**CURING A DISEASE OR KILLING THE PATIENT? **
China has detained upwards of a million Muslim minorities in extrajudicial re-education camps in the far Western region of Xinjiang. Inside these camps Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are subjected to coercive political indoctrination in order to “cleanse” Xinjiang of the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and shore up Chinese Communist Party control over this restive borderland where the dominant Han ethnic group still comprise a demographic minority.
This talk will explore the perverse pathology of these mass internment camps, seeking to place them in the broader context of ideological remoulding efforts in the People’s Republic of China.
In China today, the Uyghurs and other Muslims are naturalized as abnormal, sick and dangerous, thus requiring invasive “cultural surgery” to cure their “disease.” Yet, this radical treatment has serious and dangerous implications for Chinese society under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
