Daily Lessons from Life 29 June 2009

"China police hold man over ethnic brawl: report
He had spread false rumours of rape. -Mon, Jun 29, 2009 Reuters

BEIJING - Police in southern China have detained a man accused of spreading false rumours of rape over the Internet that sparked a deadly ethnic brawl at a toy factory on the weekend.


China's official Xinhua news agency reported late on Sunday that the man, a former worker at the Xuri or "Early Light" toy factory in Shaoguan city, Guangdong province, posted a message on a local website claiming, "Six Xinjiang boys raped two innocent girls" at the factory.

Police said the unfounded claim was behind the massive Friday night brawl between a group of Han Chinese and Uighur workers from China's northwestern Xinjiang region who had been recently recruited to the factory.

The brawl was an outburst of long-standing tensions between Han Chinese and Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group with a language and culture close to the Turkic peoples of central Asia. In the fighting, two workers from Xinjiang were killed and 118 people were injured, Xinhua reported.


The man, surnamed Zhu, "faked the information to express his discontent" over failing to find new work after quitting his job at the factory, said Xinhua. The brief report did not say what crime he has been accused of.

The violence lasted until the early hours of Friday morning and 14 were critically injured. About 400 riot police had to be deployed to quell the unrest as the rival workers battled, some wielding knives and metal pipes, Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper reported on Saturday.

Many Uighurs resent Han Chinese rule, complaining they're marginalised economically and politically in their own land, while having to tolerate a rising influx of Han Chinese migrants."

China has its fair share of fault lines really. In Tibet and in Xinjiang. I have travelled to both regions in China and I personally find the people there very different from the Chinese around the country. It is not exaggeration to said I felt like a 2 different countries as the customs, costumes, languages and cultures are simply alien to me who lived in Beijing and Shanghai for about 6 years on and off!

Lessons for me are:

1. just like in Singapore, the issue of races, languages and religions MUST have its boundaries. Strict adherence to the limits must be observed as such issues never fail to ignite the passion and overwhelmed rationality that lead to violence and killing of the innocents whenever incited!;

2. everyone must be mindful of the danger of any irresponsible speeches and conducts against the other races. Everyone must know that the laws will come down hard on anyone who try to breach this boundary. No mercy will be shown as it is better to sacrifice the minority then to have a racial situation where many innocent people 's lives will be ruined!;

3. ultimately how the regions of Tibet and Xinjiang will be handled is the domestic affair of China. It goes without saying that there remain a lot of extra efforts to integrate the Hans and the locals to these 2 regions together. Mix marriage is one of the ways though it need to be speed up in a massive scale. At the same time, love cannot be coerced or made-to-order as Singapore government, despite its renowned reputation for being able to social engineered everything, failed miserably. It will have to be a natural process though with some encouragement and teasing, things can happen a bit faster!

While the violence might be over. The healing may take a lot longer and nobody really know if the wounds will really heal or not!

Peace to China. Peace to the world.