There's some excellent reporting from Nectar Gan at the South China Morning Post about the struggle of the Hui community of Weizhou-- located in Tongxin County in rural Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region-- to prevent the local government from demolishing the brand new Grand Mosque in the community. If you've not read it, I encourage you to check it out, here. According to the report, the local government claims that the mosque lacked the proper permits. The subtext here is fairly clear: the CCP is concerned about a shift towards Middle East-influenced Isalm in Hui communities. In a predominantly-Hui community, a mosque of this size (built to accommodate the entire community for Friday prayer), buit in an "Arabicized" style ran afoul of the current campaign to "Sinicize" religion. Other mosques have been targeted for their "Arabicized" design-- even to the point of removing domes or recommissioning several mosques to be built in a "Chinese" style. (Sidenote: I've been working on a blogpost about what exactly this means, and will publish it in the near future, I promise). The Weizhou Grand Mosque (pictures of which are featured in Nectar Gan's article, and renderings of which are shown in the images below) is the latest example of a wider campaign to bring religion-- paritcularly Islam-- into alignment with "Chinese" traditions, and the CCP's overarching goals.
Some perspective: I did fieldwork observations in Weizhou. The construction of the Grand Mosque was something that I was able to witness first hand. When I visited the community in February of 2016, the Grand Mosque was still under construction. The young woman who served as my tour guide through the community took me to the site, making sure to show me the construction that was underway. In those days, the mosque was in the very early stages of being built. The photograph below attests to that. When I saw it, the mosque was nothing more than some concrete framing, and some very ambitious designs. The domes of the mosque, its minarets, the square in front of it-- none of that was even in the skeletal stage of construction at that point. And yet, even in those early phases, the people I spoke to in Weizhou were extraordinarily proud of the mosque. It would be a single space for all of the community to join together in worship for the Zhuma (主麻) prayers on Friday afternoons. Even then, the mosque was the pride of the community. It would unite the entire township, and would allow for community worship in a centralized space. It is hard to imagine, as the local government claims, that this building proceeded in spite of lack of proper authorization. In fact, the people I spoke to in Weizhou described the building as one that would have community support. They delighted in the idea that their community mosque would be the largest in all of Ningxia-- no small feat, given the fact that Hui comprise nearly 35% of the province's population.
Weizhou is located in the heart of Tongxin County, just south of the provincial capital city of Yinchuan. To get from Yinchuan to Weizhou takes about three hours on the highway. However, in some respects it feels like an entirely different world. Yinchuan is a fast-growing urban space. In the past twenty years, the size of the city grew immensely as migrants from East China, Sichuan, and neighboring Gansu and Qinghai streamed into the city. Like many provincial capitals, it's a third tier city, growing into rapid economic development. Yinchuan bustles with new shopping malls selling designer clothes, western chain restaurants, and IMAX theatres. In recent years, Yinchuan has been the spearhead of the Sino-Arab relationship. As a showcase community, Yinchuan has played up its Islamic heritage, while pressing forward with its development to present a modern, forward-thinking community through which China may establish links with the Arab/Islamic world.
Weizhou, however, presents a different picture. Numerous respondents in Yinchuan complained that the city was losing touch with its Islamic heritage. Due to the influx of migrants from all corners of China, and the incompatibility of urban spaces with traditional practices developed in rural settings, many recent arrivals in Yinchuan told me that they found the city's Hui residents to be very danhua (淡化, secularized). In stark contrast, Weizhou is something like 95% Muslim. There were no fewer than 12 mosques there in February 2016. A typical scene in Weizhou looks like this, minarets dominating the skyline, a mosque in nearly every neighborhood in town, all of them built in the “middle eastern” style:
It is the kind of community that Muslims in Yinchuan would point to when I asked why they felt Yinchuan had lost touch with its Islamic roots. In a town like Weizhou, residents more frequently don Islamic dress. While en route to Weizhou from Yinchuan, many of the members of the family who were driving me to the community (themselves now residents of Yinchuan), put on head coverings that they would never wear in the city. Indeed, the community's Islamic roots run deep. On the first afternoon of my visit, a young woman who was a family friend of the contact who'd brought me to Weizhou was leading us on a tour of the town. We came upon a small lake in the community, and one of our party-- a non-Muslim, Han gentleman from Yinchuan-- remarked that this would be a perfect place to open up a barbecue stand. He imagined making a fortune grilling lamb kebabs and selling baijiu and beer by the lake on summer nights. The woman leading us around dismissed the idea out of hand. Selling alcohol would never work in this community, she insisted. "There was a Han family who tried to open up a bar here a while ago," she told me. "They didn't stay in business very long."
