Retrospective censorship of Uyghur texts
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From a memoir by Uyghur poet Tamir Hamut Izgil, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, Bruce Humes posted on his Ethnic ChinaLit blog (12/30/23) this brief excerpt about how content, once commissioned and approved by the Chinese state, became grounds for incarceration of researchers, writers and editors:
Huítóu kàn gōngchéng 回头看工程 — Xinjiang’s Ominous “Looking Back Project”
Uyghur poet’s memoir recalls the Xinjiang administration’s retroactive hunt for unPC content in textbooks once commissioned, edited and published by the state:
Following the Urumchi incident in 2009, the regional government had initiated the Looking Back Project. The Propaganda Department organized special groups to go over Uyghur-language books, newspapers, journals, films, television shows, and recordings from the 1980s to the present. These groups were tasked with identifying any materials that contained ethnic separatist themes or religious extremist content.
. . . Several years later, as one result of these investigations, half a dozen Uyghur intellectuals and officials were arrested for editing Uyghur literature textbooks for grades one through eleven. The textbooks had been used in schools for over a decade before the “problem” with them was discovered in 2016.
Word spread that similar “problems” had been found in nearly all Uyghur historical novels, and that they would soon be banned. The government had even banned a popular historical novel by Seypidin Ezizi, the highest-ranking Uyghur official in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. If the work of such a trusted party veteran could be banned, there was little question what the future held for other Uyghur writers.
(Excerpted from Waiting to be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil)
Chilling!
A veritable literary inquisition.
And what is a "literary inquisition"?
The Chinese equivalent is wénzìyù 文字狱 / 文字獄 ("imprisonment due to writings")
Literary inquisitions have a long history in China, going back to at least the middle of the 6th century BC:
The earliest recorded literary inquisition occurred in 548 BC in the state of Qi during the Spring and Autumn period. Recorded in the Zuo zhuan, the powerful minister Cui Zhu (崔杼), who had murdered the ruler Duke Zhuang, killed three court historians (Taishi, 太史) because they insisted on recording the event in the official history. The burning of books and burying of scholars in the Qin dynasty is also considered a form of literary inquisition by some Chinese scholars. It is uncertain how frequently the persecutions occurred. However, compared to during the Ming and Qing dynasties, literary inquisitions before the Song dynasty happened less frequently due to the lack of printing.
The Hànyǔ Dà Cídiǎn 漢語大詞典 (lit. "Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary", also known as the Grand Chinese Dictionary) defines it as "in ancient times the ruler deliberately extracted words or phrases from intellectuals' writings in order to fabricate crimes against them" ("jiùshí wèi tǒngzhìzhě wèi pòhài zhīshifènzǐ ， gùyì cóng qí zhùzuò zhōng zhāiqǔ zìjù ， luózhī chéng zuì 旧时谓统治者为迫害知识分子，故意从其著作中摘取字句，罗织成罪"). Such inquisitions took place under each of the dynasties ruling China, although the Ming dynasty was particularly notorious for the practice. (ibid., with minor modifications)
What's happening now in the PRC is no different from the literary inquisitions that took place under earlier emperors.
Selected readings
- "The ultimate protest against censorship" (11/27/22) — with lengthy bibliography
- "Outlawed Uyghur names" (10/10/15)