it should also be understood that the waging of a "just war" also includes the proper use of ethical means to achieve a moral end. A just war cannot be waged with terror; the use of weapons of destruction must be matched against an equal and opposing force; there must be fair rules in the waging of war and the combatants in a war must be brought before impartial tribunals of war to ascertain that the rules of combat were observed. The Geneva Convention played a significant role in the waging of the 20th century world wars, and the war tribunals have been active since Nuremberg, most recently in the case of the Serbian leaders who waged genocide on Yugoslavs. Last week, at a NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Ottawa, Canada, Mark Grossman, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, spoke the following words, "We must take steps to insure that one man's terrorist is not somebody else's freedom fighter." I agree that the time has come to remove a relativistic perspective on terror. I would also add that we should extend this condemnation of terrorism to not only include states that support terrorism but also states who practice terror against their own people. Any government by individuals or parties that imposes a reign of terror on their subjects has lost the legitimacy to rule or impose their will on the people. Many states hide their state sponsored terrorist acts behind a curtain of national sovereignty, just as many businesses and charities hide behind a corporate veil to hide their support of terrorism. These rogue states argue that other states must respect their sovereign right to impose force on a minority ethnic group, religious movement, or opposition political party. The problem with this argument lies in the changing nature of the world. In a global community, the rights of sovereign nations are subject to limitations. The acts of a sovereign state, even domestic acts, are no longer neutral when they impinge on the stability of other sovereign states. A sovereign state whose domestic problems affect neighbors is no longer acting within a sovereign, self-contained sphere. A sovereign state whose ethnic minorities are marginalized and whose extremists resort to acts of terror is a sovereign state that promotes terrorism. A sovereign state that refuses to dialogue with its ethnic minorities is a sovereign state that creates an environment favorable to the growth of extremism and terrorism, a state that nurtures a scourge that reaches around the world and causes global and regional instability and insecurity. Though there can be no justification for acts of terror, in a fallen world there are psychological, political and social causes that promote extremism and terrorism. These roots must be analyzed in order to eliminate the breeding ground for the desperate acts of misguided men. COMEBACK OF RELIGION Last Saturday I toured the area of Ground Zero, the site of the ruins of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. We witnessed the devastation, the clouds of smoke, dust and steam, the cranes working around the clock, the policemen, firemen, soldiers, medics and volunteers working diligently to remove the rubble and recover the bodies of almost 5,000 people still missing. Along one of the side streets a choir from a church in Rome, Georgia sang hymns of praise to God. A small group of citizens, representative of New York, the defacto capital of the world, stood to listen. Among the crowd were Jews who had survived the Nazi holocaust, Palestinian women who had fled the West Bank of Israel, Sudanese Christians who had escaped the massacres of that country's civil war. As the church choir sang, I saw signs all around, "God bless America." It crossed my mind that religion is a great unifying force for a people, even in a country where there is a diversity of religious faiths. The close contact with death, terror and a common enemy brought unity to many peoples. This is a good lesson for Uyghurs who often find their movement in disunity. Religion has made a comeback to the world stage. Ironically, the western world that had relegated religion to the private sphere is now saturated by a media-sponsored education on the religion of Islam. It is sad that Islam, one of the world's great religions, must come to be understood in this way, in reaction to an act of terrorism. There is now a new awareness that religion and politics are a volatile combination, a mix of doctrine and zeal, passion and reason, a compound like nitroglycerine that can explode with the slightest shake, a bomb capable of blowing up social stability. For this reason the church has been separated from the state in many democracies of the free world, though vestiges of national churches remain throughout Europe and Asia. For this same reason many Muslim societies, such as Turkey and Pakistan, have established secular governments. Many westerners, as well as Uyghur intellectuals, fear the force of religious passion. Some, through lack of understanding, believe that one must combat a religion in order to eradicate extremists. Does one have to cut down the tree in order to destroy the nest? If Islam is the tree where terrorists hide, it makes more sense to let Muslims themselves climb the tree and knock down the nest than to cut the tree down. It does no good for Osama bin Laden to refer to his enemy as infidels, pagans, and