An Alternate Witness

Rabiye Kadeer, a nominee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, was imprisoned for more than 5 years in China on charges of providing state secrets to foreigners. Following her release she went into exile, where she worksto further human rights for the Uyghurs who live largely in the Xinjiang region (formerly known as East Turkistan) of the PRC. She is also one of the most prominent advocates for women's rights in China. Using her own resources, Rabiye Kadeer founded and then directed a large trading company in Northwestern China that provided training and employment for Uyghurs. She also founded the "Thousand Mothers' Movement" as a vehicle for the empowerment of Uyghur women in Xinjiang. Prior to her arrest in1999, while en route to a meeting with a visiting U.S. congressman, Rabiye Kadeer was a member of the top advisory body to China's parliament. She is the winner of the 2004 Rafto Prize, and the current director of both the Uyghur American Association and the Uyghur HumanRights Project.

I heard her speak at the University last night. My linguistic fascination with the Uyghur language and its relationship to Kurdish and Arabic aside, I found the talk very moving. She was poignant, funny, and passionate. I nearly cried as she talked about her children, now imprisoned by the Chinese, and her suspicion that they are being held in solitary confinement as she was for two years. And I was amazed by her strength in resuming her political efforts at such an international level after such trauma for trying to act in the past.

The whole experience made me want to learn Uyghur and move to East Turkistan and DO something about the human rights abuses there.

Last week on the bus, after I'd been speaking to a Korean student about why I am learning Arabic and that I hope to contribute to greater world peace and stability, and she asked me, Why didn't you learn Korean? And I had to say, Well, I had to choose a language. I can't learn them all.

It's so frustrating to be one little person in the face of all that is sour and wrong in the world. So frustrating to think that I can't fix everything, and that even when I try to fix some portion of it, by interpreting Arabic in the Middle East, chances are that I won't ever see the result of what I've done, for better or worse.