Freedom or Control
Kommunikationsdesign
Gestalter: Felix Thode
Entstanden: Sommersemester 2020
This book will cover the treatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, China. At the same time it will be a lesson on Chinese censorship on the internet as research for this book will be heavily impacted by the Information monopoly of the Communist Party in China. The secrecy was essential for the cultural assimilation of the Uyghurs into the Chinese culture.
All measures taken by the Chinese government, which are going to be discussed in this book, follow the aim of erasing the Uyghur Culture and blending it into the Chinese Culture. All under the banner of “Counter-Terrorism”, as there have been numerous riots and bombings in Xinjiang by Uyghurs. This rational is summed up by an unknown Chinese Ocial: “You can’t uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one by one — you need to spray chemicals to kill them all.”
The world started to really take notice of what was happening in Xinjiang in late 2019 when leaks of internal government papers were leaked to the New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The leaks revealed the extend of the operation which had previously been unknown or at least unproven. They also showed the methods of arrests and surveillance used against the Uyghurs. With all the secrecy gone however the cultural Assimilation did not stop. The following is an attempt at a complete story of who the Uyghurs are and why the Chinese don’t want them to feel like Uyghurs but rather like Chinese citizens.