unbelievers, even though it is a trait of human nature to distinguish between "us" and "them." It also does not resolve any problems when the Chinese Communist government points to the Muslim faith of the Uyghurs and associates them with the terrorists of Osama bin Laden. These strategies only succeed in polarizing a cause and setting the stage for conflict. The Uyghur struggle is not about Muslim beliefs, it is about the gross violation of basic human rights by a recognized world power, the People's Republic of China. RADICAL RELIGION I noticed that "being arrested" is one of the qualifications for holding office in the Transnational Radical Party. A radical in this context is someone who holds passionately to their belief in human freedoms. A radical will storm the barricades at risk of death, handcuff herself to express her commitment, break the rules in order to get attention to a cause. Radicals are ready to be arrested and go to jail for their ideals. Probably one of the most radical positions in the world today is to live by one's religious beliefs. A person who proclaims his Christian faith in Afghanistan will go to jail and face the possibility of a death squad. A Christian in China can be arrested if they preach biblical truth outside a state-regulated orthodoxy. A person who professes their Christian faith to a secular humanistic audience will understand the meaning of intolerance. Religious faith is a radical bomb. If I proclaim that you must believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for your sins and rose again to give you eternal life, otherwise you will go to hell, I might as well be holding a live grenade in this room. In certain circles I will be arrested, jailed and put to death for making this statement. Religion is a volatile substance and a delicate subject. There is no doubt that religious extremists are a threat to the free world. Christian extremists who kill abortionists distort the doctrines of their faith and generate terror. Muslim extremists who call for the overthrow of secular governments in order to institute a Muslim theocratic califate that rules by Sharia law, also generate terror and destabilize society. The correct response to these extremists, however, is not to respond with more terror and violence. The "Dirty War" in Argentina, the "apartheid war" in South Africa, the response of Russia to Chechnya, the Chinese response to the Tibetans and Uyghurs, the assassinations of Palestinian leaders by Israeli security forces, and the US attack on Afghanistan are overreactions that breed more terrorism. Every state-sponsored act of terror creates a new generation of potential terrorists and undermines the legitimacy of that state rule. In China, being a Christian, a Muslim, a Tibetan Buddhist or a Falun Gong is also a radical act, despite the government's claim to protect freedom of religion. According to the Amnesty International report of April 1999, which detailed "gross violations of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region" of the People's Republic of China, the Communist Chinese government has instituted a policy of persecuting the Muslim faith of the Uyghur people. The demonstrations of 1995 in Hotan and in Gulja in 1997 both had a religious spark in the origins of the conflagration. In the case of the incident at Hotan the religious element was the right of the people to choose their own religious leader free of state intervention. In the case of the incident at Gulja the religious element was the right of the people to freely assemble to practice their faith and build strength into their community. These religious elements form part of the essential ethnic makeup of the Uyghur people. It was these religious elements that were repressed by the Chinese government and therefore presented a threat to the ethnic sovereignty of the Uyghur people. RELIGION AND NATION BUILDING Religion, while volatile, is also a basic building block of society. From an anthropological perspective, religion plays two significant roles in the development of human societies. In the first place, religions are involved in the formation of ethnic identity and in the process of nation building. There is a synergistic dynamic between how religions shape ethnic identity and how ethnic groups adopt and adapt religious faith to define their ethnic identity and assume a political base. Religious beliefs usually establish the moral framework that undergirds legal systems of justice, commerce, and social interaction. In the second place, religions have unified ethnic groups and nation states into transnational movements. These movements, universal in nature, have often been anti-nationalistic and even imperialistic in their achievements. The modern phenomenon of globalization, which is accused of being a form of western imperialism, has its precedents in the Islamization of Africa and Asia, as well as the later period of European colonialism which brought the concept of nation states to local dynasties. Religions, historically speaking, have contributed to nation building in powerful ways. In Reformation Europe, religious wars pitting Protestants against Catholics, defined boundaries that eventually emerged as the borders of nation states. European ethnic groups developed specific and particular expressions of a western Christian faith that distinguished them from other ethnic