Posted on 10/17/2004 10:41:41 PM PDT by Destro
This article was published by F18News on: 28 September 2004
CHINA: What you can't do in a mosque
By Igor Rotar, Central Asia Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service, and Magda Hornemann, Forum 18 News Service
In Xinjiang region, Forum 18 News Service has seen an instructional display outlining banned activities. Such instructional displays are normally hidden from the public, and are thought to apply in mosques throughout China. Among banned activities are: teaching religion "privately"; allowing children under 18 to attend a mosque; allowing Islam to influence family life and birth planning behaviour; propaganda associated with terrorism and separatism; religious professionals acquiring large sums of money; the declaration of "holy war" (jihad); and promoting "superstitious thoughts". These displays are not compulsory in non-Muslim places of worship and Forum 18 found no such displays in Xinjiang's two Orthodox churches. Also, the mosque's "democratic management committee" must conduct regular sessions propounding legal regulations and party policies. Such party-appointed committees oversee activities in places of worship and are also known to exist in Tibetan Buddhist temples.
On 21 September, Forum 18 News Service studied a display that the authorities have ordered local imam Musu Ma to hang in his office in the Dungan mosque in the town of Burqin, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the district centre of Altai [Altay], in the far north of China's north-western Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region. The display – believed to be typical of those required by the authorities in mosque offices and normally hidden from public view – spells out what the authorities will not allow in a mosque, including teaching religion "privately", allowing children under 18 to attend and allowing Islam to influence behaviour in the areas of family life and birth planning.
The Dungan mosque serves mainly members not of the Uighur population (the largest Muslim community in Xinjiang) - or at least the majority of worshippers are not Uighurs. Most of the Muslims who attend, according to the display, are Huis - Muslims of Han Chinese ethnicity - and Dongxiang.
Musu Ma reported that similar displays hang in the offices of virtually all the imams of Xinjiang's mosques. Such displays are known to exist in Hui mosques in Beijing and elsewhere in China, while places of worship of other ethnic minority faiths – especially Tibetan Buddhist temples – are believed to have similar displays.
At the top of the Chinese-language display at the Dungan mosque are photographs of the mosque leaders while underneath are photographs of officials of the mosque management committee.
The display is divided into sections setting out the restrictions on the mosque's activity. The top right hand section lists the five items that should not be brought into the mosque, including personal and family disputes; disputes over marriage and birth planning; youths under the age of 18; and statements and "illegal propaganda materials" associated with the "three forces" of terrorism, "splittism" (the official term for separatism) and extremism.
The display sets out the prohibition on religious professionals acquiring large sums of money and material goods for presiding over weddings, funerals and other ceremonies. It also warns against performing the reading of the "Nikha" (the Muslim marriage contract) to couples who have yet to receive marriage certificates from the state authorities.
In addition to the other prohibitions, one section lists a further ten items that must be resolutely cracked down. These include the propagation of ethnic separatism, the declaration of "holy war" (jihad) and inciting religious fanaticism; using religion to intervene in administrative, judicial, education, marriage, and birth planning matters; using religion to promote reactionary views such as "pan-Islamism" and "pan-Turkism"; holding "private" religious classes and acquiring "private" students in religious venues and by religious professionals; and promoting "superstitious thoughts".
Also required, according to the display, is that the mosque's "democratic management committee" (DMC) should conduct regular sessions for religious professionals and lay persons propounding legal regulations and party policies. Such committees are party-appointed bodies that oversee what goes on in each religious venue.
Similar "democratic management committees" are known to exist in Tibetan Buddhist temples. The International Campaign for Tibet reported that they have been set up "in all monasteries and nunneries" in Tibet to implement Party policies and regulations. "DMCs act as the eyes and ears of the Party in monasteries and nunneries," it reported. "In conjunction with ad hoc government 'work teams', DMCs search for suspected dissidents in monasteries and nunneries. A number of monks and nuns have been expelled from their institutions and even arrested on the recommendation of their DMC."
Forum 18 notes that national-religious committees, which form part of the administration of every city, at least in areas of China with large ethnic minority populations, also maintain control over the lives of believers. Communities may only function once they have registered with the national-religious committee, and their leaders have to be drawn from people whose candidacy has been approved by the authorities. The leaders of all religious communities have to attend meetings of the national-religious committees. At the meetings, officials explain to leaders of religious communities what policy they should pursue with believers (see F18 News 20 September 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=414 ).
