China and its Discontents

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“The Poverty of Experience”

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Published in the Trinity Tripod.

Martin Peretz, of Harvard University and editor of the magazine The New Republic, recently wrote, “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.” He added, “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”

A month ago protests sparked over the construction of a Muslim community center, the Cordoba House, several blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center. For two years, a vocal minority of Americans have posted on internet forums and passed on viral emails written loudly in all caps: “BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS A MUSLIM!”

Each of these controversies stem from a stereotypical representation of Islam and its adherents – stereotypes that are bigoted because they aren’t true. From my travels in Xinjiang, China and living amongst Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims, I’ve found that bigoted beliefs can only arise out of a profound “poverty of experience.”

Last week I stayed for a few days in Hemu, a tiny village on the Kazakh, Russian, and Mongol borders. The natural scenery was beautiful, but more important to me were opportunities to speak with local Tuvans (a Mongolian tribe), Uyghurs, and Kazakhs. After spending an afternoon at a school cultural exchange, I learned that Kazakh teenagers are surprisingly good basketball players and admire Kobe Bryant. It’s probably because the basketball courts are the only fun thing in town.

After dinner with the family of the head schoolteacher, they taught us how to dance to the ethno-pop of Shahrizoda (three Uyghur girls who are all the rage in Xinjiang – their music is incessant). The dance was a traditional Kazakh line dance, and very similar to line dances in Texas. We were also served horse milk wine – think sake with a tinge of milk flavor.

The next night, we got to practice our newly-learned line-dancing skills at a dance party. In Hemu. Population: less than 2000.

After all that, how can I ever stereotype a population of one billion people – it’s futile!

I am an avid reader of James Fallows, correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, who in response to Mr. Peretz wrote, “The real secret of American inclusion through the generations is that when you grow up with, work with, live next to, intermarry with, and in all other ways get to know people from different categories, you have less patience for generalizations about ‘the blacks’ or ‘the Irish’ or ‘the Jews’ or ‘the gays’ or ‘trailer trash’ etc.”

When you come into contact with those unlike yourself and expose yourself to the alien, “poverty of experience” is erased; you cannot be bigoted, because what was once alien you now recognize as familiar.

Not everyone can make the trek to one of the most remote places on earth to learn this lesson – but Americans need not to. My “wealth of experience” includes not just getting to know Kazakh teenagers in Xinjiang, but also growing up and going to school in a racially and socio-economically diverse community. I am sure the Tuvans, Kazakhs, and Uyghurs I’ve met are well-represented by others in the states (not to mention Muslim and Arab cultural groups on this campus). If you have the opportunity to study abroad, it is the best choice you can make, but it is certainly not the only path out of bigotry in this country.