In many senses, Weizhou is exemplary of the success of religion since its rehabilitation after the beginning of the era of Reform and Opening that followed the Cultural Revolution. In the past few decades, citizens of the community have gotten back in touch with their Islamic roots. Several madrassas in the community taught young men to read and interpret the Qur'an, and morning prayers attracted large crowds even though the pre-sunrise temperatures dipped down to as low as a bone-chilling, -17 degrees Celsius. One private, Islamic school in the town provided education for impoverished young women in the community. These girls not only learned basic school subjects, but also studied Arabic, and the Quran. The town was in the midst of a religious revival. Residents who I spoke with in the town were unequivocal about the good that religious revival has done for the community. In the 1990s heroin abuse blighted the community. To this day, walls in the community are plastered with anti-drug slogans. The contact who accompanied me to Weizhou told me that during the height of the crisis, addiction was zapping the life and strength from the community. However, deliverance came in the form of economic development programming, and renewed support for Islamic. Residents told me stories about how Islamic charity and community organizations helped the community overcome the crisis. Now, instead of being poor and backward, and beset by addiction to heroin, the community was flourishing-- its faith renewed. Pointing to the houses in the community, which were nice, large estates, one respondent remarked to me: "Look at those houses. 20 years ago this community had a serious drug-addiction problem. And now look how people live! You couldn't have a house like this in Yinchuan." Commenting further, my friend claimed that while people living in Weizhou had become more prosperous, they did not envy the rapid growth of city like Yinchuan. Having survived an onslaught of drug addiction and poverty, the citizenry of Weizhou were happy in modest prosperity and faith. As my friend put it : "People here have simple lives. There aren't any hi-rise buildings here. But the locals are really quite prosperous. Life here is good."
When I talked to people in the community, they beamed with pride at the construction of the central Grand Mosque. For them, it was the perfect example of the way that Islamic communities could work hand in glove with the state. They had emerged from crippling poverty and a heroin epidemic to stabilize their economy, engage in commerce and agriculture, and gain a modest degree of prosperity. In the midst of their economic development, they had re-engaged with their Islamic faith. These two developments had turned the community into a model of Chinese Islam. While participating in the economic boom that was sweeping across the country, they were also reviving traditional religious practices. Weizhou had developed both its economy and its faith, and was thriving.
For this reason, the state's drive to demolish the Grand Mosque feels like a risk. Weizhou embodies all the narrative the CCP wishes to promote about the Rise of China. The township had overcome obstacles, but had risen out of poverty and backwardness. It was emblematic of the success of the party-state's efforts to bring the fruits of development to the peripheral regions of the country. Moreover, it showcased how tolerance could foster positive relations between religious communities and the state. Far from seeking to break away from China, the citizens of Weizhou embraced their membership in the Chinese state. They took pride in being a part of the narrative of China's economic revival, and saw themselves as an exemplary community of religiously observant Chinese Muslims.
Which is why the plan to demolish the Grand Mosque feels so ill advised. The mosque is a symbol of everything Weizhou has achieved over the last 20-30 years. It is a source of pride in a newly prosperous community. It is the fruit of a longterm trend away from poverty and obscurity. It is an expression of the revitalization of a countryside that until recently had been written off entirely. Further, it is a symbol of what can occur if the the party-state takes a tolerant stance toward ethnic and religious minority communities. If the party-state regime persists in antagonizing people like those in Weizhou, it risks isolating those who think of themselves as BOTH Chinese patriots and loyal Muslims. It's a group it can’t afford to lose.