The display also requires all religious venues to display land certificates, building certificates, imam qualification certificates, operating permit, joint management contract, and the appointment certificate of the head of the religious venue.
Musu Ma told Forum 18 that the mosque can conduct marriage ceremonies and celebrations of childbirth only with the specific permission of the authorities. He also emphasised that the authorities do not prevent children from being circumcised.
Forum 18 saw posters in mosques in Kashgar (southern Xinjiang) in 2003 stating that underage children were not allowed to attend mosque, but did not see such posters this September in the cities of northern and central Xinjiang. Believers who preferred not to be named told Forum 18 that such posters are not generally hung at mosque entrances, but usually there are displays in the imams' offices containing detailed instructions from the authorities, which will only be shown to foreigners with the utmost reluctance.
Interestingly, such displays are not compulsory in non-Muslim places of worship. For example, Forum 18 found no such displays in Xinjiang's two Orthodox churches, in the towns of Ghulja (Yining), capital of Ili-Kazakh autonomous prefecture, or Urumqi [Ürümqi].
For background information see Forum 18's Xinjiang religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=414 and survey of the prospects for religious freedom in China at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=292
A printer-friendly map of China is available from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=china
The point is the same policy is in place for Christians as well as Muslims under the Chinese communist rule.
And these policies have been in place long before 911 -- decades in fact. They were not implemented to be part of the war on terror but are standard for all communist regimes.
The communists in China have always supported, and still support, Arafat. They supported Hussein by building fiber optic defense networks for him. They put in similar networks for the Taliban up to the day we attacked after 911. They support Iran and are helping with their nuclear program. Needless to say they were responsible for pakistan building their nuclear wepaons via transfer of know how and physical equipment needed to enrich radioactive material (under the Clinton administration, against international agreements).
This post is either dumb (more likley) or meant to be propaganda.
As I said, I actually think it is lack of intelleigence, knowledge and perspective.
Christians also are subject to the same polcies are are jailed and tortured much more frequently for religious violations than Muslims.
I wish this could be published far and wide in the MSM to serve as a wake up call for those bleeding heart kool aid drinkers who think that going towards socialism, and eventually on to communism, is a good thing for us. I'm not talking about the hard core ones who WANT this and are PLANNING it for our Nation -- but the idiot dummies who tag along who think they will benefit from a plethora of social programs and not think of the consequences they buy into when full blown socialism, and then the more oppressive, communism takes hold. </RANT>
Why is that?
In part because there is a tradition of martyrdom among Christian missionaries, laying down their lives by being tortured to death for refusing to denounce Christ. Jesus gave His life for us.
Muslims have a different take on religious oppression. The more effort that is made to stamp out or limit Islam, the more clerics that call for jihad (physical holy war).
There is no litmus test for holy war among other faiths.
That tends to vary with the political winds and with local politics.
Local potentates can be more or less severe . . . as the saying goes, Beijing is far away. Of course, local leaders' personalities play a part as do their personal philosophies in interpreting and implementing Beijing edicts.
On the other hand, Beijing can send out a more or less stern edict backed up with more or less Party and military support. Sessions are spent hours on end with relevant leadership committees arguing about every nuance of every word in an order from Beijing.
The Beijing Central Committee sends out mandated regulations and stances on various important issues of the day after lots of deliberation, usually. Given that it's a committee, there's some, at least hint, of an effort toward a wise, balanced response to whatever issue or crisis is the topic of the day--at least they like to appear that way.
Tienanmen was a huge stretch on that score. Once the edict from Deng came down, then the tenor was set and everyone knew the jig was up. The wiser, more alert folks scurried for cover or escape instantly. Others less quick or able manufactured alibies quickly. Everyone almost instantly learned the catch phrases to mouth in support of Beijing's new position--some with more conviction and loyalty thereto and many with less.
Sometimes, a beloved friend could say something to you on Monday that was contradicted on Tuesday or Friday because of a huge change in the edicts or tone or some such from Beijing. They weren't trying to be duplicitous, contradictory or even confusing. They were just surviving in their cultural context.
