Aziz Isa Elkun

SPEAKER

Aziz Isa Elkun was born in East Turkistan (Uyghur Autonomous Region, China). He spent his childhood in Shahyar county which is located close to the Tarim River on the northern edge of the world’s second largest desert, the Taklamakan Desert. He graduated from Xinjiang University majoring in Chinese and Russian and languages. He has been living in London since 2001. He studied at Birkbeck University in London. He has published many poems, stories, and research articles in both Uyghur language and English. He has co-authored English language articles in Inner Asia and Central Asian Survey. He worked as Research Assistant on the “Sounding Islam China”, project based in SOAS, University of London, and conducted collaborative fieldwork in Central Asia for the project. In 2017, he published a Uyghur language research article arising from this fieldwork, titled “The Uyghurs are known in Central Asia for their laghmen”. He is an active member of the exile Uyghur Community and founder of a Uyghur music group – the London Uyghur Ensemble. Since September 2017, he has served as Secretary of the International PEN Uyghur Centre. From September 2018, he is working as a researcher on a British Academy Sustainable Development project “Uyghur Meshrep in Kazakhstan” based at SOAS, University of London.

*Webinar about “The genocide of the Uyghur Muslims in East Turkistan (China)” – organised by the UK Shia Ithna’ashari Community of Middlesex (SICM) & The Salaam Centre at 20:15 hrs London time on 29 January 2021. https://sicm.org.uk

Published by Elkun website:
http://www.azizisa.org/en/the-genocide-of-the-uyghur-muslims-in-east-tukestan-china/

The morning filled is with blossom
but my soul is worrisome
something is missing in this world
is there anyone to be there for the Uyghurs?

Even the corners of these streets
are cold like a city of graveyards
I can’t feel my Uyghurness anymore
my tongue stutters.

It’s difficult to differentiate the seasons
knowing only the falling of leaves
and the growing of blossom
in nights of solitude I mourn,
there is no dawn star I can greet.

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Chinese colonialism in translation: Translation of Uyghur names into mandarin under communist China 

Aziz Isa Elkun

Chinese colonialism in translation

In this paper I focus on the historical and contemporary context and conception of Uyghur names and places in translation under the Manchu Qing dynasty, Chinese Nationalists and Chinese communist rulers of the region in the last two centuries. More recently this has combined with the current so called ”Bilingual education” policies that have unofficially abandonned Uyghur language instruction in Uyghur education to produce a real threat to Uyghur identity and sense of ownership over this territory.

It is useful to remind ourselves that similar procedures and methods were applied by the British and Russian empires during their vast colonial exapnsion over the last three centuries, and it is now aggressively copied and implemented by China in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

I ask whether the Chinese state can ultimately achieve its Sinification of Uyghur geographical place names, or whether Uyghurs will be able to preserve the Uyghur language names that currently co-exist with the Chinese names in the Uyghur region.  

With the lack of Uyghur language representation in the Chinese official press and in international media, will there be any future change in the current understanding, usage and representation of Uyghur language names and Mandarin names in the Uyghur region. It is likely that the situation will become still more problematic after China’s recent more agressive implementation of Chinese language usage among the Uyghur people.

If we look at history we can see that western colonial powers were able to obtain the wealth by depending on their warship and cannons. In return they introduced their own culture and languages to the the local inhabitants and even renamed the indigenous peoples names and their towns. This all ultimately helped to achieve a full colonization of the subject countries.  

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