{"id":595,"date":"2013-07-01T06:26:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T04:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/?p=595"},"modified":"2015-04-28T22:28:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T20:28:42","slug":"disney-disaster-and-what-would-nasreddin-ependi-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/?p=595","title":{"rendered":"Disney, disaster \u2013 and what would Nasreddin ependi say?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the bloody incident near Turpan a few days ago things have escalated. The death toll has risen, and other violence has been reported from Hotan (\u548c\u7530). The response from the authorities have been to show strength, most obviously by arranging ”pledge meetings to fight terrorism and keep stability”<\/a> (\u53cd\u6050\u7ef4\u7a33\u8a93\u5e08\u5927\u4f1a) of the People’s Armed Police force (\u4eba\u6c11\u6b66\u88c5\u8b66\u5bdf\u90e8\u961f) in Urumqi, Kashgar, Ghulja (\u56fa\u52d2\u624e, also known as\u00a0Ili \u4f0a\u7281 or Yining \u4f0a\u5b81), Hotan and Aksu (video here<\/a>). These forces now also patrol Urumqi and other cities. Some reports also tell of disturbances in Internet traffic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\""Pledge<\/a>
”Pledge meeting” in Urumqi. It is notable that many vehicles are European Ivecos or American Fords. How does that go along with the arms embargo?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yu Zhengsheng<\/a> (\u4fde\u6b63\u58f0) came to Urumqi 29 June to hold a ”meeting for party and state cadres”<\/a> of the whole region (\u5168\u533a\u515a\u653f\u5e72\u90e8\u5927\u4f1a), transmitting directives from Xi Jinping and the special meeting held by the politbureau standing committee in Beijing the day before. Meng Jianzhu (\u5b5f\u5efa\u67f1), secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission (\u4e2d\u592e\u653f\u6cd5\u59d4\u5458\u4f1a) arrived in Urumqi to speak at the ”pledge meeting”, and the MInister of Public Security, Guo Shengkun (\u90ed\u58f0\u7428) also took part.<\/p>\n

Besides this not so subtle show of force and determination, other simultaneous events provide unintentional (?) irony to the whole situation. On 29 June Urumqi was also the place for the 10th International Symposium on Disaster History<\/a> (\u7b2c\u5341\u5c4a\u4e2d\u56fd\u707e\u5bb3\u53f2\u56fd\u9645\u5b66\u672f\u4f1a\u8bae), with the theme ”Disaster and Frontier Society” (\u707e\u5bb3\u4e0e\u8fb9\u7586\u793e\u4f1a). The symposium apparently mostly dealt with natural disasters as floods, earthquakes and draughts, but it is impossible not to think of political and social disasters, killings and ”the 5 July incident” (\u4e03\u4e94\u4e8b\u4ef6) 2009.<\/p>\n

To further add to the confusion a top news item on the Kashgar Prefecture government website these days is the upcoming completion at the end of 2013 of the ”Disney of Xinjiang”<\/a> (\u65b0\u7586\u8fea\u65af\u5c3c) in Shufu county (\u758f\u9644\u53bf\u00a0Kona Sheher, meaning ”old city”), Kashgar, namely the Ependi Amusement Park (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0\u4e50\u56ed). With a total investment of 200 million yuan (c. 25 million Euro) this theme park will hold an ”Ependi grand bazaar” (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0\u5927\u5df4\u624e), a culture square (\u6587\u5316\u5e7f\u573a), ”Ependi ethnic village” (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0\u6c11\u4fd7\u6751), a great Ependi sculpture (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0\u5927\u578b\u96d5\u5851), reliefs (\u6d6e\u96d5), a culture wall (\u6587\u5316\u5899) and ”Adil dawaz<\/em> performance centre” (\u963f\u8fea\u529b\u8fbe\u74e6\u5b5c\u6f14\u827a\u4e2d\u5fc3). Adil Hoshur<\/a> (\u963f\u8fea\u529b\u00b7\u543e\u4f11\u5c14, b. 1971) is a world renowned tightrope walker. Basically more ”singing and dancing”<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Image of Ependi from the 1980 film<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But who was Nasreddin ependi? He might have been a Seljuq sufi from Konya<\/a> in present-day Turkey, living in the 13th century. He might also just be made up. There are thousands of stories about him, sometimes with him as a witty or wise man, sometimes as a fool. Nasreddin is claimed by many Turkic peoples, and among Uyghurs he is known mostly by his courtesy title, Ependi (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0). In the 1980s an very popular animated film was made in China, titled ”The Story of Ependi” (\u963f\u51e1\u63d0\u7684\u6545\u4e8b)<\/a>. Despite being appropriated and modulated into an ethnic sterotype, and despite\u00a0calls to make him a ”image ambassador”<\/a> (\u5f62\u8c61\u5927\u4f7f) for Xinjiang, Ependi’s wit is of the kind that could function as a safety valve and also bring hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the bloody incident near Turpan a few days ago things have escalated. The death toll has risen, and other violence has been reported from Hotan (\u548c\u7530). The response from the authorities have been to show strength, most obviously by arranging ”pledge meetings to fight terrorism and keep stability” (\u53cd\u6050\u7ef4\u7a33\u8a93\u5e08\u5927\u4f1a) of the People’s Armed Police … <\/p>\n

Forts\u00e4tt l\u00e4sa \u201dDisney, disaster \u2013 and what would Nasreddin ependi say?\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-xj"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2crM2-9B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boke.fallmankonsult.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}