I went to a presentation on the Incarceration, Nationalism & Religious Identity in China. The first speaker was Dr. Timothy Grose, who is a professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. His main focus is on Chinese studies. He explained a moment during April of 2016, During an April 2016 speech, China’s General Secretary Xi Jinping made a speech that demanded that all of the religious groups merge their religious practices with Chinese culture, but it must abide by Chinese laws and regulations, and the people must devote themselves to China’s reform. Because of this, there were a lot of temples, churches, crucifixes, and mosques that were destroyed due to the merge of “religious freedom”. I believe that the merge contradicted what religious freedom really means because it doesn’t necessarily allow people to follow what they want to believe. He then went on to talk about Joseph Stalin’s four characteristics of a nationality which were Common territory, Common language, Common economic life, and Common psychological nature.
The second speaker was Dr. Elise Anderson, who is currently involved with the Uyghur Human Rights Project, which is regarding the destruction of Uyghurs mosques. Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group that makes up most of the Northeast part of China. She talked more about the oppression that was going on in the Xinjian Region like the Silencing of Religious Life and China’s campaign of repression.
The third speaker focused his studies on religion in the United States. It was regarding how many people’s religions in the U.S. view each other’s religion. There has been oppression, especially with Islamic citizens in the last 15 years. Overall, I really enjoyed these speakers as they created a nice bridge into what we have learned over our discussions regarding Chinese culture through religion and nationalism. These speakers created a nice closing to the Chinese topic, and I am looking forward to the second part of our class regarding India’s culture.