Beijing has a knee-jerk response to any hint of 'splitism' that's much stronger than American's recent responses to loss of freedoms. It's hard to think of a value generally held by most Americans that most American citizens respond to with the intensity that Beijing responds to the splitism issue with.
It's pride, nationalism, power, culture, ethnocentrism and more.
Religion has been viewed as a particularly troublesome threat to the Party's rule after they observed the fall of Eastern Europe facilitated, they are convinced, by the Roman Church. They know that genuine Christians make the best employees and officials as well as supervisors because of their diligence, fairness and honesty. But they fear their values and cohesive support of one another as well as their allegiance to God over Party.
I'm guessing that their hostility to the Jihadi's is even more fierce. Any hint of violence or use of force or arms against Party rule is met with ruthlessly and virtually instantly. Certainly in decades past, wiping out a village as an example would not have been off limits. Now, Beijing is SOMEWHAT sensitive to world opinion. However, control of the media; obsfucation honed to an art form; use of appearances to hide or present anything . . . world opinion is considered a bothersome hindrance but usually as no match for Chinese skills at fooling it or ignoring it.
It will be most interesting to see how China relates to the rise of Islam as well as to the coming world government. The Bible hints that the world leader's alliances are not all that solid across the board. I can certainly imagine that true with regard to China--and all the mosre so if the puppet masters put up Islam as the interim government and philosophy to kowtow to. We shall see.
As the Chinese might say--an interesting time to be alive.
Answer the question. Why are Christians subjected to the same rules?
It isn't to combat jihad or terrorism because Christians and Buddhist aren't advocating or doing either.
Islam has always been deemed a Chinese religion under the communists as oppsoed to Christianity which is a foreign influence in their official view.
They had and have no trouble with the Hui who've always been good communists and there were no problems with the Hui mosques puting up banners in support of bin laden and demonstrating in support fter 911.
The Xinjiang issue has always been more social ethnic and political than religious. East Turkestans, like the Turks have not been islamicists and radical traditonally. (There are of course exceptions).
Religion offers the people hope and communists have long opposed the free exercise of religion.
The communist Chinese have sought to co-opt Buddism and dictate to the masses things such as the next Lama.
The Vatican helped to overthrow Eastern European communism. If communists ran the Vatican, the Chi-Coms might try to use Christianity to further their goals.
What are you saying?!?! That Communists are murderous despots who stop at nothing to establish government control over every aspect of human life...surely, you jest.
Cooperation between the ChiComs and Islam are not new. Why the west hasn't figured out that bin Laden is an employee of the ChiComs is astounding. I guess they'd rather continue making money (the west) than facing the truth.
Sooner or later, though, we're going to have to slay the Dragon once and for all. Even with all of the internal problems that China has, the PLA and CCP are so monolithic that their entire society could crumble around them and they'd still be functional - at least militarily.
Dealing with them sooner is to our advantage, while waiting will only allow them more time to modernize the PLA. Once we have NMD in place - all three levels of it - we had better consider our options. As you pointed out, China has been there arming our foes at every step of this war - the Islamic nations are their primary tool of asymmetric warfare. Note that Iran is now using that same term for their new defensive strategy.
Your insights ring true.
Though I'm not sure how far one could ride those truisms.
Depending on the current priorities of the Central Committee . . . or anticipated soon to be priorities . . .
the Chinese are often happy at various levels to slug America in the nose or worse.
I'm curious how much of my analysis and description I'd change after a current wander through the various regions. I suspect not great portions.
See, there is no operational difference between the Communists and the Democrats. Hand and glove.
I made an off the hip remark about rules they have for Muslims based on the article. I wasn't being literal. However, Muslims tend to move into a country, take it over, and reduce it to a place of poverty and misery.
Ping for a laugh...
[The Chinese Government says no] promoting "superstitious thoughts" in mosques.
Gee, we can't have THAT in a house of worship, now, can we?
I don't think he's kidding...and don't call people Shirley. [rimshot]
I am not an expert on China, but I assume it is because of the Taiping Rebellion.
Dude, you hung your hat on the fact that these Xinjiang Muslim areas were not part of historic China. I am not arguing that China is not a tyranny - only that you screwed up and thought you knew history or thought I did not know it.
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