micro blog: Poetry & the Uyghur diaspora

This post cites a source which uses two different recognized spellings of the language being discussed: 'Uyghur' and 'Uighur.'

We can credit much of our ability to discuss issues concerning Uyghurs and their language to members of the Uyghur diaspora, people of Uyghur descent who have scattered around the world, establishing new Uyghur communities outside of Xinjiang. The beauty in diaspora is that it allows ethnic groups to carry their identities and culture with them to new parts of the world, where in turn their presence inspires creativity, relationships, academic achievement, etc. 

Diaspora is especially important to the Uyghurs because Xinjiang, the province in China with the largest population of Uyghurs in the world, is a "surveillance state." A consequence of this is that information coming in and out of Xinjiang is filtered by the government, delimiting the ways Uyghurs are able to communicate not only with themselves, but with the outside world as well. Language is historically a form of liberation, especially for marginalized communities, so to see it exist so tenuously in Xinjiang is concerning.

Looking to the Uyghur diaspora for exercises of its native language is a great way to improve its prognosis. With each language we closely inspect this semester, I wonder what its relationship is with poetry. I find the medium to elicit deep emotion, and I often resonate most with verse that challenges or refracts life the way I see it. I sought out the works of members of the Uyghur diaspora to see how poetry uses the Uyghur language to represent meaningful symbols and ideas to the culture.

Lily Kuo writes for The Guardian in December 2020, "[f]ew cultures revere and incorporate poetry into daily life as much as Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic population in northwestern China whose elevation of the written verse dates back centuries, drawing comparisons with other cultures of rich poetic traditions from the Persians to the Russians." Uyghur poets' deft use of language and imagery form evocative renderings of emotion and experience.

Unfortunately, Uyghur writers are not immune to the Chinese government's regime through which it detains members of the Xinjiang populace. To proliferate the culture's sacred poetry, writers in the diaspora who have managed to escape Chinese control perform and promote Uyghur poetry elsewhere in the world. Some who have fled Xinjiang founded the World Uyghur Writers Union; poets on YouTube perform their renditions of Uyghur poetry. Still, surviving Uyghur poetry outside of China's boundaries has not changed the government's mind about cultural expression, and members of the diaspora feel that when Uyghur poetry is at stake, so is its language. 

Ekhmetjan Osman, the leader of Uyghur's poetry movement in the 1980s, says in Kuo's article, "Uighur poetry is the soul of the Uighur language. If the soul of Uighur language dies, the language dies...The core of people's beliefs, ways of thinking, customs, history, construction of society–all of this is based on language. This is all going to disappear...To me there is no bigger crime."

I think that poetry is taken for granted in America, where it's often not celebrated outside of academia or by poets and writers themselves. The example of poetry in the Uyghur culture demonstrates how we do not just use language in perfunctory ways; language has the capacity to facilitate an exchange of ideas, to free one's mind, to bare one's soul. The future of the Uyghur language depends on the survival of its robust foundation of poetry.

Kuo, Lily. "Poetry, the soul of Uighur culture, on the verge of extinction in Xinjiang," The Guardian. Dec 5 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/06/poetry-the-soul-of-uighur-culture-on-verge-of-extinction-in-xinjiang