Authorities in the Chinese capital ordered halal restaurants and food stalls to remove Arabic script and symbols associated with Islam from their signs, part of an expanding national effort to “Sinicize” its Muslim population.
Employees at 11 restaurants and shops in Beijing selling halal products said officials told them to remove images associated with Islam, such as the crescent moon and the word “halal” written in Arabic, from their signs.
Government workers from various offices told one manager of a Beijing noodle shop to cover up the “halal” in Arabic on his shop’s sign and then watched him do it.
“They said this is foreign culture and you should use more Chinese culture,” said the manager, who, like all restaurant owners and employees, declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The campaign against Arabic script and Islamic images marks a new phase of a drive that has gained momentum since 2016, aimed at ensuring religions conform to mainstream Chinese culture.
The campaign has included the removal of Middle Eastern-style domes on many mosques around the country in favour of Chinese-style pagodas. (Source: Aljazeera.com)
Comment:
Sino-socialism has become Sino-fascism – fascism with ‘Chinese characteristics’.
No doubt emboldened by the treachery and sell-out of our so called leaders, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain who signed their support for China’s persecution of the Muslims in Uyghurstan, China has moved to the next phase to wipe out not only the Uyghur Muslims but all Muslims and Islam in China.
The Chinese government is stooping to racism and forcibly sinicizing Muslims. Unable to defeat Islam intellectually, the Chinese government has discarded all pretence of the ideological superiority of socialism along with its distinction from fascism. Socialism with ‘Chinese characteristics’ has become a meaningless, expedient husk, to cover the ugliness of a racist and fascist totalitarian state. Instead of convincing the people intellectually, it persecutes, imprisons, coerces and tortures. It employs terror and brain washing in Chinese gulags and in the case of Uyghur women, forced marriages to Chinese men or, institutionalised rape. The Chinese government is a strong ‘brute’ to be sure, but an ideological and intellectual coward.
If ‘socialism-with-Chinese-characteristics’ is a legitimate ideology for the Chinese, why is the Chinese government turning to racism and fascism?
‘Race’ is the fallback rallying cry of all bankrupted leaders. It is the bond that gathers the hoards that keep them in power. Its validity and currency come from fear, and hatred and for that, it requires a narrow mind and the evoking of a constant ‘threat’, the ‘enemy’ the ‘other’ the foreigner or the ‘foreign’. We see it in North Korea, in Russia, in India, in Europe, in the US, and in the Chinese government’s case – it is the Uyghur, and Islam itself.
Societies are held together by various bonds, religion, belief, shared principles, fear, benefit, greed and race. However, racism or tribalism is the lowest form of bond, arising from ignorance and fear, more in common with the survival and territorial instincts of animals. It is a false bond and transient. No noble principles, thoughts or solutions emanate from it. Therefore racism is invalid as a basis to structure societies and organise life.
It is estimated that over 70 million lives were lost in World War 2 fighting fascism and Nazism. Who would have thought that in the 21st century, racism would find a revival in the west and in the east in new ‘dresses’ – populism, neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, Zionism, White supremacy, Hindu supremacy, and of course Chinese supremacy or Sino-socialism?
History has witnessed the genocide of Muslims and expunging of Islam before, during the Spanish Inquisition, the Portuguese Inquisition, the war in Bosnia and now again the persecution of Muslims in 21st century Europe.
When a civilisation or society begins to rally around ‘race’ as a ‘solution’, one knows that it is breaking down. Its ideology at its root has failed and is unable to solve its problems nor take care of the lives of its people.
The Chinese Communist party cannot convince her people intellectually of the legitimacy of Sino-socialism. And so for the masses it promotes a shallow culture of pursuit of meaningless material gratification, to distract from the void at the centre of life. For good measure, it brutalises Muslims and poses Islam as the ‘(terrorist) threat’ and ‘enemy’.
To the Chinese government, like so many other desperate and failing societies, Truth does not matter. It is to be obfuscated, distracted and if possible eradicated along with anyone foolish enough to want to embrace a life based upon it.
Far from being ‘Socialist state with Chinese characteristics’, China is increasingly becoming a ‘neo-fascist, plutocratic’ society.
Islam views racism and bigotry as vile and vulgar. It rejects racism and puts it at its rightful place, with the animals.
It does not look to ‘race’ nor ‘place’, as a source of truth or principles by which to organise society, to define right and wrong, good or bad. Its civilisation is built upon an intellectual, rational creed that convinces the mind and agrees with the nature of the human being.
Not only did Islam create a safe and just society with a modus vivendi, it provided the pax vivendi for all races and tongues. When the Jews were slaughtered in Spain and Portugal and chased out of Europe, the Land of Islam provided them with shelter. A society for all, bonded by ideology which cuts through race, tribe, wealth and social-class, built to protect and care for all humankind. Today, the ideology of Islam stands almost alone, against racism, fascism and falsehood.
The Islamic Ummah has witnessed the world without Islam, for the last 95 years under the yoke of Kufr and taghut, unchecked and unhindered. It is time to stand clear from falsehood and reestablish a society built upon Truth. We need the shield of the faithful Sultan, the true Chief of the Mu’mineen, to reestablish a civilisation on what is right and just, to protect not only the Muslims in China, but all Muslims and all good people of the world.
Allah (swt) has informed us,
[وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ]
“And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds.”
[TMQ 21:107]
Written by Muhammad Hamzah