Boys aged 5–11 should repeat on camera: “My dream is to be a member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”
by Gulfiye Y
According to research, there were just short of 900,000 Uyghur Children in Chinese boarding schools in 2019, separated from family and community support. The schools and dorms are an important part of the cultural genocide perpetrated through the indoctrination of Uyghur children. This is criminal. The minors are isolated and under the absolute control and influence of unrelated and “foreign” persons. Under any circumstance other than government involvement, this would be deemed “radicalization” or “extremism.”
Special thanks to camp survivor Zumrat Dawut who found the video clips for this article labeled video 1, video 2, video 3, and video 4. All four videos are in Chinese and captioned in English.
Videos:
We see an 11-year-old Uyghur boy, grade 6, in front of photos of Mao and Liu Shaoqi with “I Love You China” music playing in the background. With coaxing by the Chinese teacher, the Uyghur boy recites in Chinese:
- “I want to be a member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army”
- “Because men should defend the motherland”
- “I am a man”
- “I want to defend my motherland”
- “I love my motherland”
Video:
In video 3, a Chinese man prompts Uyghur boys aged 5-11:
- What is your dream?
- What kind of people are in the People’s Liberation Army?
- What does the People’s Liberation Army do?
- Aren’t you afraid of sacrifice yourself?
- But do you know what sacrifice is?
- But have you thought about it as you want to be a border warrior? When needed to protect the borders of our motherland, will you charge forward bravely?
The responses seem very satisfactory and acceptable to the adult questioner:
- “My dream is to be a member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army”
- “Because men should defend the motherland”
- “I am a man”
- “I want to defend my motherland”
- “I will go forward bravely”
- “Not afraid of sacrifice”
- “I love my motherland”
- “The People’s Liberation Army is composed by very brave men who love the motherland very much and are not afraid to sacrifice their own life”
In video 1, a Uyghur boy is asked what sacrifice is. He answers with an example: “He gave his own life to defend his country because every moment I… I… I always know that I am a Chinese.”
These videos were posted by Cao Gangqi: “@Cao Gangqi in Xinjiang,” and titled: “The Children of Xinjiang, Lovely Babies! #Education #My Village Life #The Big World in the Eyes of Children #Ten Thousand Say Xinjiang #Passing on Positive Energy.”
- In these videos it seems obvious that the Uyghur boys are compelled to give pre-arranged responses.
- The Chinese man speaks with authority, encouragement, enthusiasm, with leading prompts and questions.
- The person who posted the videos, Cao Gangqi, calls Uyghur children “little friends,” not by their name.
- Boys are obedient and respond by rote. Some fidget with their hands and display strained smiles.
- This authoritarian-voiced Chinese man is implanting the idea of “self-sacrifice” as an appropriate response to whatever the People’s Liberation Army or the CCP would ask the Uyghur boys to do.
The Uyghur boys recite by rote their wish to “defend the motherland.” By “rote” I mean a mechanical or unthinking routine or repetition by memory and usually with little thought. The 5-year-old even receives a toy for his participation.
Uyghur parents are witnessing the indoctrination of their children by the CCP, and the remolding of their daughters and son to be like Chinese-speaking Han and “fight for the motherland.” This is part of Chinese authorities’ efforts to mold minority children into speaking and acting like they were Han. It is an effort at “fusion” to make everyone Chinese and see themselves as Chinese with a single cultural background. The “fusion” policy destroys the foundations of life, language, religion, and inter-generational cultural transmission, resolving the “ethnic problem” through the social death of the Uyghurs. It is the Uyghur Genocide.
Uyghur children are forcibly alienated until they will possibly turn on their parents, their culture, and their faith. There have been several reports of the few times where these children have been reunited with their families. The children are fearful, withdrawn, and afraid to speak in Uyghur.
Given time, the demonization tactics against their parents and culture by the strategists of alienation may turn the children’s hearts and minds. They may result in an emotional rejection and possible hatred of their Uyghur identity, based on an injected belief that their now alienated parents (and culture) are dangerous and unworthy, even barbaric and an embarrassment to them.
These children have been separated from their families, and are isolated and under the total care, control and influence of Han Chinese “guardians” within orphanages and boarding schools weaponized for indoctrination, assimilation and Sinicization—and as these videos seem to show, you can add militarization to the list.
Of some concern is Xi Jinping’s recent call for the strengthening of “military training oriented toward actual combat” in defense of Beijing’s “territorial sovereignty and maritime interests” and the protection of “overall peripheral stability.” The PLA has historically been a military force based on conscripts from the countryside. The Uyghur youth constitutes a large source of potential conscripts and, as the videos imply, a significant source of enthusiastic “volunteers.”
The children in this environment are the most vulnerable victims of this so-called “war on terror” by a government that is in fact conducting a “war” against their culture, religion, and ethnicity. In other words—a war against them. In such a combat, the children could be viewed as spoils of war, and taken from their families and communities. The children are often treated as possessions, and their well-being is not a priority.
The physical and psychological immaturity of children renders them vulnerable and more likely to make significant decisions without due regard to the risks. They lack the life experiences to make any substantial decision. It is not even debatable. It is criminal to glamorize military obligations and honor to a child, and omit the risks and real life consequences. And what honor is there in the coercion and enticement of a minor isolated from any and all familial guidance and support? Is this “in the best interest of the child”? The answer is no.
There is a reason why the international community frowns on military service before 18 years, while totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany militarized the children since their pre-school years.
Maisumujiang Maimuer, a Chinese religious affairs official, wrote on August 10, 2017, on a Xinhua Weibo page, referring to the Uyghurs: “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins. Completely shovel up the roots of ‘two-faced people,’ dig them out, and vow to fight these two-faced people until the end.”
The Uyghur children are given Chinese names, should only speak the “national language,” Mandarin, and of course are taught to defend the “motherland” and be willing to “sacrifice” themselves for her. They are constantly singing the praises of the Communist Party and of Xi Jinping in particular. Bertrand Russell quoted in his book “The Impact of Science on Society” (1952) these words of German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who died in 1814, finding them both prophetic and frightening: “Education should aim at destroying free will so that pupils thus schooled, will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished… Influences of the home are obstructive; and in order to condition students, verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective… When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
A school system whose intent is to alienate the “students” from their families and culture; to remove from them any independent and critical thought; to impose total allegiance to a state that is “at war” with them; to induce unconditional worship of a political organization and its leader—will justifiably evoke fear and alarm from the subject community. It implies a real possibility that children would be turned against their own community in the ongoing “war on terror,” not to mention the real psychological harm done to them.