groups. In this way, the spiritual movement known as Calvinism, that began in France and French speaking Switzerland, developed into a Swiss, Dutch and German Reformed Church, as well as a Scottish Presbyterian Church. German Lutheranism found subtle shades of variation in the Lutheran churches of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. In these cases ethnic nationalities appropriated religious faiths to express their unique ethnic identities. In similar ways, Buddhism found a variety of expressions in southeast Asia, Mongolia, Tibet, and Japan. Islam has also been shaped by its encounter with various ethnicities. The first unified Arab expression of Islam later developed into a split between Sunni and Shi'a branches as Islam was shaped by the difference between Arab and Persian cultures. One can see the very particular religious expression of the Taliban as a cultural adaptation of Islamic faith by the Pashtun ethnic group that resides in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This specific religious expression of Islam is not shared by the other ethnic groups of Afghanistan, such as the Ismaili Tajiks, the Sunni Uzbeks, or the Shi'a Hazaras, the ethnic groups that make up the Northern Alliance. The Islam of Central Asia and North Africa is different culturally from the Islam of Indonesia and the Middle East, even though there are commonly held theological beliefs across the Islamic world. We must also acknowledge that Islam has contributed great cultural riches to the world. With the fall of the corrupt Byzantine Empire to Ottoman Turks in 1453, Europe experienced a "renaissance," a flowering of science and culture brought in from Islamic centers in Persia, North Africa and the Middle East. In effect Islam saved Europe from a medieval Christianity steeped in superstition and corruption, a medieval Christianity that had resorted to the terror of the Crusades in order to right a grievance over the holy land. THE RELIGION OF THE UYGHURS The religious expression of the Uyghurs is also unique to their ethnic identity, reflecting their cultural and historical development. At the same time their ethnic identity has been shaped over the years by their encounter with various religious faiths. Whether religion is a substratum of ethnic identity or whether ethnic identity colors religion is a matter of perspective. The fact is religious adherence and ethnic identities have an intricately intertwined relationship. The early shamanism practiced by the Uyghurs when they were a nomadic tribe in the Yenisey River Valley of Siberia is still seen today in the so-called "superstitions" of Folk Islam. The fire dance in the classical musical cycle of the twelve mukams expresses the encounter of the Uyghurs with the ancient Zoroastrian religion, a Persian import into Central Asia. The emergence of the Uyghurs as the leaders of a tribal confederation came at the same time as their elite adopted Manichaenism, another Persian import. This first Uyghur empire also adopted the Sogdian written script in order to read the religious scriptures of the prophet Mani and his followers. Later, when the Uyghurs left Siberia to establish a new home in the Tarim Basin of eastern Turkestan, they adopted Buddhism, which had become the dominant faith of the Great Silk Road from Afghanistan to Japan. Uyghurs were also one of the oldest civilizations to exercise freedom of religion. In the ruins of cities found in the Taklamakan desert, there is evidence of communities from many religious faiths. The great Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, saw Nestorian churches next to mosques in the ancient city of Kashgar. At the same time that Marco Polo came to China, a Nestorian Christian Uyghur monk traveled from the court of Kublai Khan to Rome. It is an amazing fact of history that Rabban Sauma, a Nestorian "heretic" from the Mongol Empire had communion with the Pope of Rome and the kings of England and France. He must have been a very impressive Uyghur indeed. The Uyghur freedom movement has been distinguished by its open embrace of an ecumenical spirit. The Uyghurs are well known for their Silk Road hospitality. The Uyghur freedom movement includes Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Jews working together for the sake of freedom and peace. Despite the proselytization of Arab and Pakistani Wahhabi missionaries, the Uyghurs in Central Asia, in the main, have not embraced the Wahhabism of Arabia, or the extremism found in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Traditionally Sunni Muslim, Uyghurs have been influenced historically by Sufi saints, especially from the Naqshbandiya sect. The Sufis, in their longing to know the personal love of Allah, have not been historically aggressive, although they were successful preservers of the faith against the communist atheism brought in during Chinese and Soviet domination. THE ROOT OF ETHNIC CONFLICTS If the free world truly wants to address the causes of terrorism and find a way to eradicate this scourge of western civilization, it needs to address the problem of ethnic conflict. This is why it is so significant that the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) is represented here today. Ethnic conflict is at the heart of every major conflict of the twentieth century. Today, that ethnic conflict has been exploited by a global network of