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July 28, 2008
Beware of Terrorism
First of all, apologies for the hiatus in my posting. Campaign work has been very busy, and I've recently decided to move to North Carolina to work on the Obama for America campaign, helping to convert a state that's been red in the last 22 years. You can expect my future posts to have lots of campaign related news and insights. I will of course keep to the spirit of the Watson Institute by only writing on topics that are pertinent to international affairs.
To jumpstart the blog, I want to focus on a piece of news that is very much under-publicized and under-emphasized and that is the potential for Islamic terrorism in the upcoming Beijing Olympics. It is ironic how little attention this topic has received considering every other imaginable story related to the Olympics has been dominating all headlines in the last month (air pollution, uniforms for the official welcoming committee, algae near the coast that may hamper the sailing competition) and will continue to do so. However, a recent video was released by an overtly terrorist group known as the Turkestan Islamic Party, which is closely affiliated with the whole independence movement of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In the video, the leader, Commander Seyfullah, claimed responsibility for the recent bombing attacks in Shanghai and Yunnan, celebrating the success of its jihads and boasting more violent activities during the Olympics. What is more disturbing is that this news has received very little coverage and reporting in mainstream western media. I first became aware of this on the Singaporean newspaper, ZaoBao, where its headline featured a screenshot of the video and hauntingly resembles previous videos released by bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists. But the story only received secondary attention from BBC, which has had a tradition of extensive and often critical coverage of China. The BBC article cursorily mentioned the content of the video and stated that the Chinese government has rebuked the videos claim that the bombings were acts of terrorism. The International Herald Tribune produced an equally hasty coverage of the news, which I had to search through its Asia-Pacific section to locate. While a similar video that targets western countries would immediately make headline in all major media outlets, this video targeting China has received minimal attention at best. It is predictable that the Chinese media would downplay the impact of such a video in order to ensure a stable and secure procession of the Olympics. But it is intriguing, if not insulting, that that western media would devote so little attention to something that they will normally jump head over heels on if the targeted country is different.
Many people hate China for different reasons and I can sympathize with the majority of those reasons. Many human rights activists, Tibet/Uyghur sympathizers, and maybe even unemployed workers in the Mid-West probably hope that the Beijing Olympics turn into a disaster. But whatever grievance you have against China, it is no excuse for perversely hoping for the suffering of innocent people at the hands of terrorism simply because you don't like their government. My reaction to this lack of attention on terrorism in Beijing maybe an overreaction and I certainly hope so. But so far, I have not seen due attention paid to terrorists threats against China, which are legitimate and palpable. China has a brutal government, especially regarding its policies on minority issues, but, like I said, no innocent Chinese people deserve suffering because of their government's imperial policy, just like how no one out of the 3,000 plus who died on 9/11 deserve their fate because of THEIR government's imperial policy in the Middle East.
If the War on Terror is truly global, then we need not only a global attack strategy but a global commitment to protecting citizens around the world. The next bulls-eye is clearly China, and we must watch the terrorists there closely.
Posted by Kevin Xu at July 28, 2008 10:14 PM
Comments
I remember one day after the earthquake in May, a stranger came to me and said that the earthquake is a punishment to China from God for its invasion of Tibet. I had a poster photo of young students buried under debris in my hand at that time. I don't think he is a typical American as more people sincerely sympathized on the sufferings of victims during the earthquake. But it represented a kind of mentality among some people in the West. Distance leads to dehumanization and apathy in a few.
This time, the coverage of terrorism threat in Olympics is minimal in the West (I didn’t hear about it at all until reading your article…) I still hesitate to conclude that the Western media are viewing the competitor’s enemies as friends, but from a humanitarian point of view, it is indeed not justified. On the other hand, each country should be primarily responsible for its own national security so the Chinese government’s downplay of these messages also ought to be blamed.
I hope the day of international collaboration to protect innocent citizens around the world will really come. Do you have a vision how this could gradually happen? Anything may trigger the change?
Anne
Posted by: Anne Feng at August 2, 2008 10:15 AM