The arrests of indigenous musicians continue as part of the Chinese government’s targeting of Uighur (Uyghur) and other cultures for destruction, in Xinjiang, by way of mass-arresting famous indigenous cultural icons such as artists, scholars, clerics, poets, writers, publishers, and so on, evidently as a way to humiliate and break the spirit of the people.
A stream of reports on such disappearances/arrests has emerged over the last few months; one count already places the number of disappeared/arrested cultural icons well over 200.
They now include famous musicians such as Sanubar Tursun (Seneber Tursun), 49, reportedly sentenced to 5 yrs imprisonment. She is a folk musician and Muqam singer who performed at the opening ceremony of 2015 World Music Shanghai, and is described as the preeminent Uyghur female singer-songwriter. She has collaborated on stage with world musicians such as Chinese pipa player Wu Man. (There are no reports of expressions of solidarity from Wu Man).
Here is a movie about Sanubar Tursun and Wu Man’s collaboration just a few years ago: “Wu Man and Sanubar Tursun: Musical encounters on Central Asian Frontiers”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNrBAwjEkUI&feature=youtu.be
Another recently arrested musician is the renowned Uyghur folk and pop singer Peride Mamut, trained at Shanghai Conservatory, who plays shox (playful) songs from a Kashgar repertoire. Elise Anderson, the ethnomusicologist, writes [https://twitter.com/AndersonEliseM/status/1078280332196089857] that “They are some of the most delightful songs in all of the wide world of Uyghur music.” Elise Anderson writes that one way of honoring these artists is to listen to their music:
On Peride Mamut and Sanubar Tursun, Elise notes that (https://twitter.com/AndersonEliseM/status/1078296788212375552): “For Women’s Day 2016 I wrote and published on my personal site a two-part post profiling prominent women in Uyghur music. Peride Mamut and Seneber Tursun, each recently sentenced to 5 years (for “extremism”?), made it into part 2” :
Celebrating Uyghur Women in Music on 3.8 (Part 2 of 2)
http://www.elisemarieanderson.com/2016/03/10/part-2/
(This one really gives you a sense of what Sanubar Tursun might mean to her people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=zXjTYEaXKyM)
In the same spirit, also don’t miss part 1, “Celebrating Uyghur Women in Music on 3.8 (Part 1 of 2). March 8, 2016. http://www.elisemarieanderson.com/2016/03/08/celebrating-uyghur-women-in-music-part-1-of-2/
Also, here is another music video with Sanubar Tursun, with Sanubar Ensemble’s Uyghur Muqam Music performance at 9th International Mystic Music Festival in Konya, Turkey on Sept 27, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqNzo0JyBc
Another set of striking all-women music videos with Parida Mamut:
“Parida Mamut ijRasidiki Bir Yurux Uyghur Halk Nahxiliri,” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLABA1AE0E4E27BE33
Elise Anderson recently wrote about the end of music research in Xinjiang, “Change of Plans: Conducting Research in Xinjiang, 12/12/2018, http://www.asian-studies.org/asia-now/entryid/187), which I pointed to here earlier. In the light of that tragic text, it is heartbreaking to watch this riveting, optimistic film from just two years ago, 2016, about Elise’s passion for the music and participation in a music contest:
“Elise Anderson –An American Xinjiang Idol.” CHINA Plus, published on Feb 17, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAetF7aYVFM
What a difference two years makes!
Other artists disappeared include the famous “Uyghur Dutar King,” Abdurehim Heyit; the Uyghur pop musician & lyric writer Ablajan Awut Ayup (popularly known as Ablajan), and others. They’re likely in the harsh brainwashing camps in Xinjiang, where the temperature now is often ten below zero, alongside hundreds of thousands of others — if they are still alive.
In sadness, over the Chinese government’s mass brutalities — looking more and more like pure, intentional genocide.
Magnus Fiskesjö, nf42@cornell.edu
ps. For more on the tragedy in Xinjiang see this running bibliography: https://uhrp.org/featured-articles/chinas-re-education-concentration-camps-xinjiang