terrorists, seeking their own perverse, suicidal, negative goals. Imagine if an ethnic group arrives by conquest or migration into the land of another ethnic group. After time, the newcomers claim that the land is now theirs for historical or religious reasons. In some cases, an ethnic group will claim that God had promised the land to their ancestor and now they are here to collect on that promise. What should be the reaction of the original inhabitants? This is pretty much the case of the Israelis in Palestine, or the English in Ireland, or the Chinese in Eastern Turkestan. Is there not some validity to Osama bin Laden's request to remove US troops from the holy lands of Saudi Arabia? Is there not some legitimacy to the Uyghur request for Chinese troops to leave their ancestral homeland? Sadly, the legitimate grievance has been hijacked by extremists who use violence because no one in the international community will take responsibility to address these grievances that spill over across national boundaries. Terror is not specific to Palestinians, Arabs, or Kurds, nor does it originate in the Muslim world. Terror has been practiced by the Japanese Red Army, the Irish Republican Army, the Basque ETA, as well as by German, French and Italian anarchists in very recent history. Christian fundamentalists who murder abortion doctors, or drive trucks into federal buildings are also terrorists. An effort to undermine worldwide terrorism must address the causes of terrorism, not just the symptoms. The roots of terrorism are buried in ethnic and religious grounds, nourished by differences in worldview, resulting in cultural clashes and a war of values. The war against terrorism, however, is not a clash of civilizations, though many paint it with those strokes; it is not a crusade or jihad in the sense of a religious war between believers of different faiths; nor is it an ideological battle between opposing philosophies or worldviews. According to the British Shadow Foreign Minister, the present conflict is simply a war against terror. This means a war between forces of hope and despair, between the cultures of life and death, between the aspirations of light and darkness; it is in the last analysis a struggle over moral decisions taken. The terrorists who committed acts of terror on September 11 may have had valid grudges, grievances, and gripes against the way the world has mistreated them. However, they chose to respond with a negative value. They sought to right injustice with terror and therefore they forfeited any voice in resolving their cause. BAD THEOLOGY Recently the Agence France Presse (AFP) conducted a survey of Internet chat rooms in China to determine responses to the acts of terror in the USA and the US strike against Afghanistan. Many of the Chinese and Muslim reactions expressed the idea that the terror attack on America was God's punishment for America's sins. This is of course bad theology. Are the Palestinians being punished for their sins because Israel took their land? Are the Uyghurs being punished for their sins because China has taken their land? Are the Aghans being punished because the Taliban blew up Buddhist statues? With this reasoning all the suffering of the peoples of the world are the result of God's punishment for their sins, which is biblically correct. However, from a Christian perspective God's judgment applies to the sins of all men and all suffering is therefore a consequence of sin. Again exercising bad theology, my American friends point to the terror attacks of September 11 and say "there is the true face of Islam when the mask of piety is taken off." With this logic, the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the Christian Identity movement must be expressions of Christianity's true face. All religions have had their extremists devoted to terrorism, from the Hindu Thuggees to the Jewish Zealots, from the Christian Templars to the Muslim Assassins. Whose side is God really on? While the Taliban appeal to the divine might of Allah for their cause, the US is experiencing a renewed and profound religiosity as Congressmen sing "God bless America" on the Capitol steps. The relative world is being polarized along lines of religious, civilizational and ethical values. The polarization of a global conflict along religious lines is of course extremely dangerous and volatile. No less than the Pope called for peace between Muslims and Christians during his recent visit to Astana, Kazakhstan. His conciliatory words suggested that there is a potential for an apocalyptic show-down between the cross and the crescent and therefore a great need for reconciliation and peace between the representatives of the world's great religions. The western world has accepted relativism and diversity as basic civilizational values. However, relativism and diversity cannot become excuses to turn a blind eye on injustices that are absolute and universal in nature. As I have said before, there can be no tolerance for the practice of terror. It's no good for me to say that China's repression of Uyghurs is state terrorism if I don't add in the same breath that the US support of Israel inflicts state terrorism on Palestinians, or Russia's war on Chechnya is nothing less than genocide, or the US strikes in Afghanistan are inhumane if they kill civilians. In a global community that shares the resources of one small