Bigots are biggest threat to Uygur culture

The concussions created by the deadly riots in 2009 that left nearly 200 people dead in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwestern China, have not fully healed even in five years.

But prejudiced Western critics have never stopped challenging the Chinese government's commitment to stabilizing and developing the country's western region. One of their persistent accusations against the government's Xinjiang policy is that the crackdown on terrorism and religious extremism is eradicating traditional Uygur culture in the autonomous region, largely inhabited by ethnic Uygurs.

That logic is fallacious to say the least. It is the terrorists and extremists who are forcing the time-honored Uygur culture toward extinction. For example, Uygurs in southern Xinjiang may have to give up singing, dancing and painting, all of which they have historically excelled in, because some extremists have branded these art forms "non-Islamic" and threatened to ban them.