Stories about the cruelty of the Mesopotamian monarch pale in comparison with Xi Jinping’s genocide of the Uyghurs.
by Kok Bayraq
In calling Xi Jinping a dictator, US president Joe Biden made the Chinese authorities quite uncomfortable. However, the title of dictator does not adequately express Xi Jinping’s true nature. To some extent, it even hides his brutality.
This point becomes clear when we compare Xi Jinping with Nimrod, one of the cruelest characters mentioned by the Abrahamic religions. In the Bible, Nimrod is described as a mighty and cruel Mesopotamian king. Extra-Biblical traditions made him the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel and mention a dispute about idolatry he had with Abraham. In medieval Jewish and Islamic sources, the story of Nimrod and his encounter with Abraham, which he tried unsuccessfully to burn alive, was greatly expanded. It is a story familiar to most Muslims.
Xi Jinping’s role in the Uyghur genocide far surpasses what Nimrod did against the prophet Abraham. According to Jewish and Islamic stories, when Nimrod wanted to show Abraham that he was a god who could kill and resurrect people, he took two people out of prison, killed one and released another. He sacrificed a criminal, not an innocent person walking down the street.
When Xi Jinping declared Islam a mental illness and waged war against God, he took thousands of scholars like Mamatsalih Damollam from mosques, intellectuals like Taspolat Tiyip from university classrooms, and ordinary citizens from the fields and shops in the bazaar and put them in concentration camps. People are held in these camps indefinitely without trial. In other words, a death sentence has been issued for the entire population, and the death process is ongoing slowly.
When Nimrod saw that his throne was in danger, reportedly he ordered the killing of male babies (as, according to the Bible, King Herod would later do). Xi Jinping believes that Uyghurs pose a threat to the country’s unity, and he defined Uyghurs born in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s as dangerous generations. He imprisoned them without discriminating between men and women, and they are now trapped and at risk of dying in the camps.
Nimrod at least did not kill unborn babies, but Xi Jinping has forcibly killed unborn Uyghurs by forced abortion. Nimrod never thought of destroying the sperm and eggs of its opponents, but Xi Jinping has done so with sterilization measures. No data exist on how many babies Nimrod killed. By contrast, China’s own population statistics show that Uyghur birth rates have sharply declined. In 2017 and 2018, about one million fewer Uyghurs were born.
Nimrod invited his rival, the prophet Abraham, to his palace, listened, and argued with him. Xi Jinping is unable to show patience and listen to the opinions of the Uyghurs. Instead, intellectuals such as Professor Ilham Tohti who try to bridge the gap between the Uyghurs and China, are sentenced to life imprisonment.
When Nimrod could not persuade Abraham to stop his anti-idolatry movement, he advised him to emigrate and allowed him to leave the country with his followers. However, when the Uyghurs insisted on their ethnic identity and refused Sinification, the situation escalated to the stage of genocide, Xi Jinping did not allow them to escape. He collected Uyghurs’ passports and brought refugees who fled to Cambodia, Thailand, and other countries back to China. He rounded up and imprisoned more than 5,000 students studying in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia.
Al-Azhar University student Habibullah Tohti is one of thousands of victims of China’s far reach. He was jailed for 10 years after returning to Urumqi. Under Xi Jinping’s direction in the Uyghur region, Chen Chuanguo ordered, “…For those who come back from abroad, we must find one, catch one. We must treat them as serious criminals and first handcuff them, and then put hoods over their heads.” Zulpiqar Ozbash and Tursunjan Bilgi, who studied in the United States; Bekri Abdurishit, who studied in Germany; and Abduhelil Abdurehim who studied in Japan, were among the victims of the order.
When Abraham destroyed idols in the temple, Nimrod punished Abraham only. He left his family members and followers untouched. However, Xi Jinping has imprisoned three million Uyghurs over violent incidents, such as the “March 1 Kunming Attack“ and the “May 22 Urumqi Morning Market Attack.” Leaked documents clearly state the grounds for Uyghurs’ arrests: “being from a family of which some members were punished,” “getting calls from suspicious people,” “having had dinner with a criminal in the past,” and “carrying a relative of a former criminal in his car.”
Xi Jinping’s proconsul Qiu Yuanyuan in the Xinjiang Party School defends mass detention as follows: “Our blow was very heavy in our hard strike campaign in the past three years. It is impossible for relatives and neighbors of those punished not to be offended. We had to ‘educate’ them as well to preserve the gains of our campaign.” Local officials have defended this unprecedented crackdown using terms such as “eradicating tumors” and “spraying crops to kill weeds.”
When Nimrod finally punished Abraham, he threw Abraham into the fire. Xi Jinping, as a basic measure of conducting his genocide, throws Uyghurs into concentration camps—the hell of the world—where they are tortured mentally and physically every moment of every day. While Abraham was in the fire, Allah miraculously saved him from being burned. Uyghurs have been burned and tortured in the camps for six years and endured indoctrination, forced confessions, and being forced to express loyalty to Xi Jinping while laboring for his gain. The camps are run by the rule that they “should teach like a school, be managed like the military, and be defended like a prison.”
Nimrod had not sought the support of external forces against Abraham. Even ants came to the rescue of Abraham with water in their mouths. While the Uyghurs were burning, Xi Jinping blocked any kind of independent investigation. He just orchestrated “Xinjiang Visits” to justify the camps. The visitors, including religious brothers of Uyghurs, such as “Islamic scholar” Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi and statesman Mahmoud Abbas supported China’s camp policy, saying it was a “fight against terrorism.” They poured gasoline on the fire that was burning in the camps instead of bringing water.
In order to put out this fire in the Uyghur region, the world must first have the wisdom, courage, and conscience to call a thief a thief, a dictator a dictator, and a murderer a murderer.
If you believe Nimrod is a historical figure, then Xi Jinping is the greatest tyrant in human history. If you think Nimrod is a mythical figure, then Xi Jinping is a bloodthirsty killer beyond any human literary imagination.