“Now hear this. You are mountain people. You are not permitted to speak your mountain language in this place. It is not permitted. It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital. Your language is dead. Your language no longer exists. Any questions?” -Harold Pinter, Mountain Language
With 2019 marking the Centenary of Afghanistan’s Independence, we the Afghan American Artists’ and Writers’ Association, voice our support and solidarity with two groups currently being suppressed by the Government of China, the Hong Kong Protestors and the ethnic Uyghurs of Western China. As writers, we are students of history; as Afghan Americans, we are also the children of a generation deeply affected by imperialism at the hands of Communist Russia. From the 1979 Soviet invasion, to the US’s ongoing militarization of everyday life, our families have been collateral damage in wars led by imperial superpowers. As Americans, we will not remain silent. We recognize native populations who yearn for their land, for their independence, and we understand the necessity for many of them to struggle against the external forces who are attempting to impose an alien way of life and new laws. We are also very familiar with superpowers’ attempts to eradicate cultural traditions (including most notably language and religion, but also the freedom to assemble and voice dissent).
Ironically, the tone that is instinctively taken by the oppressor in such cases of oppression (be it the Chinese government of today, Soviet Russia in the 80’s, the Israeli government towards the Palestinian people, or even the U.S. government’s dispossession of Indigenous peoples) is one of defensiveness, as though the superpowers are themselves the oppressed. In the reproaches made by CCTV (Chinese State Television) in the recent “controversy” involving Darryl Money of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, the entire world has seen the naked face of insecure and paranoid forms of governmental nationalism (i.e.,“We oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,”). We stress governmental, because we know and respect the people of China, who unlike their government, understand very well that in reality, people are often entangled in complex ways with the states that govern them.
Unlike the protestors in Hong Kong, the Uyghur people of Western China do not even possess enough freedom to be able to protest. They are quite frankly being overrun by Beijing’s repressive policies. The only voices of dissent come from those citizens who have escaped (including many of our own friends and colleagues here in the USA who have confirmed many of the horror stories that are now being told about detention camps and cultural whitewashing, and essentially, brainwashing). The world is beginning to take notice, and we applaud the US government for blacklisting 8 Chinese tech companies that were abusing facial-recognition technology to spy on Uyghur people and continue this obscene cultural genocide.
We urge all who read this to learn as much as you can about these complex situations, to have conversations, with your family, with your friends, with those who may know more about the subject (including people from Hong Kong and North Western China) and to continue to speak out whenever you can. Finally, as Afghan Americans, let us simply state that as writers and thinkers in the US, we enjoy the privilege of being able to respectfully disagree, to peacefully protest, and to practice whichever religion or way of life we choose. We use this privilege to wholly reject the notion of seeing any one people, culture or language as a “threat” to be either subdued, dominated, or “re-educated.”
Thank you.
Signed,
Yusuf Misdaq
Sahar Muradi
Wazhmah Osman
Zohra Saed
Gazelle Samizay
Helena Zeweri