planet, there must be an absolute value and foundation for universal human rights applied equally to all nations. Perhaps that absolute value can be found in a universal recognition that we are all creatures of a Creator and therefore all created equal, with liberty, justice and dignity for all. Such a concept was introduced by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which reads in Article I: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. " Although the UN Declaration does not acknowledge a "higher power," religious people can read this into the idea of equality and brotherhood of all men. RECOMMENDATIONS What then must we do today in the case of the Uyghurs and their legitimate grievance? To ignore the problem is to foment the type of unrest and breed the kind of terror that afflicts the world. Recently I interviewed a young Uyghur radical who claimed to have trained in the Afghan Taliban camps. He was young and sad, a man with little hope but with a deep and long fuse of anger that was lit against the Chinese regime that oppressed his people. His justification for waging war or jihad against China was taken from a passage in the Koran that gave him the religious right to pick up a Kalashnikov rifle, a Katyusha rocket launcher or a Sidewinder missile. When I asked him if he had gone into China to fight, he said that the Taliban had promised them access into China through the Wakhan Corridor, which at the time was loosely held by the Northern Alliance. However, after months of waiting for the order to enter into China, the Taliban changed their minds and commanded the Uyghur militants to fight the Northern Alliance before releasing the Uyghurs into China. The Uyghurs, according to this young man, did not want to fight fellow Muslims so they decided to disband until the way was open for them to fight the "infidel Chinese" that had invaded their homeland. It was gratifying to me to know that these few frustrated Uyghurs were indeed few and relatively impotent. I was gratified not because I value the Chinese "empire's" hold on Eastern Turkestan, but because I abhor terror and violence. A few years ago, when I first met Erkin Alptekin, he spoke with great concern that the isolation of the Uyghur nation was producing a generation of radicalized youth. This generation was being alienated from their elders and beginning to choose the way of violence against their oppressor. I was greatly saddened by this young Uyghur man who had chosen violence. But I also know that had he stayed in China he would have been imprisoned or executed out of frustration and desperation. My prayer is that God will have mercy on a generation of disaffected Uyghur youth and restore hope to them. 1. Message to the International Community What should be our response then? First of all, speaking as a religious person I am convinced that terrorism must be answered with understanding, forgiveness and compassion-balanced by fair justice and strict discipline. The culture of hate must be answered with love. The values of death must be countered with life. The legitimate grievances of a people must be addressed in dialogue and compromise. Any resort to terror must forfeit the right to speak, with no exceptions. All legal means must be used to bring punishment on both individual criminals and renegade states. Second, the world is a global village. The world must include the Uyghurs in any solutions for Central Asia. I encourage the European Community to follow up the $1 billion pledged by the US government to rebuild Central Asia, but please, you must include the Uyghurs in this rebuilding program. When you invest in business ventures in Xinjiang, make sure you include Uyghurs in your companies as directors and managers, following the guidelines of the Sullivan Agreement. You must not let America become the bully on the block, chasing grasshoppers on top of elephants, making right by might. The international community must act courageously to condemn all forms of terrorism and take action to eliminate this threat to world stability. To a certain extent this joint action took place in the UN initiatives in Iraq, Somalia, and the NATO offensives in Bosnia and Kosovo. However the aerial bombing of Yugoslavia gave license to Russia to raze Chechnya, and offered justification to China to deal with her internal ethnic problems in a violent way. Remember that the domestic ethnic problems of the nations are no longer domestic. They spill over into neighboring regions, destabilizing other nation states. 2. Message to the Uyghur Community Thirdly, I need to address a message to my friends the Uyghurs-you are at a crossroads. The world's media spot lights are now focused on Central Asia. The world is looking at this stage and there on the sidelines, waiting for their cue are the Uyghurs. On what side of the stage will you enter? What will be your role? Will you side with Osama bin Laden or with the international community? Will you turn in bitterness against the world because the world has ignored your plight for so long? Will the fundamentalists hijack the Uyghur freedom movement and slam your people into the great wall of China? I must speak to my Uyghur friends these words of warning. Be careful which side you choose in this global conflict. Of course political choice, like religious belief, is also a volatile issue. If I recommend that the Uyghur