Memory as resistance – Mekong Review

The Uyghurs: Kashgar Earlier than the DisasterKevin BubriskiGeorge F. Thompson Publishing: 2023.Beneath the Mulberry Tree: A Modern Uyghur AnthologyEdited by Munawwar Abdulla, Sonya Imin, Maidina Kadeer and Emily ZinkinTarim Community: 2022

On the wall of my lounge hangs a photograph by the American photographer Lois Conner. Taken in 1991 in Kashgar, in China’s westernmost Xinjiang area, it depicts a gaggle of Dickensian-looking kids, collectively holding a broomstick and gazing in curiosity, presumably on the foreigner behind the digital camera. They’re a beguiling and full of life group, every face filled with character. The kids are largely male. Their garments and faces point out they belong to the Turkic-speaking Uyghur minority and their ages seem to vary between 5 and fifteen. They’ll be of their late thirties or older by now. In different phrases, prime candidates for internment camps in Xinjiang (additionally known as East Turkestan by many Turkic Muslims).

Extra from Mekong Overview

Poetry by Ghojimuhemmed Muhemmed

One syllable brings the spice

Poetry from Yuan Changming