Reflections on 'Xinjiang Dance' in Wuhan

I saw this tweet on my feed earlier and it got me thinking. I've read about the 'Xinjiang dance' story on Weibo - a doctor from Xinjiang leading 'ethnic dance' to cheer patients up in a Wuhan quarantine camp made social media headlines yesterday - and personally did not see any problem with it until I saw the tweet, which I guess is more of a natural response from an society already sensitive to these stuff than, say, Chinese social media circles. I'm now convinced that the mainstream framing of that 'Xinjiang Dance' story is indeed very problematic, and will sketch down my thoughts here in case I later forget.

I assume that you're familiar with the news story in question. A reasonable objection to the kind of critique raised by that tweet, something I'd totally find convincing had I not been so convinced otherwise, is this:

'Stop bringing that 白左 BS to a precious moment of relief after weeks of unimaginable suffering... can we stop being cynical for just a moment and admit that the person from Xinjiang is likely to welcome this moment of heartfelt solidarity, or indeed for pure medical reasons as a professional? Even if some discomfort were caused, the benefit would easily outweigh the cost given the situation at hand, and even if the story were as the tweet claims 'problematic,' surely the innocent enough patients did not have the leisure nor the moral duty to reflect on cultural stereotyping when it's a life and death situation?'

I very much agree with the last point. I'm not blaming the patients nor the medical people involved - I totally would under normal circumstances (after blaming the state ofc), but this surely isn't one. I'm happy that they are getting some much needed (albeit meager) solace out of this, and I don't think reflecting on 'cultural stereotyping,' or whatever that was, is in any way a priority even for those who have some leisure to reflect - e.g. people not heavily affected by the epidemic but nevertheless emotionally invested. The most urgent business (besides private remedy) is, as always, to hold the state power accountable. I can totally imagine it being a relatively cheerful moment for all parties involved - though I'm sceptical that it was really the case.

Despite all these, you truly have to wonder, given how the state have been treating Xinjiang people (ethnic Uyghurs in particular but also others) in the past few years, if the feelings of a single individual can really be outweighed by some prima facie collective mental benefits, which have since spilt over from the quarantine camp and become a source of strength and relief for many on social media, as well as being conveniently picked up by official narrative and made a propaganda story out of. Isn't this precisely the kind of '民族团结' story we need to be wary of? Try this article from Xinhua, which calls medical professionals from Xinjiang '能歌善舞米其林.'

As for why exactly it is wrong to ask someone to teach you their traditional dance moves upon learning their ethnic origins, the tweet in question has made it pretty clear. Stereotyping and power dynamics - how ethnic minorities (not just those in Xinjiang) have always been reduced to mere cultural symbols and used in all situations politically expedient, while being treated non-discriminatorily as potential terrorist. Can you imagine leading that dance for an overwhelmingly Han audience, while being supervised by Han officials, all the time remembering how your people are being treated back home by an oppressive Han chauvinist state? I'm not saying that this is exactly what went through the mind of the kind medical personnel in the story, but it very well could. Interestingly enough, the doctor is Kazakh, yet news stories like the Xinhua article didn't bother to make that distinction. The transition from saying he is Kazakh to leading Xinjiang dance were so smooth, it's almost like a particular Kazakh ethnic identity never existed - everything in Xinjiang is one and the same, and that's the way things should be. This isn't just a mere lack of sophistication, it's cultural ethnic cleansing.

With all due respect to the truly commendable effort and sacrifice (we really need to take back these words of praise from the propaganda organ) of the medical professionals, we can and should still ask: did they get to choose whether to go to Wuhan? Similarly: did that person get to choose whether to lead 'Xinjiang dance' for the patients? If you think it's just SJWs being snowflakes, I'm not here to persuade you. I'm simply wondering if the moment was really worth celebrating. If you think the ultimate cause to all these unnecessary suffering is a fundamentally inhumane political system, you probably won't want to buy into a story instrumental to that exact governing logic.

We can take a step further back. It's pretty clear that Wuhan is a humanitarian disaster, but haven't we been living in a constant state of humanitarian disaster since, say, 2013, not least because of Xinjiang? Even if quite a few people cared, we (and by 'we' I mean Chinese 'liberals') clearly didn't care enough to call it our humanitarian disaster – it was someone else's problem, like Ebola or the Australian wildfire. The sentiment right now is that we are all living through this epidemic, a sentiment shared not just by mainlanders but overseas Chinese as well. But I'm not sure at all - excuse my cynicism - if people would care nearly as much had the coronavirus been contained at its early stage within Hubei, and the rest of us could resumed our lives post-spring-festival as usual. But people don’t have the time for counterfactuals.

Realists hate this attitude: 'You're being too dramatic - inflating the language and making an unnecessary fuss out it. Situations are admittedly terrible but we gotta work with what we've got, and whining about the mere unpleasantry of THE SIGHT OF a disaster is not helping anyone and potentially damaging ______(insert moderate goals of 'political progress' here).'

My inner realist tells me that these are all true. But what if - what if we're not making nearly enough a fuss out of Wuhan? I know people are absolutely outraged, but at whom? What if we were simply ignoring the blatantly obvious and cowering away from mass sufferings long before this? What if Wuhan is the inevitable development of something already abnormal, magnification of something already excruciating, dramatisation of something already absurd - something we used to call 'normal life?' What if reform has always been an illusion and the thing we really should be doing, besides alleviating the most immediate pain (basically what NGO people are doing), is something far more radical than we are comfortable to admit?

I'm by no means dismissing the pain of those affected by the epidemic and the horrendous situation they are facing. You don't compare and rank pain, unless you are a literal utilitarian saint. Nor am I saying that anyone deserves this, no matter their previous political beliefs. What I'm trying to say is that, if you have reasons to think that Wuhan (as the symbolic epicentre of all the ongoing sufferings) is horrifying and unacceptable, then our 'ordinary' life pre-coronavirus were horrifying and unacceptable as well.

People on Weibo are deviating from the conventional interpretation of this story. One (I'm not citing this) suggests that as the Han majority is witnessing Uyghurs helping them out at this critical moment, we should (not would) support their causes as well - alleviating their oppression or something to that effect. I have not, however, seen much direct questioning on the framing of it as a moment of 'ethnic bonding,' at the very least as something worth celebrating. I genuinely think it's fine for those people on site to enjoy the moment (feel free to appropriate any culture during the apocalypse, you're welcome), but don't they need far better and far more professional mental and physical support? Is 'Xinjiang dance' the best support they can get right now?

Have we totally forgotten about what's happened in Xinjiang and what it means for individuals living there? Do we really believe that everyone is now 'freed' with no lasting effects at all? We're already forgetting about Xinjiang - how are we supposed to remember Wuhan afterwards? Through the metaphysical bonding between Han Chinese?

The purpose of this article is not to blame but to lament. It's a really fucking regrettable state of affairs we're living through, and we could perhaps use some more reflections. I used a lot of 'we' but I'm really just representing (and reprimanding) myself.