movement should align with the West, I ask them to side with those who have too often chosen greed over justice. The west has occasionally been a fair weather friend to freedom movements, often choosing dictators who offer economic stability. If I recommend to the Uyghurs that they must fight for their rights in the model of the American Revolution, I commit them to a path of extremism that may lead to violence and terror. If I say suffer the repressive policies of the Chinese Communist government in silence I submit them to ethnic suicide, to the loss of their homeland and to a modern tragedy. Following the September 11 incident, I noticed some of my Uyghur friends showed respect for Osama bin Laden. Justin Jon Rudelson in his book "Oasis Identities" wrote that Uyghurs like a strong leader and are looking for one to lead their movement. To some Uyghurs, Osama would fit the bill if he promised to lead the Uyghurs on a jihad against yet a fourth colonial power and deliver them from their Chinese oppressors. Strangely enough, Osama bin Laden's holy rage is very selective. He seems to be fixed on the United States and his cause seems to be restricted to the Palestinians, Afghans, Iraquis and Saudis. His Al Qaeda statements don't mention the Chinese occupation of Eastern Turkestan, for example, or the cause of the Acehnese Muslims against the repressions of the Indonesian government, or the dilemma of the Kurds divided under Turkish, Iraqi and Russian rule. Osama bin Laden is obviously a pragmatist rather than an idealist, and he finds it easier to wage war on America than on China. He probably understands that if he loses to the US he will get a fair trial, but not so if he loses to China. I know that my friends will not take the decision to fight terror with terror, no matter how desperate their struggle against oppression. The choice to strike in terror against their oppressors is not a choice but a submission to defeat. The Uyghurs must choose the side of faith in God, finding freedom first in their spirits. They must develop a representative democracy in their communities, educate their youth to succeed in the world and change from the inside the systems of tyranny practiced by the Communist Party in China or by the Muslim theocracies of Iran and Afghanistan. Search your religious roots and beliefs to draw strength for your struggle and carry out your struggle with the weapons of spiritual power and with the force of moral right and not with the destructive weapons of this world. The choice of which side the Uyghurs should take will have long consequences. According to Linda Benson in her book, "The Ili Rebellion," Isa Yusuf Alptekin chose to back the Chinese in 1945, fearing the power of the Soviets and their ambition to dominate Central Asia. It is curious to think what would have happened if the Uyghur leaders had chosen to back the imperialistic Soviets against Nationalist Chinese. The Uyghurs would now be in possession of their own homeland of Uyghuristan, together with the other Turkic Central Asian Republics. The consequences of choosing the wrong side is a lesson that is being learned here in Belgium, with the fallout from the Nazi era still dividing the Flemish and Walloon populations of this peaceful country. According to some reports 30,000 Flemish Nazi sympathizers were hunted down and rounded up after the war, with some 300 executed. The Uyghur movement can take a chapter from European and Belgian history to understand the momentous crossroads it now faces. The Uyghurs themselves must decide which side best serves their interests, which path leads to their secured future as a people. This will be the subject of their deliberations in the next few days here in Brussels when they meet in their annual kurultai. Consider a new direction in your movement, embrace a new identity that retains your heritage as Uyghurs and yet is open to change. Exercise your legendary creativity to reinvent yourselves as a people, adapt to positive globalizing forces, develop community as victors and not as victim. Your religion has been hijacked by terrorists. Will you wrestle with the hijackers and take control of your own movement? Your challenge lies in the attempt to preserve and develop a distinctive Uyghur ethnic identity with religious, cultural and historical depth, in the face of an aggressive and dominating Chinese culture. You also face a culturally sterile globalization filtering in through western commercial interests that favor the Chinese. You also face the militant politicization of Islam through an international terrorist network. You face many trials, but you who have tamed the desert and conquered the mountains, you will prevail. CONCLUSION We in the international community who claim to represent the cause of freedom, or who claim to have religious revelation, we can speak out for the Uyghur people in public forums, we can refuse to be intimidated by their opponents who would silence us and them, we can enlist the support of the free press and free governments to bring the Communist Chinese into dialogue with the Uyghurs and Tibetans. We can help the Uyghurs rebuild their community, educate their youth, and develop their culture according to their own leading. If we have faith we can also pray that God will bring justice through peace in the world. God Bless the Uyghurs. Hudaiga Amanet. Thank you for your attention.