BLOOD AND FEAR ON HAPPINESS STREET AS CHINA THREATENS TO OBLITERATE ANOTHER ANCIENT CULTURE
Originally published by: Daily Mail / Last updated on 06th December 2009
By Peter Hitchens In Kashgar, China
In the eye of the storm: Peter Hitchens outside the Id Kah Mosque in the centre of Kashgar
The streets of Old Kashgar were running with blood on the day I arrived, with slaughter on every street corner.I am relieved to say that on this occasion the blood was from the throats of hundreds of sheep being ritually slaughtered – the highlight of the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha as celebrated in this lovely old oasis on the Silk Road, which was already ancient when Marco Polo passed this way in the 13th Century.
But in this tense, racially divided and unhappy part of China’s hard-faced and increasingly muscular empire, human blood sometimes flows on these streets as well. And it may do so again, Heaven forbid.
We do not really know how much killing there has been. Modern China has liberated money and trade, but not information. Locals talk in low voices about anything remotely political.
This, however, is certain: last year, just before the Olympics, two Kashgar Muslims drove a truck into a group of jogging Chinese paramilitary troops, then attacked them with knives and home-made grenades, killing 17.