Friday, October 02, 2009

10 Conditions of Love Taipei Showing

Went to see the 10 Conditions of Love, the documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, at Da-an Park in Taipei yesterday.

There was a good crowd, which was quite lively, laughing, crying, and clapping during the film.

How was the movie? Much better than you think. Kadeer is a charismatic, intelligent, and effective leader whose people live under Chinese colonial rule, which the film makes abundantly clear. The history of both Kadeer and Xinjiang are powerfully and effectively portrayed, and yet at the same time, it manages to give you some idea of what Kadeer is like as a human being and not a figurehead. Technically the film is of high quality. It should be required viewing for all Taiwanese.

After the show Frank Hsieh came out to give a talk.

Hsieh works the crowd.

After the show a group of us celebrated the PRC's 60th by heading over to a Xinjiang restaurant (HJS), where we killed an entire production run of Taiwan beer. Listening to a Taiwanese woman there talk about how they had been taught to regard Xinjiang and Tibet as part of China, and how moving it was for her to listen to the story of East Turkestan (the name of Xinjiang before the PRC colonized it), I felt again: this is a film that everyone on the island should see.

You can also see how completely shameless the KMT's refusal to grant a visa to Kadeer was -- here is a regime which, as my good friend Michael Fahey noted, operated a blacklist against its own people, exiling so many, and which thus has a special obligation to political exiles everywhere. But at the same time, because Kadeer is so effective, it is easy to see why they wouldn't let her in.
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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's old Wu'er Kaixi? He's been pretty absent through all this.

Anonymous said...

You may want to check the history of East Turkestan. With the exception of a few years as a republic, it's been controlled by China in one form or another since the Tang Dynasty or controlled by the Mongols. It's pretty much never been an independent state (unlike Tibet).

Anonymous said...

Not sure if Hung is really hung, but I have seem him at work and...oh lord, what a screwball.

Michael Turton said...

Actually,Wu'er was in Taichung the other day talking to AmCham.

History of East Turkestan? Let's see -- controlled by Mongols or the Tang Dynasty, so therefore it should never be independent, and China has every right to march in, annex the place, and shoot everyone who disagrees with them.

Dixteel said...

wow, Mr. Yates is right on on this one!

Anonymous said...

Further, since the 1700s it was part of the Qing, then the ROC, briefly a republic, then the PRC. It's a pretty obvious succession of Chinese rule.

What do you think would happen if China gave independence tomorrow? The Russians would most probably march in. Independence is not at all realistic or historically accurate.

Aoede said...

Michael, the disagreeing-with-you Anon was saying that Xinjiang has been controlled by China since the Tang dynasty; i.e., China already had control of Xinjiang and therefore did not need to "march in" or "annex the place".

I don't know if that's correct, since I don't know much about Mainland history, but that's what was actually said :) I'll agree that if that's true, Tibet does have a better -- or rather, more understandable -- claim to independence, but that doesn't mean Xinjiang's claim is invalid.

Gerd said...

I take Greenland as an example for a country/region, which was never really independent, but is now granted more and more autonomy. This could be an nice model for Tibet and Xinjiang.

Anonymous said...

Kadeer said she want to sue Taiwan government.
Reality or just empty announcement?
No news about that since few days...

Michael Fahey said...

By that line of logic, India should also be part of China since it was ruled by the Mughals who were descended from the Timurid Mongols. Even during the Tang, China exercised control over only a small part of modern day Xinjiang. For the next 700 years, it had no control whatsoever over Xinjiang.

Michael Turton said...

Further, since the 1700s it was part of the Qing, then the ROC, briefly a republic, then the PRC. It's a pretty obvious succession of Chinese rule.

Yes, pretty obvious, except for the fact that the Qing weren't Chinese and that it was a republic.

Yes, and except for the mistress and baby, it's pretty obvious that John Edwards is monogamous.

BTW, the Uighurs one controlled an empire that stretched from East Turkestan over to Manchuria and over Mongolia into what is now China. Clearly they should control China.

Anonymous said...

The idea of "Chinese" was actually invented in response to the Qing as a means to delegitimize the Qing dynastic rule. Prior to the Qing, the concept of imperial territory was one bound by the ocean and the Great Wall. Still, prior to that it had always been changing.

Anonymous said...

Joe Hung is not the dumbest KMT ideologue... but he is one of the most dogmatic.

Anonymous said...

Who "should" control Xinjiang is largely irrelevant. The fact is that China does control it. With Han making up nearly half the population, it is doubtful that it would even vote for independence in a plebiscite.
Any break up of China would likely be very bloody, and would not necessarily improve things. The experiences of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union should teach us that. But Wilsonian idealism is still not dead..

123 said...

Any break up of China would likely be very bloody, and would not necessarily improve things. The experiences of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union should teach us that. But Wilsonian idealism is still not dead..---


look we have already Yougoslavian situation there. local population opose chinese colonisation and dont want to be cinized. chinese dosnt control East Turkestan. Only Chinese army does. it is a big difference when people do live together or when they are quarded by millitary everyhwere.. futher or later chinese will fail here. even it will make them bakrupt by wasting billiuons of own money for the ocupation or quarding of own colonies there.

and if you want differences with yougoslavia its only the friendly country wich will give them modern weapons. i think India or Kazakhstan can play there better role. oh and yeahh.. russians are liveing there already. some decades longer than chinese.